Title: The healing touch of God is brought to you in Christ!
Text: Mark1:29-39
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32 That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. 33 And the whole city was gathered together at the door. 34 And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
The great writer Mark Twain became morose, sad and even weary of life.
Shortly before his death, he wrote, "A myriad of men are born; they labor and sweat and struggle...they squabble and scold and fight; they scramble for little mean advantages over each other; age creeps upon them; infirmities follow; ...those they love are taken from them, and the joy of life is turned to aching grief. When (the release to death) comes at last … the only un-poisoned gift earth ever had for them … and they vanish from a world where they were of no consequence ... the world will lament them a day and forget them forever." Mark Twain.
This is a very sad lament for one who is of the world.
But for we who name the name of Christ and in Him place our trust, the world is not our eternity!
We read today about Jesus in our Gospel lesson. Here Jesus is leaving the synagogue with His disciples Simon, Andrew, James and John.
As it was in their life as it is in ours, they were concerned for a loved one. Simon’s mother-n-law lay ill with a fever. Simon who would be given the name Peter by our Lord and who would rise to be a pillar of the faith, and who by some in the Roman Catholic tradition would be considered to be the first Pope, his mother-n-law - makes you wonder about that priests cannot me married stuff, huh?
Well as we get back on topic …
…and immediately they told him about her. 31 And he (Jesus) came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them. (Mark 1:30b-31)
The sickness that caused her condition, by the touch of Jesus left her. The touch of our Lord healed her and she was able to immediately serve them.
We too get sick. After this past year we know this all too well!
It is a condition of sin that we are bound to in this life. As a result of sin we too will eventually die. Sin will have its way with us. We will get sick and we take medication and at times we recover and get better. It is the reality of life and death we see every day in our lives and in the lives of those we love.
Some are blessed with a long productive life while others are taken in their youth. Many of us can look in the mirror and see the lines of life etched on our faces and for those too young to notice … just wait … you too will have this experience.
I met Jack and Carolyn Herford at a Lake Orion outreach music program I was leading and Evola Music was providing for active retirees. Jack was 65 years old when he began the program and a more active senior you couldn’t find. He had had a long career as a manufactures rep. retired to play golf, learn some new things and enjoy a long healthy retirement. He was a wonderful and happy guy.
Jack came to the Bloomfield Hills store to continue his lessons and one day he began complaining of headaches and dizziness and an spoke of an upcoming visit to a specialist. As it turned out he had a brain tumor. He had surgery and made a wonderful recovery … for a time. Jack lived about two and a half years after the first detection of the tumor. Eventually he died a slow, deteriorating death. He was 70 years old.
Jack had told me when the prognosis he received gave him little hope for a recovery.
“Well, this isn’t how I planned my retirement thankfully my Lord has a better retirement plan for me in eternity!”
32 That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons.33 and the whole city was gathered together at the door. 34 And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons.
Christ has conquered sin, death and the devil. His atoning work at the cross saves us, not only from earthly death, but it promises life eternal in Him.
Isaiah 53 says this about Jesus:
3 He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
The healing touch of God is brought to you in Christ!
Christ has healed you from the sickness that leads to death. He has promised life eternal in His name for all brought to faith in him. By His sinless life, death in your place at the cross and glorious resurrection you too are secure in Him for your resurrection and life in eternity with him.
The Gospel today concludes with:
36 And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, 37 and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.”
The people in Christ’s day knew that His touch brought healing and for that they all were looking for Him. We too know that His healing is more than just healing for our worldly sickness, Covid, brain tumors, cancer and the like but that in Him we have the cure for eternal life.
38 And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” 39 And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.
Christ came for you. His healing brings comfort that even with the prospect of physical death you are saved and will live for eternity in Him. My friend Jack knew that comfort and I look to the day when I will see him in heaven and rejoice together in the presence of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.
May the preaching of Christ bring all who need to hear the blessed comfort that in Jesus Christ death has no power over them and eternity is theirs by faith in His saving work.
Christ heals the sick, so that you will live forever in Him and by the power of the Holy Spirit in us God will see us to eternity now and forever.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit!
Amen.
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