Meals and Miracles?

Mark 1:14b; Luke 4:14-15 and John 4: 43-54

Part 1

News travels fast in our day and age; email, texts and the internet. Relatively speaking news always travels fast that is relative to the culture we are part of. In Jesus time the news about His life in Judea and coming home through Samaria and so on got back to His home area by the time He got home. This is because some were in Judea at the time and at the same festival. They may have even witnessed Jesus throwing out the bankers and traders and they might have had friends who were Pharisees and heard about the report from Nicodemus; perhaps some of them were Pharisees and had concerns of their own; question they too would like to be answered. Anyway, the stories about Jesus were being retold back home and an interesting incident was about to unfold. An official, probably someone in the service of King Herod Antipas, Tetarch of Galilee had a son who was close to death. He heard that Jesus was back in the town of Cana the site of the providing of the first sign of who Jesus really was. You remember? Turning water into wine!  The crowds were excited by the prospect of more signs and wonders demonstrated by one of their own; but this powerful man was desperate, his son was dying. He came to Jesus in a final act of desperation; deep down he did not believe the healing was possible but perhaps at the insistence of his wife he came to Jesus; it was the last chance they had to save their son. After requesting the help of Jesus and on returning home he discovers that his son is well again and it happened at the time Jesus told him that his son would live. Is it possible? Can Jesus really be the answer to the dilemmas of our lives that appear impossible to solve? He tells his family all that happened and they all believed. They all discovered that they were the object of God’s creative love. They learned that day that life was precarious and precious, not because their son lived but because he nearly died.

We are NOT promised by Jesus that we will not face death, or get sick by being His disciples. As in the story, it’s because of these realities that we need the authentic Jesus of scripture.  For over 30 years I’ve witnessed and shared in the sufferings of human beings. I have never found the faith healers in the corridors of the hospital curing the sick. I have never attended a funeral where the healers of the satellite channels turned up and raised someone from the dead. They peddle their lies in the faith healing rooms and tent meetings of the desperate and despairing. This is not the gospel of Jesus. This is what the fickle crowd were looking for in today’s story; Jesus rejected this view of Himself not because He couldn’t perform signs and wonders He could and did. But this is not why He came. Do you remember a few days ago we told the story of Jesus sermon in the synagogue in Nazareth? Do you remember the people rejected Him after that sermon and we have been trying to work out why?  We are now in the position to identify why.

Part 2

The great majority of the people in the story of Jesus want a wonder worker; a ‘trick and a treat’; easy food and a sensational act. People still want these things; that’s why people are so easily conned by the healing tricksters. The biblical Jesus has come to complete the work outlined in Luke 4: 16-30: you remember the Isaiah prophecy about Jesus contained in that reading….

¹⁸ ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
   because he has anointed me
     to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
   and recovery of sight to the blind,
     to let the oppressed go free, 
¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ 

The year of the Lord’s favour; this is the Messianic act of the redistribution of the wealth of God’s good creation in favour of the dispossessed, the destitute, those most likely to suffer poor health and early death: the poor; those who are brokenhearted in the midst of the party of individualism and community neglect held by the bankers and traders in human misery. The Messianic act of release of the captives of war and the violence of racism and prejudice is rejected by the synagogue at Nazareth. It’s seen as dangerous, so dangerous that they want to kill the Messiah; Jesus. 

Many still reject the biblical Jesus and His teachings because they don’t believe that the love of God and neighbour sums up all the Law and the Prophets. In our desperation we want to hold on to the old rituals that demonstrate we love God but reject our neighbour as having the same human value as ourselves; we continue to accept the trade in our own human suffering that offers us the false hope that somehow our self-interest and that of our community is best served in the empires of our time and space and not in the Kingdom of God proclaimed by Jesus. The word of God the bible does not promise us delivery from every trouble and healing from every disease in this life if we have enough faith! In Hebrews 9 it says this:

‘²⁷And just as it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgement, ²⁸so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.’

It is part of the story of creation and new creation that mortals die; we are not God we are mortals and one day we will die if Jesus does not return before that. God came in the form of Jesus to bear the consequences of meeting our needs our own way. Jesus lived, died and rose again to save us from the outcome of our empty religious rituals, our denominationalism, economic corruption and all their peddlers. He came to save us through His death from the eternal consequences of separation from the God of eternal love. Jesus promised that on His return, His Kingdom promised would be fulfilled and all the sufferings of this world will end. Let’s not be conned into cheapening the Good News by reducing it to a ‘trick and a treat’. Real life change is available now!  We can live in the community of peace and love together under the rule of Jesus and His words. We can begin to live out the practices of His Kingdom while we practically wait for His return and eternal reign.