Mark 1:29-39

Now it may sound strange to say so for someone who stopping growing somewhere around pre-school, but I’ve never really experienced any bullying that I can remember. Well other than a single incident.

That happened when I was at a church dance some time in junior high. I was standing in a circle of some 10-15 friends — because, after all, it’s junior high. You wouldn’t want to actually dance at a dance, would you?

Anyway, I was standing there, looking at whoever happened to be talking at that moment when I suddenly saw stars. Someone had come up to me and punched me on the side of my head without my ever seeing them. No one else in that circle of people saw it either. And I was quite literally out on my feet.

After the 12 hours or two seconds or whatever it was that it took me to come back to my senses, I tried to look to my right to see who had done that to me. But it was as if my head were turning in a barrel of molasses, so everything appeared to be moving in super slow motion. By the time I had turned my head, no one was there.

Although some time later — perhaps 20 or 30 minutes — a guy came dancing up to me with a girl in his arms and asked, “Do you want to fight?” I said, “No thanks,” so the two of them danced away and I never saw him again. The whole thing was quite surreal.

The reason I told you that is that Mark is the 98 pound weakling of the four gospels. Mark was written first and two of the others came up and kicked sand in its face, stole large sections of it and then made fun of it for not having a proper ending.

You see, Mark’s is the only gospel that doesn’t have a resurrection appearance by Jesus. In his book, a group of women come to Jesus’ tomb on Easter morning to anoint his body, only to find the tomb empty and a man dressed in a white robe sitting next to it, who tells them that Jesus has been raised and is going ahead of them into Galilee. And he instructs them to tell that to the disciples. But, instead of doing that, they’re so terrified that they run away from the tomb and don’t say anything to anyone. That’s hardly the stirring Eater morning message we expect, so you can see why several other people took it upon themselves to write what they considered to be a better ending for Mark.

In some ways. Mark is the Rodney Dangerfield of the four gospels — it “just don’t get no respect.” But, in fact, much of that reputation is undeserved, for Mark is a very tightly-written and sophisticated work of literary art. And it’s due to misunderstanding of some of Mark’s subtleties that cause his work has to endure such relative disrespect.

A good example may be found in today’s gospel lesson. This story takes place immediately after last week’s story in which Jesus taught at the synagogue in Capernaum and healed a possessed man who interrupted his teaching.

When that synagogue service was over, Jesus and his disciples walk to Peter’s house. We visited there during our trip to Israel last fall, so I can tell you that that means they walked something like the distance from the front door of the church to the corner. Peter’s house was essentially two doors down from the synagogue.

When the group arrived there, they discovered that Peter’s mother-in-law is sick in bed with a fever. Now, that wasn’t a minor issue in the ancient world. A fever was often the symptom of some more serious condition that could potentially lead to death.

But Jesus transformed her illness into a fading memory when he simply took the mother-in-law’s hand and lifted her up out of bed. Her fever disappeared in the instant she stood up. And what did she do then? She immediately went to work, serving all of her guests.

Modern feminists have a problem with this story for that very reason — as if Jesus saw her lying in bed and said, “Oh no you don’t! Get up and get to work. My buds and I are starving’.” But, of course, that’s not what really happened. Jesus heals her and she immediately chooses to show her gratitude by offering her service to the household. In effect, she becomes the first example of what a resurrected life in Jesus looks like.

The fact that modern people even question her actions shows that they’re missing the point Mark is trying to make. When Jesus heals the mother-in-law, it says he “lifted her up.” That’s the very word Mark used at the end of his gospel to describe Jesus’ own resurrection. Its a word that’s used over and over in Mark to make the point that resurrection isn’t simply something that happens to Jesus at the end of his earthly existence. Rather, it is something that happens to each of us again and again in our daily lives.

That’s the reason that Jesus doesn’t have a resurrection appearance in Mark’s gospel — because he has gone before his followers back to Galilee. That means, if you want to find the resurrected Jesus, you have to search for him in the midst of everyday life, because that’s where he is — in the place that you live, waiting to lift you up, waiting to resurrect you from whatever holds you down.

As Andrew Prior puts it, “Read the gospel again. Think about it. Listen to Jesus while you are working, and walking, and eating. Talk with your friends; the other disciples. Ask each other, ‘Where are you meeting Jesus?’

“Matthew and Luke answered Mark by writing their own gospels. They copied the basic story of Mark and then added and subtracted other bits of the traditions about Jesus, and put a different spin on various events. They were telling their own story of Jesus as they described how they met him in their life.

“Other people did as Mark invited them. They pored over the book. They read it and re-read it. They tried to copy what Jesus did. When they faced an issue, a problem, they asked, ‘What would Jesus do if he were 42 and had two grumpy teenagers, and his husband was away on business? How would he handle it?’

“[…] They found a pattern in the stories in the gospel of Mark, and then, they found the same pattern in their own lives. We can do the same; you probably are! […] if we go back to our ordinary lives, to our Galilees at home and at work, and live like Jesus would live, we’ll meet the resurrecting and resurrected Jesus, too. We will be lifted up.... and be able to stand...”

• On July 7, 2005, a group of home-grown Islamic terrorists detonated four bombs in London, three in quick succession aboard Underground trains across the city and a fourth on a double-decker bus. Fifty-two people were killed in the attacks, and more than 700 others were injured. One of the injured was a woman named Gill Hicks, who lost both of her legs and then later wrote a book about her experiences.
  She had been traveling in the same subway car as the bomber. When he detonated his bomb, she was seriously wounded and the doctors gave her very little chance of surviving her wounds.
  Gisela Raines says this about Gill’s book: “Her account of what happened in the [subway car] is direct and powerful and moving: the presence of other badly wounded people, the darkness, the acrid smell, the sounds, the struggle to comprehend what had happened, to her, to her body…and her fight to survive, to stay calm, to stay awake, to focus, to breathe, breathe…waiting for a light, waiting for help.…

  “There are many poignant moments in this book, as she tells the story of her survival and recovery, and as she describes her immense gratitude to those who rescued her and treated her, as well as her profound connection to those who were in the [subway car] with her, both those who died and those who survived …but there is one image that will particularly stay with me.

  “When finally help had come, she was labelled as a ‘Priority One’. It was then that she felt able to let go: drifting in and out of consciousness, she put her faith and trust in those who had come to rescue her as she was placed on a makeshift stretcher…. She writes ….One man held my hand….He didn’t let go. I was so cold but I could feel his warmth. He was calling to me, telling me to stay with him. He knew my name and held me tight. He said to me over and over again: stay with us Gill, Come on love, come on Gill you have got to stay with us…I needed to know he wouldn’t let go…his hand kept me connected, kept me there, kept me alive…”

  Isn’t that a wonderful image for Jesus lifting Peter’s mother-in-law by the hand from her bed of illness — as well as for our own call to exemplify the living presence of Christ’s love for those we meet?

  To use the words of Gisela Raines again, “There is something about the physicality of these stories, about the hands that heal and raise up […that] conveys something about what it is to be connected to Jesus, …Jesus, who sees our infirmity, who is moved with compassion, and who speaks to our souls, our deepest self, our most profound need.

  “No wonder the whole city of Capernaum gathers round the door: for, whether they realized it or not, this is not just about the sick, it is about all of us. Each healing miracle is somehow a telling and re-telling of the story of our salvation, of the hands that save us, of the voice that calls us by name, and calls us into new life.”

  Gill Hicks’ life was forever altered by the terrorist attack that day. Since that time, she has faced many challenges, such as her difficult and painful road to recovery, adjusting to life without her own legs and learning to walk with artificial replacements.

  But her sudden tragedy also taught her to fully appreciate even the mundane aspects of everyday life. Perhaps no one can quite as completely understand the value of life as someone who has been on the very brink of losing it and then come back again.

  Her experience has also given her a desire to make a difference in other people’s lives as others have made in hers. Just as that man’s touch and encouraging voice gave her the courage to endure the worst of her medical trials, so she reminds us that “someone somewhere is feeling the effects of something you say or do…what matters is to make a difference.”

  When Peter’s mother-in-law was healed, she couldn’t wait to get up and serve. She wanted to make a difference for Jesus and his friends. She understood that the healing Jesus offered her was more than just physical, it was also a healing from that inner human drive that lowers our focus to solely our own concerns and lifts our gaze to the needs of others.

  All of us have areas in our lives that need healing, whether that may be physical or mental or spiritual. So all of us need to be reminded that for God, we are “Priority One,” that he will always remain at our side, calling us by name and promising to never let us go.

  And, in turn, that will free us to live a life in which we show by our actions that we are God’s beloved ones, healed to be Christ’s representatives of compassion, serving as Christ’s hands and feet in this world. That is our resurrected life. Amen.

  (Comments to Jim at jmccrea@galenalink.com.)