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Grace, mercy, and peace be upon you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text for this morning is the Gospel reading. You may be seated. Truly I have the best job of all of you, and it is you who have given me the privilege to do it, for you have called me to proclaim to you the good news of Jesus. That is the best job in the world. It is the only one that has any meaning in the midst of a life that is always changing and where nothing else matters or lasts in this world except that message of Jesus.
But in preaching and proclaiming that message of Jesus, I have to confess to you, as I know you would confess to me, we don’t understand the mystery of his word, right? We hear in the text his word is authoritative, his word is powerful, but we struggle with the mystery of how it manifests itself. Manifests meaning epiphanies itself. We can scratch our head and have, as you reflect on your life, at various points and stages where we’re thinking… Where’s the evidence of you working mightily in my life because I’m still struggling with the same darn thing? Where is this miraculous turnaround of which you speak, Lord, and of which we read in the text where one moment a man is possessed by an unclean spirit and the next moment he’s in his right mind and at peace? Where’s that in my life, Lord? Where’s the evidence?
We also ask that about people we love. Where is it in their life? Why do I not see the change in their life? Why do I not see the reversal of things in a very quick and rapid way, just as you portrayed it, Lord Jesus? Where’s the evidence? We ask it about our church. Where’s the evidence, Lord? Why aren’t we seeing the things that you’ve promised, Lord? Why do we not see the evidence of it in our preschool and in our day school and in our church family and in our committees? Why do we not see the evidence, Lord?
For you epiphany to the world in that text and in that instance that one moment the man was possessed by an unclean spirit and the next he’s in his right mind. One moment Peter’s mother-in-law is sick and ill and the next moment she’s well. One moment, all of these people are brought to you, Lord, the text says. And you heal and touch every single one of them who have been brought to you. And their lives are remarkably changed in a moment.
Reread the text very carefully. It was at the beginning of the text that it gave us the epiphany. The obvious epiphany are those quick turnarounds. The unobvious epiphany… It says, You see, that is something you know. You have heard God’s word, and it has literally split you, and you are revealed to you what you really are on the inside. We polish and polish and polish the outward, and then God’s word comes and opens us up, and all we do is see and smell rottenness.
And then you know and have reflected upon how it is God’s same word that proclaimed to you binds you back up, does not polish you, binds you back up and wraps you up with his love and mercy and heals you internally. And you know it. You have tasted and seen that he’s good. The problem, the problem I struggle with and that you struggle with is that we don’t come to that realization or epiphany until after we have gone through the valley of the shadow of death, do we? We don’t come to this epiphany of God’s mercy and grace and his great love and compassion until after we have been driven to our knees, until after we have been pulled apart, until after we have seen what we are and who we are, and don’t like it.
Until after we have experienced these things, does God then, by His Holy Spirit, show us, wow, His Word is powerful and authoritative in my life. Because it’s all by faith, isn’t it? It’s not by sight. It’s by faith. It is faith that made those people be astonished at His Word having authority.
And yet we see God’s Word epiphanied in the healing of these people and we scratch our head and we think, should that not happen, though, in my life, in my loved one’s life, in the family’s life, in this church’s life, in our school and preschool? If it did, where’s the faith? We would not be talking about faith. We would be talking a business paradigm, wouldn’t we? Because businesses are all about facts, realities, not faith.
Faith. But we’re talking about faith here, and so is God, our Heavenly Father. He is not talking about a business paradigm. Most of the time, the vast majority of the time, God does not, does not reveal such mighty power and authority in such a manifest way as that. And you know that. You can look back on your life. You can see the times when it did happen, very rapidly after a prayer, very immediate, and yet you know most of the time God revealed it in a quiet and very subdued manner that left you very aware of his power and authority, and yet the flesh being the flesh, craving for more visible representation and visible proof.
Have you ever wondered about Peter’s mother-in-law? She was healed of her illness, it said. Here’s a question. Do you think she ever got sick again after that moment? Oh yeah. Do you think she wondered while she was sick, why doesn’t God heal me in as rapid a fashion as he did when Jesus did it? Oh, you bet she did. And so you wonder about why you wonder that thing? You’re just like Peter’s mother-in-law. You and I have seen the rapid and quick epiphany of God’s power and might, but for the most part, and you know this and I know this, but we’ve got to be reminded of it because our flesh craves instant gratification.
And God is reminding us it’s about a marathon of faith, trusting in those powerful words that God alone brings to pass. And it’s only done through struggles, right? Not through giving it without any work or effort, meaning without any struggle on our part, but through struggle. And in the struggle, do we get revealed to us by God’s word what we are? And after the struggle, are we able to reflect and say, wow. And then just as we think we’re getting our hands wrapped around that reality, time for our faith to rely on his word again and not on our flesh.
Time for our faith to trust in that authority and powerful word of his and not in our abilities or our health or our job or our place in life. You know, isn’t it interesting? It’s the demons that proclaim to us who Jesus is clearly in this text. It’s not Jesus. It’s the demons. But what the demons proclaimed is the truth about God that either is believed or not. Just as when Jesus proclaims to you words here, it is either believed or not. And in fact, it’s in spite of any result or any kind of evidence you can see in your life or your loved one’s life that Jesus says, do you still trust me?
What other option do you and I have except letting go of our Father who alone called us to be his children? None. None. You know this. You have been taught this. You have eaten and drank this since you were young. But isn’t it funny how we go through these cycles? We are such chemically driven people. And it’s God’s word that works its power and might in us without visible manifestations and great epiphanies which we crave because we are addicted to them like an alcoholic is to alcohol or like a proud person is to praise.
The demons called him the Holy One of God, the Son of God, the Anointed One, the Messiah, the Christ. That’s who speaks to you today, here. You have given me the greatest job in the world. I have the greatest job in the world. So why aren’t more men craving for this job of which I have been given? You know the answer and I know the answer. And it’s not in the evidence, is it? It’s in the promise. It’s in the promise. Believe and be comforted by that promise spoken to you by that Lord Jesus who has manifested himself to you throughout your life.
Go back to that promise and not to evidence that you can see, taste, touch or feel. Only here, these things do you see, taste, touch and feel because of the promise. In the name of Jesus. Amen. The peace of God which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
