After two weeks of build-up, tonight at 6:30 pm, the most important event in America will happen – two groups of men will face-off over a stuffed piece of pigskin to see which group can run, pass, and kick the ball to the end of an acre of ground more often. On this basis, great honor will go to either the Boston area or the Philadelphia area.
There will be great debates this afternoon over whether or not there is enough air in the pigskin. There will be great debates over whether the leader of the Boston team is too old. There will be great debates over whether or not Justin Timberlake will have a great worship service. And in the end, the silver pigskin idol will be passed into the possession of one or the other teams of priests.
Over a hundred million Americans will watch this worship service tonight, the greatest worship of the year.
Over a hundred advertisements will have been placed and viewed, with the greatest companies in America wanting to be associated with this religion of the pigskin.
Isaiah 40:21-31; Psalm 147:1-11, 20; 1 Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39
This religious service is so important that tens of millions of dollars have been spent on security, because it is recognized that people from another religion might try to attack the people who attend this greatest worship service of the most popular religion in America, the worship of the pigskin.
And in ancient times, God told His people that pigs were unclean, that their meat wasn’t fit to eat, and a great rebellion happened in Israel once because an outside king chose to roast a pig on the altar of the Temple.
It is like a great spiritual disease infects Americans this time of year. Church activities are changed, people who are normally very devout Christians suddenly are sitting on edge during the game, people who ordinarily show up promptly to work on Monday morning because they normally go to bed at 9:30 and get up at 5:30 stay up until 11 and stumble into work barely on time – and their bosses show up even later. It is a great disease that takes us away from the Living God and gives us the pigskin god. It takes us away from Christ.
Jesus’ leading disciple was Simon Peter. And Peter’s mother-in-law was sick in bed with a fever – something very serious in a time before antibiotics. She could easily have died.
That day, Jesus was coming to visit Peter’s family with his disciples. The Messiah was visiting Peter's home – and his mother-in-law was too sick with fever to come to see Jesus.
Have you ever been too ill, too upset, too distracted, too down-in-the-dumps to come to church to see Jesus? Have you ever been feeling so poorly you’d just as soon not get out of bed on Sunday morning? Perhaps you’ve lost someone, perhaps you have the flu, perhaps you’ve had a rough week, perhaps you’ve been traveling and you’re tired. You just feel like seeing all those people will be too much!
Peter and Andrew told Jesus about Peter’s mother-in-law and the way she was feeling. They brought up to the Messiah of Israel, the Savior of the World, the Son of God that Peter’s mother-in-law had a fever and had taken to her bed.
And that same Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, God the Son, cared enough about that one woman that he went to her, he took her hand, and he helped her up.
She didn’t have to reach out to Him – he went to her. She didn’t have to grab ahold of Him – He took her hand. She didn’t have to beg – He helped her up. The Son of God cared about this one woman. She could have refused his offer. But she didn’t.
And what happened?
The fever left her and she began to serve them. She felt better. She felt healthy again, she felt so good she served the Holy Son of God.
Now, you may say, “There it is, she had to serve them”, and you’d missed the point of the story, which was that now she felt so much better she wanted to serve.
Let’s face it.
There are two ways that people look at church. And it all depends upon how we look at coming to church.
Peter’s mother-in-law could have been a grouch. She could have said, “Simon, Simon, why are you bringing your friends over to the house. I’m sick! You’ll need to send out for fish and figs from Isaac’s delivery house! Go outside – eat outside and leave me alone!”
And some days, we look at all the people in the church and we think – “I don’t want to talk to them today. I’m running a fever – see, it says 99F on the thermometer – and I had some sniffles last night, I stayed up late watching television, I have homework to do, I have to clean out the linen closet, I need to get home in time for the pre-game show” and the truth of the matter is that somewhere along the line, we began to look at Peter and the other disciples and the work in the kitchen, we began to look at the people we run into as a burden, and we decided that church is something we are trying to squeeze into our schedule.
Or, we can recognize that the Savior of the world wants to see us, to hold our hand, to lift us up, to heal us, and He is giving us the chance to serve Him, to listen to stories about what He has done, to be in His presence! Is church a burden or a blessing?
Folks, if you are here looking at the people around you, looking at me, listening to the music we try to make, your focus is on the wrong thing, like all those people who did not come to church today but will be paying tremendous attention to the movement of that pigskin on that acre of grass tonight.
But if you have come to listen to how the Son of God has acted in the past, how the God that created the Universe is still acting, and how the Holy Spirit that dwells inside you wants to speak to you, your focus is right. And if you want to turn to that Son of God who has delivered you from certain agonizing permanent death to an eternal life which has already begun – your focus is right.
Later that evening, after the sun had set, people came to Jesus and brought many people who needed healing to Him. All night long Jesus healed people. He healed them physically, He healed them emotionally, and He healed their spirits. In the Greek language of the original, the word we translate as “heal” more accurately means, “made whole.”
Like a repair shop, Jesus made people’s bodies whole, He made their hearts whole, He made the minds and their spirits whole – for the first time in their lives. He gave them a mission – to tell of God’s love to everyone in the world. Now, they had what they needed to live a purpose-filled, eternal life full of joy.
For it is when we have encountered Jesus’ healing touch – and usually we need that touch many times, even weekly, even daily – that the rotten places in our souls that the world has touched with its diseased hands are removed and replaced with and by the eternal Spirit of God.
Mark points out that in many cases Jesus cast out demons. Like maggots, the demons need removed from our souls before Jesus can make us whole. And there are demons that want to destroy our souls – the demon of addiction, the demon of depression, the demon of hopelessness, the demon of worthlessness, the demon of loneliness, the demon of anger, the demon of control, and many others. They need to be cast out before we can be whole and so we need to ask Jesus to cast out these demons so we can be healed.
After a full night’s work, Jesus and the disciples got some rest, but Jesus got up early and went off by himself to pray. His disciples eventually woke up and followed him and found him and told him – “Everyone is looking for you!”
But Jesus said, “Let’s go to other villages and I’ll preach and heal people there, too.”
And that is what they did.
Now that Jesus has returned to Heaven, He has left his Holy Spirit with each of us, his followers. And now, the Church – you and me and all the other Christians – is to act as the Body of Christ and spread His healing to other places, other people, other villages.
How are we doing?
Super Bowl Update: I clicked over to see the Super Bowl just after the game ended and watched the presentation of the Lombardi Trophy.
Years ago, I was privileged to attend a bar-mitzva of one of my son's friends at the local synagogue. When the Torah was brought out (the scrolls of what Christians call The Old Testament), the Torah was paraded up and down the aisles, with each person in the congregation touching or kissing the holy scroll cases. It was the expression of devout followers of their respect and worship of the God that was revealed in those scrolls.
Last night, I saw the same routine played out on national television as the victorious Eagles players kissed the Lombardi Trophy as it was carried to the platform for the presentation.
Have we gone too far in turning our entertainment into worship?
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