Epiphany 5 – “Everyone is looking for you! …That is why I have come.”

Epiphany 5 – “Everyone is looking for you! …That is why I have come.” – Mark 1:29-39
2/2/06 – St. Paul’s Lutheran, Union Grove – Vicar Matthew Peters

Grace, Mercy, and Peace to you in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

We often admire people with a lot of ambition. We praise those individuals in our society who have seemingly conquered multiple areas of the business or sporting world. There are actors who go into politics, sports players who go on to run successful businesses, doctors who decide to become lawyers… and so on. In many of these cases, the first occupation enables opportunities that ensure a measure of success in the second business venture…
But what if someone had just begun to excel in a certain field, and then gave it all up to start over and try something else… This we do not tend to find as wise or as praiseworthy. In fact, we might call such a person ‘impatient’, ‘foolish’, or ‘unable to focus.’

For instance, what if Bill Gates had decided to abandon the Computer Industry just after he made his first sale of his operating systems? Or if Steven Spielberg decided to get out of the movie business after he made ‘Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind’ – in favor of becoming an astronaut?
For someone to quit just as they are about to get ahead seems foolish. When things start going really well at home or at your business, you are not too anxious to shake it up and change how things are running. Something like that just doesn’t make sense.

For many people this same mentality applies to church and their spiritual lives as well… ‘I like how things are, we have a good number of people who come, things are working this way, why worry about ever having to change?’ Have no fear, good Lutherans! I am not standing here tonight to promote some sort of wholesale change here at St. Paul’s – by no means! But at the same time, getting comfortable where we are – and settling in to relax with the status quo, these are things that a church does not want either.

In the gospel lesson for this evening, Jesus and His disciples were experiencing the first very successful day of this ministry of Jesus. They had come into Capernaum, Jesus preached in the synagogue, the people heard and realized that He had authority, and he drove out an evil spirit. That was last week’s gospel reading. Then Jesus and the disciples apparently went to see Simon Peter’s family, and Jesus healed Simon’s mother-in-law, as well as many others who were brought to Him.
That was One long and hard day of preaching and teaching, healing and exorcising demons… but it seemed like a good day for the Word of God. Capernaum, it appears, believed in Jesus! In fact, it says that, “The whole town gathered at the door…” Talk about popularity!

Given the conditions, you might have expected Jesus to want to stick around Capernaum for a while and really build up a base of operations. You know, get Himself established, work up a large group of followers where His message has already proven to be effective…
Simon Peter especially appreciated how things were going. Jesus had healed his mother-in-law, the crowds in Capernaum loved Him, and we read in the lesson that the next morning when Jesus went off to pray, “Simon and his companions went to look for Him, and when they found Him, they exclaimed: ‘Everyone is looking for you!’”

The statement here from Simon is essentially; ‘Where have you been?’ – ‘What are you doing out here?’ – ‘We’ve got a good thing going in the town, get back there!’
Peter is going on the attitude here, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Or “Go with what works.” But what he and the other disciples were missing out on was the fact that even if things were working in their eyes – what really matters was, is it working in God’s eyes? Capernaum was joyfully receiving Jesus – and His message – but the message was not only for these people who had been so eager to hear in this city…
Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else – to the nearby villages – so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”

Simon Peter and the town of Capernaum would have been content to keep Jesus all to themselves. If something is going well, why change it? If you’ve got a good thing, you don’t want to give it away. If the message is heard and appreciated amongst us, why should we need to go out and tell others?

Now certainly no one here would actively deny any citizen of Union Grove the opportunity to hear about Jesus. We wouldn’t try to keep Jesus as our own little secret here at St. Paul’s and not let anyone else in the world know about Him.
But how will God’s word get out if we do not speak of it outside the walls of this building? How will your friends and neighbors know Jesus if someone doesn’t tell them about Him? How can the message of the good news be for the whole world if we here in ‘Capernaum’ never let the Word go forth into the world?

Certainly God was pleased at how the people of Capernaum reacted favorably toward Him… but they weren’t the only ones who needed the message of Jesus. And certainly God is pleased that His Word is faithfully heard in this place, that His sacraments are provided, and that faith is being nourished… but how many people do you know that don’t know about Jesus?
You see, whether we’re doing it intentionally or not, keeping Jesus for yourself – to yourself – is selfish. …And detrimental to His message and aim.

Looking again at the gospel lesson; Simon’s own words, “Everyone is looking for you!” display the very problem that their attitude were causing. By ‘Everyone’ Simon Peter meant everyone in the town of Capernaum, everyone who had already heard, everyone who knew about Jesus. But ‘Everyone’ is more than just those who already know… the entire world needs Jesus’ salvation message!
Jesus is for you! And He’s also for your neighbor, for your friends outside church, for your family members who don’t know Him, or may have fallen away…
The Word of God is for them also…
The grace of God is for them also…

And even though we know that we constantly fail to uphold this job of getting the message out to the world, we know that these failings too are covered by that forgiveness that Jesus brings to all who believe in His name.
This is the message the Jesus spoke with authority. This is why He healed people and drove out their demons. He had come into the world to show that God is merciful – God was keeping His promise to send a Savior to our fallen race. And Jesus is that Savior!

Deep down, everyone knows that they need ‘something more’ to get by. Some people try to depend on their own strength, some depend on their money, some look to their possessions or business. But that thing that the world needs – that everyone needs – is the peace of mind, and peace in their spirit that comes only with the knowledge and faith that Jesus has provided for us. Simon was right, and whether people know it or not, “Everyone is looking for…” …Jesus! Everyone is looking for what Jesus has to offer.
And friends, tonight we are in this place of worship to give honor, glory, and praise to this God who has given to us and to all the world everything that we are looking for.

In our weakness, He is strong. In our failings, He is perfect. And in our state of spiritual death because of sin, He is life! He is life eternal!
By this Jesus Christ, who did not allow Himself to remain only in the place where He was readily accepted – by Jesus, and His blood shed for us, His life given for us, and His resurrection as proof to us – we are given a clean slate. We are forgiven! Our sins are gone! All of those failings are as if they did not occur.
And its not as though we have to start over and do better this time… the work is complete!

Throughout the Holy Scriptures we see how the Word of God was spread by Jesus throughout Galilee and Israel. Then, how the message of salvation was brought throughout the whole world by the apostles and the evangelists. This message and promise has been the same for all of time, and we hear it again plainly spoken by Jesus;
“That is why I have come.”
He came to spread the news that He was the promised Savior. That God had not forgotten this world, and that our sins and mistakes were to be taken care of. Because Christ died upon the cross, all of the sins of the world are taken away… once and for all!
We are sure of this because He has said so in His Word. We receive these blessings of strength and forgiveness both physically and spiritually as we partake in His sacraments. And because we have been so blessed, we are enabled to joyfully share this same joy with those around us; “to the nearby villages” in our lives.

We can joyfully get the word out and proclaim that same good news that Jesus has given to each one of us – there’s more than enough grace to go around!
And that good news is precisely this: That by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ – through the faith given to you by the Holy Spirit of God. All of your sins are forgiven!

That is why He came!

Amen.