Sermon at All Saints Lutheran Church
12 February 2012, Sixth Sunday after Epiphany
2 Kings 5:1-14; 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; Mark 1:40-45
Pastor Clark Olson-Smith
Instead. Let’s talk about that word, instead. Jesus said, “Say nothing to anyone.” Instead, the man went and proclaimed it freely.
Instead is about the road not taken. It says, “Here is a crossroads between what could have happened and what did happen.” Instead says, “Take note. It could have been different here.”
So what if… What if the man had kept this healing to himself? Went straight to the priest? Did as Jesus said? Would Jesus have been free to come into town? Free to proclaim the message and cast out demons? Could Jesus have touched more people? What else could have happened? But it didn’t. Instead, the man went and proclaimed it freely.
I don’t know exactly why Jesus wanted that man to keep quiet. Maybe because crowds could be dangerous. Crowds gathered at the Jordan River, and John got arrested. Or maybe it was for the same reason we often would rather skip the fanfare and credit when we do someone good. Whatever the reason, Jesus did want him to keep quiet, and there were consequences for spreading the word instead.
But there’s more going on here. It’s an unspoken instead that belongs to Jesus, and it’s much more important than the man’s instead. Because even though stern and insistent, Jesus wanted something else even more. Jesus wanted the man to keep quiet, but not as much as Jesus wanted him to be made clean. Jesus knew what could happen, and Jesus touched him anyway. Instead, Jesus touched him.
And that’s good news for us. More than anything else, Jesus wants us to be made clean too. More than Jesus wants us to learn, Jesus wants us to be healed. Jesus wants us to be free more than Jesus wants us to obey. This is not about us getting our priorities in order. It’s about us coming to trust the order of Jesus’ priorities. Because more than anything Jesus wants us to do, Jesus wants to heal us more.
Mark does not dwell on what could have happened if the man had kept quiet, because Jesus does not dwell on it. He doesn’t keep quiet, but Jesus keeps on healing, keeps on preaching, keeps on giving himself away all the way to the cross where Jesus gave everything away—Jesus gave away his rights, his “what ifs,” his very life.
Just imagine what Jesus could have done instead. If our imagination is stuck, instead we can remember what we have done when others did the opposite of what we wanted. Or remember what others did to us when we did the opposite of what they wanted. Could Jesus have taken back the healing? Could Jesus have started pre-screening the people who came to be healed? Could Jesus have given up in disgust on the whole message and mission?
But instead. Instead Jesus wanted the man to be made clean more than Jesus wanted him to be quiet. Jesus didn’t dwell on the noise the man made, the trouble he caused. And so also with us. Jesus doesn’t dwell on what could have been, but, moved with pity by the condition we are in, Jesus reaches out and heals us. What would it be like to dwell on this, instead of everything else?
What if I had done this instead of that? What if they had done X instead of Y? What if God had done one thing instead of the other? Thanks to Jesus, and his overriding desire to heal and make us whole, we don’t have to dwell on these things anymore. Before our priorities are in order, before we’ve learned our lesson, before we’ve shown the proper obedience and respect, Jesus wants to heal us. On the cross, Jesus did heal us.
So our exile is over. We are no longer trapped in the past, trapped in our heads, cut off from ourselves and others and even God’s own self.
Because the instead of Jesus is more powerful than any human instead. People want obedience. Instead, Jesus wants to heal. No matter what we did do or what we will do, Jesus wants us to be whole, to be released, renewed, reconnected. Nothing we might do instead can change what Jesus wants for us and for all the world.
That means, the cross is the only crossroads that matters. What could have happened and what did happen meet there in Jesus. And all the costs and consequences of what could have been were swallowed in the endless grace of the instead of Jesus. Jesus became human instead and healed instead and died instead and lived instead.
So instead of trapped, we are free. Free to dwell in grace instead of shame. Free to be at peace instead of fighting. Free to live with a cleaner conscience than we have any earthly right to. Free to give up on doing it ourselves, which always becomes fixing and fighting and forcing. We are free to turn to Jesus. And best of all, even though we do run away, disobey, Jesus stretches out to reach us. Jesus wants to heal us and, as the cross shows, Jesus stretches far as it takes.
Consider the man in Mark: Jesus went so far as to trade places with him, an outcast leper. He was untouchable but Jesus touched him anyway. And for the first time, he was free—free to walk around town, free not to be lonely anymore. While Jesus…Jesus stayed in the lonely wilderness, where outcast lepers had to stay. It’s as if that leprosy left the man and stayed with Jesus. Jesus took it and took it willingly, because more than anything Jesus wanted the man to be clean.
Jesus takes everything else that makes us and this world less than whole. And we could say that the leprosy and everything else took Jesus to the cross. But that’s not the way it was. Instead, it was Jesus who took them to the cross. Jesus took all evil and pain and sin and disease and gave himself to defeat them, trusting in the power of God to make the last word life instead of death.
The whole of Jesus’ power of life instead of death is in this bread and wine. After Jesus touches us in this meal, we are free to go. Free to stop worrying about what could or should have been. And free to start living a new life instead.
Amen. Thanks be to God.