Brown's Daily Word 2/13/15

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I am preaching from Mark Chapter 1: A Day in the Life of Jesus. It was a beautiful and bright day yesterday. There is almost two feet of snow on the ground. The fields and the hills are covered and sheltered. I heard some birds sing yesterday. They are the harbingers of spring. The Spring Season has already landed in the area where I was born in Orissa, India. The Mango trees are blossoming. The Cotton trees are bursting forth with deep red flowers. Soon the bushes, flowering trees, and flowering briars will be aflame with beauty. As the spring moves gently and surely the winter makes room for spring and the winter flees away.
  Alice and I walked in the Mall last evening. It was full of people of all ages, cheerful and joyful. Soon the Lord will bring forth the new birth in the abundance and awakening of springtime. They all tell the story of Jesus.
Today I am looking at Mark 1:21-35, where the Scripture tells about a day in the life of the Lord. Mark 1 is written about the beginning of Jesus' ministry. He brings life, abundant and eternal to the world.
 Often people question, "What is life all about?" Henry David Thoreau tried to address this question when he said, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”
  In the movie City Slickers (1991), an advertising executive comes to speak to his son's class about what he does for a living. Instead, he launches into a tirade about living a dull life: "Kids, value this time in your life, because this is the time in your life when you still have your choices, and it goes by so quickly. When you're a teenager you think you can do anything, and you do. Your 20s are a blur. Your 30s, you raise your family, you make a little money and you think to yourself, 'What happened to my 20s?' "Your 40s, you grow a little pot belly, you grow another chin. The music starts to get too loud and one of your old girlfriends from high school becomes a grandmother. Your 50s you have a minor surgery. You'll call it a procedure, but it's a surgery. Your 60s you have a major surgery, the music is still loud, but it doesn't matter because you can't hear it anyway. "Seventies, you and the wife retire to Fort Lauderdale; you start eating dinner at 2, lunch around 10, breakfast the night before. And you spend most of your time wandering around malls looking for the ultimate in soft yogurt and muttering, 'How come the kids don't call?' By your 80s, you've had a major stroke, and you end up babbling to some Jamaican nurse, who your wife can't stand but who you call 'Mama.' Any questions?"
Life is more than just moving through the decades. Jesus came so we might have life and live it to the fullest. As we follow Him for a day, and we find few points of connection with Him. It is written "When the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach." The people were amazed that Jesus spoke with such authority. That Saturday, something unusual happened at Jesus' church. A man under the control of an evil spirit jumped up and started to shout at Jesus. Suddenly a man jumped up and started screaming, "What do You want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!"
From the very beginning, demons recognized Jesus as the Son of God, and they trembled because they knew they would be destroyed. Jesus commanded the demon to be silent and leave the man. The man started shaking, and with a final scream, the demon departed. The people were astonished that Jesus had authority to command evil spirits.
The record of Mark contains more demon stories per page than the writings of the other three gospel writers. Demons are real. There are evil entities at work in our world and can't be explained simply as sinful human nature.
During my college days I read Dr. Paul Tournier who was a famous Swiss physician and author who saw the connection between physical and spiritual in sickness. He wrote: "There are many doctors, who in their struggle against disease, have had, like me, the feeling that they were confronting not something passive, but a clever and resourceful enemy" (A Doctor's Casebook in the Light of the Bible).
I love the scene in Mark 1 as Jesus teaches and heals in the synagogue and then goes to Peter's House for "Sunday dinner" - really Sabbath dinner, on Saturday. The Bible says, "As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. . . the fever left her and she began to wait on them."
 Peter was married, although we never learn his wife's name. Peter's mother-in-law was sick in bed with a fever, and Jesus healed her. The purpose of this visit was to share a meal and have fellowship. Peter and Andrew invited Jesus into their home . It wasn't a long walk; Capernaum was a small city, and the distance from the synagogue to Peter's house was about 150 feet. The Bible says, "That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed." Sunset on Saturday would have been the end of the Sabbath. Of course, nobody had watches, so the people waited until they could count three stars in the sky to know Sabbath had ended. People had heard about the power of Jesus, and they anxiously were waiting for the time when they wouldn't violate the Sabbath by carrying their loved ones to meet Jesus.
There was a difference between those who were sick and those who were demon-possessed. Jesus healed the sick and cast out demons. Peter introduced his mother-in-law, who was lying down with fever, to Jesus, and Jesus healed her. She rose up and served Him. In the evening at end of the Sabbath people did bring many hurting people to Jesus and He healed them.
 We are called to introduce the hurting people in our families and in our work circles to Jesus. He is able to give the life and life abundant, life Eternal. It is exciting and adventurous to follow Jesus, for He is the Way, the Life and the Truth.
 In Christ, Brown
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