Meditation on Mark 1:35-45
For Feb. 12, 2012
A question came up in confirmation class last Sunday. “Why did Jesus, who did not sin, go to hell?” We all agreed that it was an excellent question, so I will share the answer with you all.
Why did a loving God allow someone who was without sin—perfect, actually—to be crucified and “descend into hell” as we say in our Apostle’s Creed? And hell being the worst kind of punishment for a human being; all physical discomforts aside, it is, for those who are condemned for their rejection of God and His righteousness, an eternity of separation from the Lord.
Why would God let that happen to His only Son—the one who loved and served God better than anyone else?
What my wise student was asking about was Christ’s humanity. His human-ness. Our creed that was first written at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D. and agreed upon by all the Western Church—and of which our Reformed tradition still affirms today—says Christ was fully divine AND fully human, “like us in all respects, apart from sin.”
This means that he experienced all the bodily needs and frailties in the human experience—hunger, thirst, fatigue, and cold. And he felt all the emotions people experience, including the temptation to react sinfully to sinful behavior and attitudes around him. But the difference between Christ’s human-ness and ours is that Christ, though he was tempted, was always completely obedient to God.
Our gospel in Mark begins today with Christ sneaking off in the middle of the night to a lonely place to pray. Jesus is now so famous that he can’t ever be alone in the daytime. It’s getting to the point that He can’t leave the house without being mobbed. And it isn’t that Christ is selfish and just wants to be left alone. He needs to be alone so He can seek God’s face, listen to His voice, and obey His Will.
That is Christ’s priority—time with God. So much so, that even though His body, like ours, needs rest, He deprives Himself so He can be with God for those precious moments—until His disciples find him and draw Him away, once again, to be with them and continue in His ministry.
After Christ heals the leper, the crowd control situation worsens. Christ can no longer travel about the towns anymore, preaching in the synagogues, which is what He wants to do.
You see, Christ isn’t doing all these healing miracles to make himself famous and draw Israel away from their ancient faith in the one true God. He is healing out of love, with God’s power, and for God’s glory. Christ specifically tells the man he heals to go directly to the priest and satisfy the religious requirements for purity and holiness so the man can return to the worship of God and life with his family in community. As a leper, he is considered “unclean” and not just in a health way. The demons are called “unclean spirits.” “Unclean” is a state of evil and thought to be contagious, much like the disease of leprosy itself.
Christ’s battle, like ours today, is with the forces of evil and not with “bad” people. Demons influence the thoughts and actions of “bad” people. This is spiritual warfare! When you read stories of Christ’s healings, think of Him not as a doctor of miracles, as we may be tempted to think of Him. Think of Him as the One with direct access to all the power of goodness in God crushing the deeds of darkness, rendering the demons powerless, and casting them far, far away. In the passage preceding today’s reading in Mark, that’s exactly what happens.
Despite the fact that Christ is no longer able to leave the countryside after word of the leper’s healing gets out, people from all over still come to hear the one who says He has been called not to be served but to serve. They are drawn to the message of repentance, forgiveness, and love, spoken by the one who places time with His Heavenly Father above everything else.
This perfect, sinless one is whom God uses as a sacrifice for all the sins of all the people in the world, yesterday, today and forever. He not only allows Christ to suffer, die and go to hell; this is God’s plan for salvation. Only God could provide the perfect, blameless sacrifice.
What’s more, Christ is willing to be the sacrifice, though he feels the pain of the beatings of the whip, the nails pounded in his hands and feet, the crown of thorns thrust on His head, the sword piercing His side. He says to God, “Not my Will, but Yours be done.”
Jesus dies and goes to hell, taking on Himself the punishment we deserve.
Why would He do such a thing?
Love. A love we cannot fully understand, but one we are called to learn from and imitate. The good news is that Jesus did not stay in the grave. On the third day, Christ rose from the dead, showing us how we, too, will be raised and reconciled with God for all time. Then Christ sent us His Spirit so we would have the power of God’s goodness in us to penetrate and crush the forces of darkness and rescue others from an eternity of suffering and separation from God.
Today, we welcome four of God’s special servants in our church as we install them as ruling elders. These four, filled with the Holy Spirit, are willing to be clay for God to mold and use for His purposes. They are offering all of themselves—their gifts, skills, experience, time, intelligence, personality, humor, compassion, patience, and kindness—to help us understand and live out the Gospel in our church, community and world. We are truly blessed!
They will help shape the mission of this church. They will be instruments of God’s reconciling love among us.
They may feel overwhelmed at times as they respond to Christ’s call to discipleship. Because Christ’s model for love is very, very hard to follow.
This kind of love is always sacrificial. It hurts sometimes.
But we, in turn, will promise to pray for them, give them our unceasing respect and support, and seek God’s grace, wisdom and Will for them as they serve the Lord by serving our church.
Time with God, reading His Word and listening for His voice, will be our priority, just as it was for Jesus Christ.
Who got up in the middle of the night… while it was still very dark… and went to a lonely place…
And there He prayed.
Amen.
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