Fill Your Faith Tank

Mark 1:29-39
1:29 As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.

1:30 Now Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. 

1:31 He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them. 

1:32 That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. 

1:33 And the whole city was gathered around the door. 

1:34 And he cured 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. 

1:35 In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. 

1:36 And Simon and his companions hunted for him. 

1:37 When they found him, they said to him, "Everyone is searching for you."

1:38 He answered, "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do." 

1:39 And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

Our scripture for this morning picks up Jesus’ ministry not very far into it.  He has just called the disciples, then they headed to the synagogue where he healed a man, and then Jesus and his four disciples headed to Simon Peter’s house.  Most likely, these events only a span a couple of days and we are already getting a glimpse into the kind of person Jesus is going to be and the kind of ministry that he is going to have.

I am sure that the health of Simon Peter’s mother in law had been wearing on him and after he saw Jesus heal the man at the synagogue he knew he had to get Jesus to his house.  The faith lesson in this is that we often see Jesus perform miracles and amazing transformations in other people’s live that encourage us to bring Jesus back to our home.  Anyway, a fever does not sound like much to us today.  An aspirin or Ibuprofen takes care of a lot for us today but in a world without antibiotics a simple fever could be deadly.  At the time of Christ, there were several “magic” tricks and potions that people would try to use to get rid of these fevers.  Remember, no antibiotics and until now, no Jesus.  Jesus shows up, takes Simon Peter’s mother in law’s hand and helps her up.  Some translations say that Jesus raised her up.  Either  way, Jesus helped this woman to her feet and she immediately began serving Jesus and the other disciples.  If you have ever had a life-changing conversation with Christ, it was probably similar to this in the sense it called you to action.  When we open our hearts and minds and allow Jesus to have full access to our lives, when we allow Jesus to raise us up, then we cannot help but start serving him and others.  In a world that seems to want to divide us based on our economic status, political stance, and culture there is someone who has the power to bring us together.  The teachings of Christ offer us something special.  Besides eternal life, these teachings offers us clues as to how love one another, how to respect one another, and how to raise one another up.  I have said this before but this scripture just solidifies the fact that when we have a close encounter with Christ that we cannot help but to changed by it.  

Since it was the Sabbath, no one could work and carrying the sick to Jesus would have been considered work.  Therefore, they had to wait until sundown because it marked the end of the Sabbath.  As soon as the sun set, there were people coming to Simon Peter’s house wanted to be healed.  The scripture says that the whole town gathered at the door.  The faith lesson here is that the immense power of Christ cannot be concealed.  This is such an awesome reminder of how we are supposed to act.  We should be so filled with God’s spirit that we cannot help but to share it with others through deed and word.  When Christ moves in our lives, the blessings, love, grace and thanks ought to be so obvious in us that we cannot help but share the message of Christ with others.  Our relationship with Jesus is not something we should hide behind or keep to ourselves.  I am not saying we have to be belligerent in our rants of Christ either but in all honesty, if we are doing our best to follow the teachings of Christ, it should be more than obvious that we are doing so.  It should not come to anyone’s surprise that you are a follower of Christ.  If it does, then you are doing too good of a job hiding it.  There is a kindness about those who truly follow the teaching of Christ.  There is an openness in trying to understand others about those who have a relationship with Christ.  There is a willingness to place others before self in those who are doing their best to follow Jesus.  Jesus must have been exhausted when people started showing up that night and yet he stood there and “healed many who had various diseases.”  Jesus placed every single one of those people before his own well being.  To add to that, we can know that Jesus must have healed Simon Peter’s mother in law before the Sabbath was over, which was prohibited.  This tells us that following Jesus is not always going to mean following tradition or dogma.  An open, honest and real relationship with our creator changes us.  

After Jesus stayed up a good portion of the night, he woke up early, perhaps never went to bed, and went out to a solitary place where he prayed.  This is the first of many times we will hear of Jesus going off to be alone so he could pray.  If the Son of Man goes away to be alone, to clear his mind and pray to the Father perhaps it is something we too should try to do.  I know that this life is busy and it may be difficult to find time to do this but we should try.  This teaches us a very important lesson: if we are sharing God’s love out in the world, we must find time for ourselves to take that love in.  We can be so devoted to others that we can give and give and give of ourselves that we don’t find time to replenish our supply.  Think of it like the gas tank on your car.  Once the gauge tells us that we are getting low, we should replenish the supply because if we don’t, we run out of gas.  Jesus shows us that our relationship with God can be viewed in a similar fashion.  It is most likely the case as to why people get burned out on church.  We often times give so much of ourselves but forget to replenish our supply of God.  We can worry so much about others that we do a disservice because our own faith has not been replenished.  This is an important factor in trying to prevent “church fatigue.”  We have all been there.  We have had those times in our lives when we have gotten burned out.  There may have been other reasons as well but I would venture to say that one of the reasons was that you forgot to take time to replenish your supply of God.  It may sound a little silly but if Jesus had to go and replenish his soul, I have to think that we should make time for it too.  Going out alone to pray allowed Jesus to not see his ministry as a job, it kept him focused.  

Simon Peter and the other newly dawned disciples came looking for Jesus and told him that everyone was looking for him and Jesus replied by saying that they had to keep moving onto neighboring villages.  At first I thought it was strange that Jesus would want to leave a place where he just got a foothold in the community.  But I think his intention was clear and it goes back to what I said earlier.  A relationship with Christ creates action and everyone whose life he touches is then commissioned to keep doing his work.  There were people in that community that were now called to help those whom Jesus did not get a chance to talk to.  Jesus understood that his ministry was going to be short, after all he was not following the Sabbath from the get-go, so he had to visit as many communities as possible in order to commission others to keep his ministry alive.

As a final point, an honest and real relationship with God creates action.  That action is different for each person.  But no matter the capacity in which God has called us it should be focused on serving one another and serving God in some way and do not forget to fill your faith tank.  Amen.