Epiphany (cont.)
We’re near the end. Epiphany is nearly over. Ash Wednesday is just around the corner. It seems like just yesterday we were celebrating the birth of Jesus. But as short as it has been, this Epiphany has been full of – well, epiphanies. Epiphany is all about revealing to all of us, just who it was that was born in that manger in Bethlehem.
Today it’s Mark’s turn to fill us in with the details about who this Carpenter from Nazareth is – and no one is better suited for the job. In his Gospel, Mark seeks to answer the question that millions have asked themselves at one time or another – who is Jesus of Nazareth? Indeed, the whole Gospel of Mark could be seen as a vast series of epiphanies that all serve to drive home one point: this man Jesus is God Himself. It was God in the manger. It was God on the cross. What is this God like? Well, just take a look at the Gospel of Mark and you’ll find out.
Everything in Mark serves to point us to the identity of Jesus, but this epiphany from Mark’s first chapter doesn’t seem to fit. Here we have the epiphany that Peter’s Mother-in-law had a fever.
This story is bizarre, and very little about it fits the fast-paced pattern of storytelling that Mark has established in the previous 28 verses. Despite the rapid pace with which Mark moves, as soon as Jesus reached the threshold of Peter’s house, the story grinds to a halt.
We’re not told a whole lot about what happened in the house, but we can certainly imagine what it might have been like.
The brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew, are the first the enter (it is their house after all). I wonder, had they been home since this new Rabbi, Jesus, had made them His disciples? With them were James, John, and Jesus. Once inside, it became obvious that the brothers were not prepared to host a rabbi like Jesus. You see, the matriarch of the family was ill. She was running a fever. With time at a standstill as the family took care of her, and without the hawk-like attention to detail that is characteristic of mother-in-laws everywhere, the house was probably not looking its best.
I don’t think that it’s a stretch of the imagination to assume that she was beside herself with embarrassment. The boys had come home, and they had brought some new friends with them. One of them was this man Jesus that she had heard the neighbors talking about. If she had her way, the house would be spotless and the table would be spread with her very best. But no, here she was, sick and in bed – a fever shaking her body with chills.
For Peter’s Mother-in-law things couldn’t get worse. And then they did.
Heavy footsteps walking towards her bed compelled her to open her eyes. The rabbi Himself was walking to her bed! The audacity of such a thing. For a strange man to be so close to an ailing woman – well that was unheard of.
This Jesus, He was out of place. This Jesus, He didn’t belong there. But there He was. There, at her bedside, was Jesus the Son of God, Jesus the one who taught with authority, Jesus the one who cast out demons.
There was Jesus – for her.
It was her Jesus there in her house. There He was, taking time out of His busy schedule for her cough. She wasn’t even dying, and yet, there was Jesus. There was Jesus making a pit stop on His trip to the cross for the sake of her fever.
Peter’s Mother-in-law met God that day in a place where it would seem that God didn’t belong, and there in that place He restored her. Peter’s Mother-in-Law, laying there with her fever, learned something about who God is. She had an epiphany.
That day, Peter’s mother-in-law learned that God is not a God that sets Himself apart from His creation. God is not the sort of God who isn’t willing to get His hands dirty in the trivial affairs of material things. No.
Our God is a God who became a material thing for the sake of material things.
Peter’s mother-in-law learned that God loves His creation, so much so that He is willing to enter the house of a sick woman, to restore his creation with a touch of His hand. She would no doubt see for herself, or hear from Peter, that God’s love for His creation would go even further. His love would go so far as to being willing to pay the ultimate price in order to see the creation restored. And this restoration – it is all-encompassing.
This restoration is about wiping away the stain of sin from the face of God’s people – it’s also all about wiping away the perspiration from a feverish brow.
This restoration is about placing Israel back into the proper place in God’s kingdom – it’s also about placing broken bones back into their respective joints.
This restoration is about healing the relationship between God and humanity that sin had torn to pieces – it’s also about healing strained relationships between husband and wife, parent and child.
This restoration is about healing the deep wounds inflicted by and death and despair – it’s also about healing skinned knees and bruised elbows.
This restoration, it’s all about satisfying the insatiable desire that God’s people have to be heard and loved by God – it’s also all about satisfying rumbling stomachs and parched lips.
That is exactly what this season of Epiphany is all about. It’s about the revelation that Jesus is God in the midst of His people. Why did Jesus take the time to visit the house of Simon and Andrew? Why did Jesus walk over to the bedside of Peter’s mother-in-law? Why did He go where God didn’t seem to belong? Because that is who He is. He is God who came to restore every single facet of the creation, even something as insignificant as a fever.
On the day when He returns, the restoration will be made perfect. Jesus will come and take care of it all. Even the little, material things, like a fever, a cough, or a runny nose – Jesus will come and restore it all, just like He did for Peter’s mother-in-law.
But what do we do in the meantime? Well Peter’s mother-in-law provides a great example for us to follow. Jesus lifts her up by the hand, the fever leaves her, and what does she do? She worships Him. But she doesn’t do it with a hymn or psalm, or something piously appropriate like that. No, she does the only thing that there is for her to do. Jesus heals her, and she worships Him by living faithfully right where God placed her. She worships her Jesus by getting to work serving the people that God had given for her to serve. She sets the table, prepares the meal, and serves her guests – and in the very act of doing this, she worships her Creator and Redeemer.
To you who have been restored by Christ and now await His return, worship Him who makes you whole by doing what you have been given to do. Son, daughter, friend, citizen, brother and sister in Christ – each one of you has been given a job to do. So go, worship God this day as you serve your neighbor. Go, worship God. Tell your roommates, tell the people you sit in class with about the God who likes to go places where He doesn’t seem to belong – places like a sick woman’s bedroom, a cross made of wood, and bread and wine broken and poured out for you.
Tell them about the God who rose from the grave, and is coming soon to restore everything.