I preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on Sunday, January 23 as part of our exploration of the book of Mark. The text is Mark 1:21-39; read it here.
There’s a difference between knowing something,
and really knowing something.
After my friend Nancy gave birth to her first child she said, “Everyone tells you that your life will never be the same again, and you believe them, and you know that your life will never be the same again, but there’s no way for you to possibly understand that your life will really, actually, never, be the same again.”
Expectation is different from experience.
Unfortunately for us, the bible very rarely uses the words, “And Jesus thought...” We hear all about what Jesus said, and all about what Jesus did, but we don’t know too much about what it was all like for him. How much he knew about who he was or the role he was going to play. We have only the Jesus who was visible, public. Only the face he shared with those around him, and the words he spoke as he taught and healed.
But notice the progression of the first chapter of this book:
Jesus goes to be baptized by John the prophet,
the skies open up,
he’s driven out into the wilderness.
When he comes back,
John is in prison,
and suddenly its up to him to preach,
up to him to bring this message that something is happening,
that Israel is being renewed.
He gathers a few disciples,
ends up teaching in the town square in Capernaum,
heals a man with an unclean spirit,
awes the crowd,
pisses off the priests and elders because of his cheek,
and by that night the entire city is crowded around the door of Peter’s house
trying to get him to heal their sick friends.
Meanwhile, every time he heals someone with a deamon,
they’re saying things like
“You’re the Holy One of God!”
which isn’t a great thing considering the priests are already mad
and John is in prison for much less.
Things have gotten really out of control really quickly, and I imagine that if the bible ever recorded what Jesus thought, he’d be thinking, “I knew I was gonna preach repentance, but I didn’t know it was going to be like this.”
Expectation is different from experience.
Everyone seems to want a piece of Jesus.
Everyone seems to need him,
to need his gifts,
to need healing,
to need exorcism.
They’re at his door,
at his feet,
pressed in around him.
A chapter later they’re lowering
a paralyzed guy in through the roof.
Everyone needs what Jesus has.
Everyone needs a word of hope,
a touch of healing.
The assurance that there is a different and better way,
a renewed world,
if we can take just a moment to look at ourselves and our lives,
and decide to do something different,
to follow.
Everyone needs what Jesus has,
or at least,
they think they do.
Because they haven’t yet realized
that just as he didn’t know what on earth he was getting into,
neither do they,
and that in just a few chapters
he’ll be sending them out two by two,
to heal just as he does.
and that a few chapters after that,
he’ll be dead.
And they’ll be on their own.
Expectation is different from experience.
We never quite realize what it is that we’re getting into,
and it’s a good thing, too.
Because if we understood the risks we might never have taken them.
A fledgeling preacher cries out in a unpracticed voice,
“The time of God is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near,”
and finds himself suddenly
at the center of a escalating fray.
He might have expected this,
but could never have fully understood.
Some men put down their fishing nets one day
to follow a teacher whose words have authority,
and finds themselves swept along in a movement
that will take them to the heart of Jerusalem.
They might have expected this,
but they could have never fully understood.
We never feel qualified to follow the call God has placed on our lives.
We never feel ready and we never feel right.
We’ll never know the risk it will entail,
the exhaustion or hardship we’ll feel,
the sacrifices we’ll make,
the places we’ll end up.
And it’s a good thing too,
because otherwise
we may never put down that net
and choose to follow.
But once we’ve touched someone who’s wounded
and found we can heal them,
there’s no turning back.
The experience is so much bigger, so much wider,
so much fuller...
we might have expected it would feel this way,
but we never could have really understood.
I agree that experience is a lot more
Posted by: www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawlRQusysHYb3Y5wG20bcL5NhmEdsrPY3G0 | 01/25/2011 at 05:53 PM