For this is what I came to do

by Joan Fanshawe

(Based on Mark 1:29-39; Isa 40:21-31; Ps 147)

The excerpt of ancient poetic and eloquent prophesy from the Isaiah reading is centuries, no thousands of years old – most likely addressed to the exhausted exiles in Babylon. Extolling God’s power with a message of comfort about God’s future for those who wait upon the Lord. Words of comfort through the ages to this day.

And the psalm – might be many years older. Hard to know and discover. It seems that when we look back into these ancient times we do tend to run them off the tongue much closer together than real time.
“God our creator and ongoing sustainer”, we’re told in this song of praise, “takes no pleasure in the strength of a horse or in human might but delights in those who fear him (or wait upon him) and trust in his unfailing love.” It is one of five such songs at the end of the book of Psalms, songs to be sung not just as personal praise and worship but as a means of inspiration to go out and share the message of God’s care for his people – the chosen race, Israel.

Each of today’s passages reveal something of the divine image, something of who God is – before, during and after Jesus’s earthly life.

How do we see God? What words would we use, here, today?

For many years now I’ve been receiving emails from Jim Taylor, a Canadian writer, editor and columnist in Kelowna, British Columbia – he sends out his weekly newspaper columns (Sharp and Soft Edges) as a blog to a wide range of people who have joined his emailing list. Often it’s a commentary on things of national or local interest, including musing on everyday happenings in his life in Kelowna where he’s a committed member of a United church congregation.
Jim, whose parents were missionaries in India through his childhood, is a life-long Christian.
Like many of us, his faith journey in the last third of his life has brought him to a different way of seeing and experiencing God in his life and he comments on that too.

People respond to the blog and last year a friend suggested that as an exercise he write down on one page what he now believed about God and on another page write down all the things he used to believe, or perhaps just took for granted, about God . Afterwards a few readers wrote in and asked why he didn’t say anything about Jesus. His response was simple – the exercise wasn’t about Jesus.

However their question kept nagging at him, so out came the sheets of paper again. Regards his current belief about God – that piece of paper contained just two words: “God is.”
The Jesus page has a few more words but before I share those let’s look at the Gospel passage and the epistle for today.

Last week’s Gospel story continues as we rejoin Jesus on the first day of his public ministry. He and the disciples leave the synagogue and go to the house of Simon Peter and Andrew, where on arrival they learn that Peter’s mother-in-law is in bed with a fever. When Jesus is told, he goes to her, takes her by the hand and lifts her up. Mark continues that “the fever left her and she began to serve them.”
Here I had to suppress a sigh of exasperation – the woman is healed so that the guys can be attended to?

Of course, I soon had to get over myself and accept that Mark writes at a time when women were invisible and infrequently named, but she is healed and this is demonstrated in that she resumes her role, doing what she would usually be doing when well.

What might be overlooked in the sparse story, that it would have been very much out of normal cultural practice for a man to touch a woman, take her hand and ‘lift her up’ as Jesus did.

Jesus went on to cross many cultural boundaries – causing outrage and infuriating the Jewish religious law keepers – leading eventually, of course, to his being turned over for trial and crucifixion.

Jesus begins his ministry as he intends to continue through healing and setting people free to enable them to live a full life.

One commentator noted the involvement of community in bringing the sick and troubled to Jesus and we hear that they did this on that evening after the Sabbath was over. To hear that the whole city gathered around the door is no doubt exaggeration but makes a mind boggling point. Imagine!

Before light the next morning Jesus sought a quiet place for a time of prayer. This is another point to take note of – we hear that Jesus regularly withdraws for prayer and contemplation. After being found by Peter, he then sets off for the neighbouring towns to continue preaching and healing. “For this is what I came to do,” he says when the disciples tell him that everyone is looking for him.

Through him, many hearing his teaching and seeing his acts of compassion come to know God in a new way. Some will follow him and walk with him all the way to the cross. (Three days later the first few will begin to understand what seemed like an end, was really just another beginning, God would continue to be revealed.)

Some years later Paul was writing to the churches in Corinth about what his experiences of God’s revelation in Jesus have taught him. He declares a faithful God who calls each of us to be a servant to others, to share that compassionate love – even with people of different cultures and backgrounds to our own. He is passionate in his approach, explaining that he has become “all things to all people – in order to share the Gospel and its blessings.” This is our Christian calling also, to do our best to respond and follow the example of love that God has revealed to us since before time began. It requires commitment, contemplation and prayer, sacrifice of our ego, stepping out of our comfort zone, the support of community … more we could name. The reward is the joy of God’s grace and promise to those who ‘wait upon the Lord’.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases – new every morning.

Jim’s belief about Jesus? “Jesus shows me what God is like.” 

Thoughts from Pastor Steve Garnaas-Holmes:

You needn’t save the world.
It might just be a fever 
someone has, of flesh or heart,
a little thing.

The world around you
cries out for healing.
Possibly someone near you.

Take their hand.
Lift them up.
Receive their gifts.

This torn world is mended
one stitch
at a time.