Is healing one of the promises of the kingdom?
by Jodi-Renee Adams
Gospel Reading: Mark 1:29-39
For Sunday, Feb. 5, Year B − Epiphany 5
Jesus starts his ministry with a bang by healing a dying woman and starts an ongoing trend of redefining Sabbath rest.
It only takes a few hours for the villagers catch word of this new teacher and his supernatural authority, and as soon as the sun sets on the Sabbath day, every crazy, ill, or demon possessed person shows up at his door hoping for his touch.
After a typical long night of casting out demons, Jesus tells his disciples that they need to move on; this is why he came and other towns need this preaching, making one wonder what Jesus had in mind when he went out to “preach.”
To preach? Surely not in our limited use or sense of the word.
Frank Perretti Theology?
Demons wig me out. I’ve spent the last few years trying to avoid having to form a theology, philosophy, or even an opinion of demons. I’ve tried even harder to avoid being one of “those” evangelicals who prays that Satan would keep his grimy mitts off of the sound system or out of the weather during the youth group ski trip.
Reading the first chapter of Mark, there’s no way to get around this demon thing, no way to wrap it up tidily especially since the Jews
had such an interestingly relationship with demons. On a folk-lore level, they were the curse of sin and symptoms of a broken and unrighteous person.
More Broadly
Jewish hell legend tells that the damned will be tormented by demons of their own creation. Rabbinic teaching more broadly pictures them as “harmers” able to wreak psychological, physical or emotional damage.
Demons−whether true spirits or legends of lore−seem to point to the thin places where we find ourselves broken, damned, or at least believing that we are.
Preaching and/or Healing?
Whatever you think of demons, the narrative that cradles this particular story is a freight train that rumbles right into the major themes of Jesus’ ministry.
Jesus goes around healing people, casting out demons and then tells his disciples that they need to move on because others need to hear his preaching and reminds them again that this is why he has come.
In our deep enlightenment (snicker), we come to “preaching” as a powerful cognitive practice where we also seek to engage the emotions and wills of our listeners. It seems that to Jesus, preaching involved an act of kingdom justice or healing or touch. It was true proclamation; true Isaiah-style shouting out that justice had come and healing was rising like the dawn.
There’s nothing Western-culture-cognitive about it. His preaching seemed to be more an act of revealing, which is why the “demons” recognized him. No doubt, our own darkness squeals out like possessed pigs when confronted with absolute grace.
Jesus healed them, but what about what harms us?
The Hardest Question
The Gospel of Mark kicks off with stories of Jesus starting a remarkable ministry of healing and preaching. It seems that Jesus’ idea of “preaching” is never separate from his kingdom commission to heal and bind up; in fact, they might even by synonymous.
The hardest question for me: Is healing a promise for those who seek Jesus or an imperative for the Body of Christ? So what is fair to expect from the good news?
Jodi-Renee Adams is a mess of heretical orthodoxy serving the Evangelical Covenant Church. She pastors Ecclesia Denver and does her best to write evangelical liturgy that has beauty and truth and not too many fluffy adjectives. The rest of her time is spent giving rest to Denver’s weary souls at her gigs as a jazz and soul singer.
