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*“Stop, Look and Listen”*
Mark 1:29-45                                                                       Pastor Bruce Dick – BEFC
Pt. 4 of “Who is Jesus…?”
April 15, 2007
            Every one of us here this morning knows how easy it is to be distracted.
You’re making supper and you have two things on the stove and one in the oven, bringing one to a slow boil and the meat in the oven is gently baking.
Then it happens – the phone rings, the dog starts barking, and simultaneously each of your kids has an emergency that they need you for – right now!  Am I close?
And 15 minutes later you return to the stove and the slow boil has become an overflowing volcano, now baking onto the surface of your stove, the meat in the oven is becoming crisp and you haven’t even set the table.
Or try this:  Anyone ever left the water running outside to water some plants and you figure you’ll just do something really quick while that soaks up?  Anyone ever returned 2 hours later to find that not only is the flowerbed soaked but so it the basement?
Or how about this; eventually you farmers will be in the field.
A number of years ago we had a Concord air seeder and because it relies on air to blow the seed and distribute it, there is kind of a vacuum effect in the seed and fertilizer compartments.
Well, my brother was seeding that day and for whatever reason, when he was filling the seed and fertilizer compartments, there were 4 latches on each top cover and he got distracted and latched two of the ones on the seed compartment.
40 acres later he realized that he had been seeding only a fraction of the seed he needed to, just enough to keep the monitors quiet!
But you guys never make mistakes like that do you?
No one is perfect, but sometimes we just wish we could keep our focus.
What do we do when we realize that we have become distracted or realize that we could?
How do we “stay on course?
How do we keep the main thing the main thing?
Would you be surprised if I told you that Jesus faced the same problem?
Now he didn’t make the mistakes that you and I did, but he could very easily have lost his focus and gotten off course with all that was happening to him.
Three Sunday’s ago when we last were in Mark’s first chapter, the distractions were only beginning, and Jesus was the cause of the first ones.
First, he went into the temple on the Sabbath and blew them away with his authoritative teaching; he had – do you remember the word?
– s’mikhah.
He is the best of the best of the rabbis and he can give new truth.
But then he casts a demon out of a man in church – in church!
– and that just scares the pants off the people; but it sure explodes his popularity!
Now everyone wants a piece of him.
And the potential distractions are only going to increase.
How do we keep from becoming distracted?
How do we stay on course?
Here’s the answer; I borrow it from what every child is taught about crossing the street; 3 words – STOP, LOOK and LISTEN.
Three short, simple words.
A child of 3 or 4 years old can understand this.
Your ball rolls out into the street and you get to the edge of the curb and a voice rings in your head; it’s your parents – STOP, LOOK AND LISTEN.
So you stop, you look both ways – twice – to see if any car is coming, and as you do, you simply listen; sometimes you hear a vehicle coming and for whatever reason, you didn’t see it.
STOP, LOOK AND LISTEN is not only good advice for children crossing a street, but for Christians who are constantly distracted by the world and all the pressures associated with living.
I want you to see what happened to Jesus and what he did about it and then I want to come back to what you and I can and must do if we are going to stay on course.
If you still have your Bibles open to Mark 1, good!
If you don’t, would you do so now!
Let me give you a quick overview of what is happening here in this passage.
I say that there are two “bookends” to this passage.
You know what bookends are; I’ve got two right here in my hands.
One on each end keeps the books in between upright and neatly put together.
There are two bookends in this story this morning and in between, Jesus stops, looks and listens.
Take a look.
Bookend #1 - VERSE 29:  The service is finished at the synagogue; Jesus has left the folks scared and breathless, in disbelief at what they have just seen.
But now it is time for a meal.
So they go to the home of two of the disciples – Simon (Peter) and Andrew – along with James and John.
VERSE 30:  But when they get there, there’s a problem – no meal.
Why?
Peter’s mother-in-law is very sick with a fever.
Does that fact that it says Peter has a mother-in-law surprise you?  Did you realize that he was married?
We know very little about his wife except that he had one.
Only Paul refers to her in 1 Cor.
9:5, which says, /“Do we not have the right to take along (on our journeys) a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and CEPHAS?”/
Cephas is Peter.
It seems, and tradition backs this up, that Peter’s wife accompanied him on his travels?
Does that surprise you?
It did me too!  Tradition also says that his wife was martyred, killed or crucified, just before he was, and he was forced to watch.
His last words to her were reported to be, /Remember the Lord!/
And then she died.
At any rate, the custom in Israel was that when you got married, you moved into your father’s house until you made enough money to move out.
Add to the fact that his mother-in-law lives there too; this would have been rather interesting.
How many of you who are married would like to live in your parents’ home for the first years of your marriage AND also have your mother-in-law there too!  Yikes!
I know that my parents lived with my dad’s parents for a few months and that was bad enough! 
            Anyway, Peter’s mother-in-law has a bad fever; Dr. Luke, who wrote the gospel by that name, indicates that medically it was very bad.
They get to the house; see her lying in bed and rush to tell Jesus about this – after all, he has authority to cast out a demon, he can surely cure a fever!
Look at the gentleness of Jesus:  He came, took her by the hand and lifted her up and bam, the fever is gone.
The word is stronger than it appears her; this fever fled from her, it was cast off in the same way Jesus cast off a demon.
When the Great Physician touches you, physical torment flies out of the building.
And as if to emphasize how thoroughly she is healed, her response it to get up and serve them, making a meal for all of them.
Now you read this and you think, /“Good grief!
What do they expect of this woman; she’s been sick for crying out loud!  How rude!”/
But that’s missing the point.
Now think about this; when you’ve been down with a fever for a few days, do you all of a sudden pop out of bed and go back to work?
Well, you might go to work but when people ask how you are, what do you say?
You say, /“Well, I’m starting to feel a bit better, but I’m still feeling pretty weak.”/
That’s how thoroughly Jesus heals her; there’s no recovery period; she bounces out of bed, so healthy and so grateful, she’s busying herself around the kitchen as these new disciples stare in amazement.
VERSE 32:  The episode in the synagogue really opened up a can of worms.
At sundown, which marked the end of Sabbath, the sick and demon possessed show up at the entrance to their home.
They come out of the woodwork.
They had to, by Jewish law, do nothing until sundown, but with sundown they come and keep coming.
VERSE 33-34:  The whole city is gathered outside their door and Jesus, this rabbi with s’mikhah does what he has authority to do – he heals them physically and he reaches into their lives spiritually, casting out demons.
It made me wonder how many demon-possessed people lived in that area anyway.
My goodness!
This was spiritual warfare.
But look at Jesus; he wouldn’t permit the demons to talk.
The one in the synagogue did, but not these.
It shows again Jesus’ authority; they knew who he was and they were desperate to share this little secret, but it wasn’t the time and the place and Jesus says, “No you don’t.
Get out of here and remain quiet.”
Now this is one busy day!  Jesus is taking this city by storm.
And no doubt the line to see Jesus is endless and somehow, some way, perhaps well after midnight, he finally says that this is enough for one day; how he ended things we don’t know.
All of that is one bookend.
All of this is a clear demonstration of his authority, not only to teach but to heal on a physical and spiritual level.
Do you think Jesus was busy?
Do you think he was as busy as you are in the course of a day?
I have to admit that Jesus worked longer and harder than all of us; it was physically demanding but it was also direct spiritual warfare, hour after hour after hour.
It was good that they had supper earlier because I’m sure he had no time to eat.
I imagine Jesus finally crawling into bed, maybe 1 o’clock in the morning; you know that feeling when you crawl into bed after an exhausting day?
I sure do; Easter night was one of those; sunrise service, Easter service, company all afternoon and evening; man, when I hit that mattress, my body just went, “ahhh.”
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