Healing, resurrection, and a place apart

 A sermon for St. Paul's and St. John's Lutheran churches, Guttenberg, IA

           Jesus ordered them to tell no one, but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.

            This whole business about Jesus and keeping things a secret has to be one of my favorite things about Jesus. In one of the most central moments in Jesus ministry—after being raised from the dead—Jesus famously directs us to go and make disciples of everybody we come across, which is very familiar to us who know the whole story over thousand years later. More surprising is picking up your Bible, starting in the beginning of the book of Mark, and reading countless stories of Jesus’ ministry and what does Jesus tell us for the first 95% of the story: Keep it quiet! Don’t tell anybody! In fact, my favorite instance of all comes in the first verse of today’s Gospel where it says that Jesus entered a house to get away from everybody. I don’t think that’s the image many of us have of Jesus in our heads—hiding in a house from people who want him to heal them.

Two thousand years later, we have internalized little about what Jesus is up to here. Instead, we read the healing stories—we get jazzed about how cool Jesus is—and then we tell everybody about it—just like the people who witnessed those healings two thousand years ago. Who could argue with that?

Well, it turns out the one person who is not a fan of us doing this is actually Jesus. Jesus does not want them to say anything. Why?

There is actually a very clear reason—one that plays out again and again when we make the Christian faith about little miracles. Now, don’t get me wrong, miracles are powerful, but they are also personal and temporary. This is why Jesus holds up his finger, because when we worship the Jesus who heals, we risk worshipping an inferior god. A tempting god, for sure. Who doesn’t want healing? But the truth is it is not enough. This Jesus we meet in the Gospel of Mark is laser-focused on the cross and the resurrection. Jesus does not want us to rely on little miracles for our faith; rather, he wants us to forget about it entirely and instead stand in wonder of what a far bigger miracle looks like—the miracle of the cross.

Jesus, the great resurrector, can hardly help but heal those he comes in contact with, but he is also wise enough to understand that those healings are dangerous in a way. He didn’t come to earth to heal a few people, and if folks go around saying that he is just a great healer, then they may well miss the bigger picture. For us today it is much the same. If our faith is only ever tied to physical healing we have a serious problem—we are all going to die—even Lazarus, who Jesus raised from the dead, died again. You could argue he got the rawest deal. And none of this fixes the fact that life isn’t fair, because not everybody gets healed who we feel should be healed. In the 21^st century, we still lose children to cancer, to war, to accidents; we are hardly any closer to repairing blindness than they were in Jesus’ day. Modern medicine is amazing and limited, and so are the healings of Jesus. The deaf hear. The blind see. But if that’s it, then it is just not enough.

I am incredibly encouraged by this Jesus we meet in the Gospel of Mark, who so clearly recognizes this, because I am sometimes guilty of believing that what we need is a little healing, a little miracle, which for me is so often the miracle of my children just behaving for 10 minutes so I can preach a sermon or drink my coffee. But the truth is that I don’t need those little miracles—instead, I need to know that death does not win at the end of the day, because all of this is fragile. No amount of faithfulness on my part will keep my children safe; no amount of good behavior will assure healing. I know very little in the scheme of things, but I know that the world does not work this way, and still we rage against that reality, because our human nature is to crave a world where everybody gets what they deserve. And so we transfer that from our current lives to our after-lives and place all our prejudices into the next world, believing we are righteous and whoever we don’t like—they surely must be condemned to hell. Something inside of me wants to believe that, but then I realize why Jesus actually came. The problem is that we are all incredibly beautiful creatures deserving of love and peace, and we are selfish and fearful creatures who value our life over those of our neighbors. We are sinners and saints.

We love the idea of Jesus coming to bring justice to the world until we are told we are the ones who deserve death—not just some other people—and that is why Jesus had to come—not to heal us from sickness but to dive with us into death with the astounding promise that there is something more wonderful on the other side. That is what I need when I look at my children—not for them to behave, not even for them to be good, because they are born little sinners, let me tell you that. From day one, they are needy and selfish, and they care only about what you have done for them lately, just like all of us were when we were babies. No, I don’t need them to be good or good enough, but I do need them to have a life that is not limited by death. That is why I need Jesus.

That is what Ewalu is here to teach campers. I’m halfway done and finally get to Ewalu, I know. And if you want to know how hard it is to preach, some of you just heard I’m halfway done and are relieved, and some of you can’t believe it’s only half over. This is tough.

But back to Ewalu: I get this question all the time, “What are you teaching over there?” and sometimes it is said in exactly that way, with suspicion, because we are human beings so we are skeptical of everything our kids are being taught. I am not sure this is new, but it is definitely popular these days. Parents are skeptical of what their teachers are teaching at school, they are skeptical of things on the internet (which is smart, in general, I think), and they are skeptical of the local Christian camp. And we know the reasons: Because we are being coached to align everything that happens in the world with some sort of political viewpoint, or talking point, or whatever. So, what are we teaching at Ewalu? Simply, we are teaching that Jesus comes to conquer death. That being a follower of Christ is about being an Easter-person, a cross-person, and a resurrection-person. Everything else is just noise. And because of that, you can bring your full self to Ewalu, because we aren’t going to try to convert you to anything. We’ll nurture you in your beliefs and your doubts, because we believe in a God who saved the world, and that God is capable of holding it all.

Something about the outdoors frees us from our boxes that we live in elsewhere.  Outside, we stop and listen and so often we hear that little voice of God—and maybe we are healed in a sense, but it is healing to assure us that what comes next is what matters. It is no mere happenstance that so many of Jesus’ healings are about sight and hearing, because these senses are precisely how we act out as both sinners and saints. I think of the person who hears for the first time. Nobody whose ears are opened will turn around and say, “Awesome! Now I can listen to political talk radio all day!” To the person who is blind and can see, I don’t believe for a second they are going to think, “Oh, goody, now let me search up the most graphic violence I can find on the internet!”

And why? Because when we are healed, we are aware that all of this comes to us as a gift. Those who are healed recognize that beauty is everywhere in front of our eyes. Those who are healed turn to nature and they turn to their neighbors and they express their gratitude by sharing the good news—not only that they were healed, but, more importantly, that you will be too, but maybe not in the same way.

This is what we are after at Ewalu. Our tagline for so many years has been, “A place apart,” and it’s worth considering why a place apart is valuable. Well, first off, Jesus needed it. When Jesus wasn’t hiding in the house in Tyre hoping nobody would find him, he was often retreating into the wilderness, reconnecting with God and himself. See, it’s not that people are a problem—people are saints and sinners both. The problem is me. You can believe that the world is out there trying to corrupt us and corrupt our children, but we don’t need the world to do that. We are quite eager to corrupt ourselves, given the idea that we are our own saviors. We love that. Deep down, we love that idea. And it eats us up, little by little, until we can no longer take pleasure in simple things—until we are seeking out anger and violence, power and hate.

Jesus goes to a place apart and so should we—whether that place is a camp, or a cabin, or a garden, or a park, or even our own study or kitchen table—because we need to be reminded that we are little in the scheme of things BUT God loves little things. When we know we are loved as a little thing, then we will be inspired by other little things—things that the busy world cannot hear over the din and cannot see over the crowds.

Now, I know you—because I know a bit about me and we are all human, as much as I can tell—and when you find yourself in your own place apart, a part of you will say, “Oh, there is so much to do! Oh, I am wasting so much time. I should really get back to the important stuff.” When these voices start sounding in your head, I suggest you tell that part of you exactly what Jesus told Satan, which is “Go to hell.” Because the meaning of life is those simple moments—like a bird alighting from a branch, a trout rising in a crystal-clear stream or, best of all, your children or grandchildren noticing those little things for the first time and smiling.

Have to include trout somehow!

That is what we are after. You might call it joy, which is simply knowing deep down that you are loved and free to stand in wonder at the universe. We need more of that. We are after that. That is what Ewalu is about, and whether we are a place apart for you and your family, or you have your own place apart somewhere else, I beg you to make that place a priority in your lives. That place will do far more good than this sermon will. Get away from the noise and use those healed ears of yours, open up those eyes, as if with the eyes of a child, and see everything for the first time.