Real Seekers and False Seekers
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Mark 1:29-39
It is hard to overestimate the extent that Jesus of Nazareth in his early ministry was a star, was a celebrity, and was popular. It seems that everywhere Jesus went in the beginning of his ministry there was success, and not only success, but stardom and celebrity status. Jesus, at the beginning of his ministry, was huge! Some scholars have even suggested that this is what one would call his “Galilean Spring,” that first spring when his ministry soared and he gained popularity and notoriety and fame.
In our passage from the Gospel of Mark, it is part of four early stories that talk about the fame of Jesus, and just how profound it was. The first story in this series was not in our text today, but it was the baptism of Jesus, the very beginning of his life in ministry when the dove came down from heaven and the Holy Spirit descended upon him, and a voice said, “This is my beloved son.” This was the inauguration of this incredible time of success in Jesus' ministry. The second story was the one that we looked at last week, where Jesus was in a synagogue and healed a man who was possessed with evil and drove out the demons and proclaimed the Good News with authority in his teachings.
In those early days, Jesus was really powerful and in the passage from Mark today we encounter the third and the fourth moments when Jesus was really at his height. The first was when he went to the home of Andrew and Simon Peter, along with James and John, at their request to heal the mother-in-law of Simon Peter and Andrew. Clearly, the woman had had a fever, but we don't know anything more than that. Jesus is asked to go and bring healing and strength to the woman, and that is exactly what happens. Simon Peter's mother-in-law is healed: the fever departs and there is great joy. The fourth story is in the evening when the sun has set and under the cloud of night people would bring those who were ill, those who were possessed, and those who were sick to Jesus in order that he might heal them.
In these four stories, what we have is a picture of Jesus doing great things. Here was Jesus at the top of his game, at his most powerful. The response is right there in Mark's Gospel. He tells us, he gives us clues to just how popular and how much of a celebrity Jesus was. For example, he tells us when he heals Simon Peter's mother-in-law people were actually standing at the door outside, gathering as a crowd and wanting to see what happened.
We read that afterwards people flocked to see him, wanted to have an audience with him, and wanted to be with him. Even when he went to other towns to continue his ministry around the area of Galilee people followed him: they wanted to be part of this incredible movement. Jesus couldn't get away from the popularity. It was almost as if Mark was saying, “Call The New York Times! Have a look at this guy! He is doing amazing things and he is at the top of his game! Come and see Jesus of Nazareth, the star, the Great One!”
In many ways though, that moment in Jesus' ministry was also a sad time. It was a time of great joy and elevation and praise, he was doing great things and was at the top of his game, but you knew, you just knew that something else was going to happen and it wasn't going to stay that way. I often liken Jesus, to use our images and illustrations, to being a superstar at the top of his game early on in his ministry but knowing that something bad was going to happen to him.
I think that he was like Elvis Presley in 1957, when Elvis was flying high and everyone wanted a piece. When he sang Don't be Cruel, the crowd swooned and people wanted to meet Elvis. He couldn't go anywhere and yet it was a sign even at that moment that this was getting to him, that it was too much. He had reached the pinnacle, the top, but things were not always as they seemed.
The same thing was there with Jim Morrison when he sang with The Doors, and it seemed that he was at the height of his powers in 1968. All the glory of the world was there to hear when he was on fire, and yet Morrison wanted to be a poet, he didn't want to be a rock singer really. He loved poetry and the quiet life but he didn't get it. He was nearing the end.
When Michael Jackson was at the top of his powers in 1983 and had just come out with Thriller, it seemed that he could do no wrong and would be forever in the minds and the hearts of everybody. But that was the high point of his life and we all know how it spiralled down afterwards to a sad ending.
Kurt Cobain, the singer of Nirvana, who had reached the pinnacle of his powers in 1993, couldn't go anywhere, couldn't get away from the crowds, was always in the limelight, the big star, but deep down in his soul was emptiness and sadness, and his life ended prematurely.
Even just recently with Amy Winehouse in the UK last July, she had reached the pinnacle of her performance, she had a great voice, she was an incredible artist, but she was deeply troubled and could not get away from people long enough to heal and to be restored and renewed. Winehouse's life just sort of vanished before our eyes!
You know, a philosopher once said, “You can't burn out if you are not on fire.” It seemed in many ways that Jesus in these early days of his ministry was on fire. Great things were happening. Crowds were following him. The disciples wanted to get on the bandwagon and support him and encourage him. It seemed that all was good and all was powerful: Jesus was at the pinnacle of his ministry. But, was he?
Was this really what the good news is all about? When Mark begins his Gospel saying, “This is the good news of Jesus Christ,” is this what he meant? Well, no! No he didn't! Jesus, you see, wants to stress over and over again that the purpose of his life and his ministry is to do the will of the Father. He understood that the power he had over evil and death and diseases were gifts from God. They were a manifestation of him being the Son of God. They were simply a demonstration of his authority even over spiritual things. But they weren't an end in themselves. You see, the crowd thought they were an end in themselves. The disciples thought initially they were an end in themselves. Can you imagine Simon Peter and James and John and Andrew all pointing to Jesus when he healed the mother-in-law in Capernaum and saying, “Yeah, we're friends with him. We are following him. We're great because we are with him!” They were caught up in it. It is interesting that Mark's Gospel that was written primarily through the source of Peter himself would actually make the disciples look so poor in this case, but it was honest.
Jesus just wanted to do the Father's will whatever it was. He was not looking for superstardom. He did not want to be at the top of his game. He did not want to have the crowds follow him. On the contrary, Mark tells us that Jesus actually wanted to get away from the crowds. He wanted to be above the celebrity status. He went to high places above the Sea of Galilee to get away. There, we are told, he prayed and renewed his relationship with God, the Father. He even goes to other towns because he doesn't want to get caught up in being a celebrity in Capernaum where he was at that point but he wants to move on, because it is for others that he has come, not just to be the star but to do the will of God. That is all he wanted: to do the will of the Father. And his ministry, a ministry of redemption, was seen in these things but these things were not the end in itself.
I know that we live, and we have to recognize this, in a culture that loves celebrities. We love stardom! Even in the religious sphere, don't we all just love to be able to hear from a superstar who happens to be a Christian, who says that they are a person of faith and that they are committed to Christ? I suspect (I might be wrong) but I suspect that on this Super Bowl Sunday you will hear quite a few stars who will come out and express their faith at the end of the game if they are on the winning side. And so Jesus also wants the touchdown, right? Always! I happen to get irritated by this because I find that most of the teams who don't score the touchdowns are the teams that I like, so clearly I am not following Jesus - or He is not following me!
Here is the danger: we make stardom and we make celebrity the end rather than the means to an end. Don't misunderstand me, when a football star like Tebow says that he gives all honour and glory to Christ for everything that he does, I believe him. He is a great young man but I think he is a mediocre quarterback. I think though that him recognizing God and Christ is a wonderful thing, but his witness, and here is my point, is no greater than anyone else's. He just gets more attention.
It is the following of ordinary people that Jesus really cares about and the reason why he didn't want his stardom to become superficial and for people to place all their emphasis on the successes that he had is because he knew that at the end of his life and his ministry there would be the Cross, what some scholars call his “Jerusalem winter” not just his “Galilean spring.” He knew it wasn't going to work out easily and be nice. On the contrary, he knew there were difficult days ahead, and Jesus did not want his ministry to be confined by celebrity.
What do we make of this? Where is the good news? Well, the good news is clearly the Jesus healed and restored broken people. Jesus took the mother-in-law of Simon Peter, and I think it is just wonderful that Simon Peter wanted his mother-in-law to get better. I think that is just marvellous! He should be applauded for this, don't you think? I think it is a wonderful thing! I think that the fact that the man who was in the synagogue who was possessed by evil, who was cleansed and saved is a good thing. I think when Jesus restores the broken, it is a marvellous thing. It is Good News! But it is not the end of the story. I think that high moments in our lives, moments of praise and adulation, moments when things are going our way, moments when we have worship that is uplifting, when moved in our spirit by the presence of God, I think that is a good thing. There is nothing wrong with the good things happening. We need more of them; not fewer of them.
There is nothing wrong when somebody who is broken is healed and restored, but if that becomes the sole purpose of discipleship we are missing the main ingredient of the life of Jesus himself for the ministry of Jesus was to heal and to restore that which was broken. This is done not just through success and power in healing, but through sacrificial love and the Cross and those that he wants to follow him are not just the superficial “touchdown Christians” who always give praise when good things happen but those who pray even when bad things happen, even when the losses occur, even in the darkest moments.
For some Christianity has become that superficial, plastic sense that it all has to be success and praise and numbers and power; that is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the Gospel of the One who bore the Cross and was then glorified and raised from the dead by God, the Father. To illustrate this I had an amazing encounter this week. It is one that you don't have very often in life, but when you have it, it changes you.
One morning this week a gentleman came to the church. He was greeted by some men from our group that meets at 7 a.m. This man was clearly agitated and distressed and he asked the men from the group if he could see whoever was the “head guy” around here. They waited for me to arrive. That was nice of them!
They said, “You want to see the Senior Minister?”
“The Senior Minister, whoever it is, I do. I do.”
His English was broken, and so was his life. They brought him up to my office and he came in.
He was a man who had suffered the most terrible torture in life. To protect his anonymity, I won't say from which country he had arrived in Canada. Suffice to say, it is a country in the East that we are deeply troubled about at the moment. In that country, this man had been tortured. Signs of that torture were all over him: scars on his head where they tried to decapitate him, teeth that were missing, fingers that were broken, lacerations on his arms and face. He could barely speak English, and I wondered why. Why is he here to see me?
It was obvious that he was coming to see a psychiatrist in this part of the city and although he lives a long way away in Thornhill, he had left home at 2 a.m. to walk down Yonge Street to get to his appointment here. He had no money. He couldn't get a job, because he couldn't speak English. He couldn't hold a job anyway, because he was so traumatized as a result of the torture. I thought I would do everything I could to help him.
We gave him some money to make sure that he could move around the city freely and not have to walk miles to get down here. I called his Member of Parliament and his MPP in the area where he lives and asked if they could help him, and both of them, God bless them, said they would. One of them said, “We are aware of him, he is a very serious and sad case.” I hoped that everything was done that I could do. I assured him he would be taken care of when he went home. I set up appointments for him the next morning at these different offices. I felt my job was done.
Then, as he still sat there, it dawned on me: “You are so thick! He is not here for that! He is here for something else. That is not why he is here: he can go to any social agency.” Any case worker could help him. I asked him, “Why did you come here?”
Well, he is a person who is Muslim, but on the other part of his family, is Christian. He is really both. And, the country from where he came has both, but because of the Christian part of his life, he was persecuted. And so, as I just listened to him talk, the pain in his soul and in his brain and his heart was overwhelming.
I just said, “Would you like me to pray for you?”
He said, “Yes.” He smiled and said, “Yes.”
So, I just prayed with him. I suspect he understood thirty per cent of the words I used, if that. When we got up, he stood up and he smiled, and as he walked along the hallway back outside to his appointment, he stopped and he turned, this man who seemed so tortured when he walked in, now seemed so vibrant, and he did the following: he pointed to the heavens and he said, “God is One,” which of course is the creed of Islam. But then, as he touched his heart, he said “But I love Jesus! I love Jesus!” And off he went! That is why he was here. That is what he needed to hear. That is the power that he required.
All the other things pale. He just needed that moment. And, it seems to me that is the ministry of Jesus Christ. This man was not at the height. He wasn't interested in a superstar or a celebrity. He was not concerned about wealth or status. He just wanted the very Lord that Jesus wanted people to follow: a lord who, regardless of what in your life, is waiting as your Saviour and as your friend. Not the one that is superficial, but the One who was crucified and raised from the dead, the One you should seek to follow. Amen.