Take My Hand

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Take My Hand
By Greg McDonell
February 5, 2012
Reading: Mark 1:29-39

I simply cannot enter into a study of the Marcan miracle stories without recalling a conversation I had many years ago with a skeptical friend. I love this guy because he is so intellectually honest. He was unable to accept anything he couldn't explain...or so he thought. His question to me was a straight forward one......You don't believe this miracle garbage do you? And before I could offer an answer he went on to offer worn out deluded explanations for several miracles....Jesus really didn't walk on water. It must have been a foggy morning and from the disciple's vantage point, looking through the mist and fog it only appeared that Jesus was walking on water all the while he was standing on shore. Or the feeding of the five thousand from a few loaves and fishes can be explained as a generosity explosion of sharing by everyone. And that story about the changing of water into wine, he went on to say, was simply a metaphor for our understanding that Jesus is the best wine...Jesus is the way.

 

You see, my friend was not an unbeliever, but one who had a difficult time with mystery. Miracles just did not run smoothly alongside his sientific stream of consciousness. It didn't add up therefor it can not be true

 

So, I asked my friend about his belief in a creator. He said he didn't know what to call the creator but he believed that something, some life-force, some originating being was responsible for creation.

 

So I responded by sasking if he believed that his creator God actually created such amazing things as:

 

  • A human body where 50,000 cells will die and be replaced with new cells, in the time it took me to make that statement

 

  • No two zebras have stripes that are exactly alike! That's amazing considering how many Zebras there are in the world or for that matter human fingerprints.

 

  • A chameleon's tongue is twice the length of its body.

 

  • A woodpecker can peck twenty times a second.

 

  • .The world's smallest mammal is the bumblebee bat of Thailand, weighing less than a penny.

 

  • The average human body contains enough: Sulphur to kill all fleas on an average dog, Carbon to make 900 pencils, Potassium to fire a toy cannon, Fat to make 7 bars of soap (for some of us maybe more), Phosphorus to make 2,200 match heads, and enough Water to fill a ten-gallon tank. OK, that makes me feel really unhealthy!

 

  • The grizzly bear can run as fast as the average horse!!

 

  • At birth, a panda bear is smaller than a mouse and weighs about four ounces.

 

  • Ants don't sleep.

 



“Friend”, I said, do you really believe that God created all that and so much more. He admitted that he did. Well then why do you doubt that Jesus could take a old women racked with fever by the hand and lift her to wellness? (Pause)

The miracle stories raise so many unanswered questions. I have often wondered why anyone could find themselves in such trouble, as Jesus did, for doing such good for so many people?



But there is much more to these stories than is immediately obvious to the modern mind. We must note a number of things that were going on in the first century to understand why such loving acts of our Lord led to his crucifixtion.



Ben Withingtom III, in his work on the Gospel of Mark, notes some of the offenses of Jesus' actions.

“Though there are later stories of rabbis taking the hand of another man and healing him there are no such stories of rabbis doing so for a woman, and especially not for a woman who was not a member of the healer's family. And in addition, like the miracle in last week's story, there is the fact that Jesus performed these healing acts on the Sabbath. Thus while touching a nonrelated woman was itself an offense, touching one that was sick and therefore unclean only compounded the social offense. And to do so on the Sabbath....my, my, what was Jesus thinking!!!!! (Pause)



We so smuggly look back at the cultural and relgious mores of ancient days shaking our heads all the while forgetting how we wear our own social blinders and codify own own ritual taboos. It wasn't very long ago that those with AIDS were the untouchables. And still today we practice a racial profiling that separates one from another. Some churches are absolutley clear about who is not welcomed at the Lord's table. Other's have set strict rules as to who can and cannot be ordained. We make judgments about those who have tatoos. (Careful now or I will show you mine.)

Or what about the way we treat mental illness. In ancient times there was a medical procedure called, “trepanning”. This was a primitive surgical procedure in which a hole was drilled in a human skull to release the demons that were inside. We scoff at such ignorance forgetting that not too long ago our only answer was to put such people away. After all, we needed to keep THEM from all the NORMAL people.



Miracles......we struggle with them and pray for them and cry out for them. And as much as we pray and touch and anoint our loved ones, they often do not become well.... restored to society. They die. We may cry out Jesus, heal me, take away my pain, suffering, uncertainty, and insecruity! You did it for Peter's Mother-in-law......can't you do the same for me.... NOW?

At the same time we cannot blame God when our sufferings are not immediately removed. Even Jesus did not escape suffering and death. (PAUSE)



Miracles do exist. I have seen YOU receive them and I have seen YOU perform them. In your love for each other I see changed lives. In struggles I have seen you take another by the hand and lift them to a new place, nurse them to wholeness and return them to their rightful place in society. In your grief I have seen others stand with YOU until you were able to come out on the otherside of it.

What a wonderful picture. Jesus taking this woman by the hand and helping her up and out of her present state and restoring her to her rightful place. You see it wasn't simply a physical healing that took place in Peter and Andrews home that day.

Social and relational healings are needed in our lives as well.

How can we join Jesus in the miracle of returning others to a shame-less place of community connection? Whose hand do we need to be taking, today? What public rituals might we use to symbolize healing? You see, I think that Peter's mother-in-law's return to serving and waiting on the guests brought this woman back into the household of Community. Isn't that what we all yearn for...to belong...to be free to be just the person God has called us to be in this world. (PAUSE)



There is a Greek word that appears several times in these early chapters of Mark, but with widely different uses. The word is aphiemi. It is used when the fishermen LEAVE work and family and join Jesus. It is used when the fever LEAVES Peter's mother-in-law. It is used by Jesus in not ALLOWING the demons to speak. And it is used of Jesus/God FORGIVING sins.

The word seems to suggest a drastic change from what was before to the present. It is a “LETTING GO” of something in order to move on......whether that is a person leaving or letting go of family or jobs; past wounds or present shame; or sicknesses and sin. It would seem that what Jesus is wanting is that none of these should control our lives.

Perhaps real miracles happen in our lives when we are able to “LET GO” of present fears and past events, relationships, and actions so that they no longer control our lives. The miracle is being able to start fresh and new today.



In today's text Jesus offers an example of what it means to be fully human...a whole person - who gives his or her time and energy generously and lovingly to those around them – but also give time and space generously and lovingly to God.



May it be so in your life and mine......Be Healed this day!