Jesus Meets the Needs of Sinners

I. By Caring for their Bodies

II. By Sharing the Good News

(Luke 4:38-44)  Jesus left the synagogue and went to the home of Simon. Now Simon's mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her. {39} So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them. {40} When the sun was setting, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them. {41} Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, "You are the Son of God!" But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Christ. {42} At daybreak Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. {43} But he said, "I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent." {44} And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.

            It’s a principle that’s at the heart of any successful business, from Amazon.com to Zale’s Jewelers, from Mary Kay Cosmetics to Oshkosh Truck.  And the principle is, “Find a need and fill it.”  Isn’t that right?  Every human being on the planet has certain needs. And if someone can put together a company that can effectively meet those needs—well then, they’re in business! 

            When I was in 7^th grade, I discovered that there were people who were willing to pay me to deliver organically grown vegetables to their front door.  So what did I do?  I put two baskets on my bike, loaded them with vegetables I had grown in my backyard garden and peddled them around the neighborhood.  I was in business.  I found a need and then filled it. 

            You realize that as Christians, we are in a similar business.  God has called us into his service.  He’s determined that the people of this world have some critical needs, and he’s met those needs in Jesus Christ.  And now God has called us to share that Good News with others.  Today we begin a three week sermon series outlining exactly how we will do that.  Today we’ll focus on how God can use us to meet people’s physical needs so that we in turn can have an opportunity to share with them how God in Christ has met their spiritual needs.  And of course, there is no better role model for this kind of attention to people’s physical and spiritual needs than Jesus Christ himself.  And so, today we turn to Luke 4 as we consider this theme:

Jesus Meets the Needs of Sinners

I. By Caring for their Bodies

II. By Sharing the Good News

            Our text picks up relatively early in Jesus’ ministry.  He had just served as “guest preacher” in Nazareth and then Capernaum.  After leaving the synagogue, he entered the home of Simon Peter, where he learned that Simon Peter’s mother in law was terribly sick.  The gospel writer Luke, who had been trained as a physician, describes it as “megaloi,” a great or high, life-threatening fever.  The people around her were probably afraid she was going to die.  And so they asked to Jesus to help her.  Jesus response?  He said, “Can’t you see I’ve had a long day?  Don’t you realize that I have more important things to do with my time?  Don’t you know that she’s going to have to die sooner or later?”  No, that’s not what he said, is it?  Luke tells us that Jesus “bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her.”  It’s not merely that the fever broke and she was left wiped out by the illness.  No, Luke says, “She got up at once and began to wait on them.”  In other words, she was immediately and completely restored to full strength.  She went back to her regular routine.

            So, what do we learn from Jesus’ actions?  First, we learn that Jesus does care about people’s physical health.  His heart went out to this woman who was suffering from a physical ailment.  He didn’t give her the cold shoulder.  He didn’t say, “You’re on your own, lady.”  No rather, he went to her, he leaned over her.  Matthew tells us he held her hand.  He communicated in a physical way his love, his concern, his empathy for what she was going through.  And then, he healed her.  He proved once more that he is God, who has the power over wind and wave, the power over death and disease, the power to rescue people from all the bodily effects of sin in this world. 

            So, do those two truths have any application for our lives?  Sure, they do!  How comforting it is for us to know that Jesus cares about our bodies.  He knows when you have a splitting headache, he’s aware of what that last medical test revealed.  He knows about your upcoming surgery.  And he cares!  Just as he cared for Simon Peter’s mother in law he cares for you.  And he alone has the ability to provide you with the relief you’re looking for.  That doesn’t mean he always exercises that ability.  Sometimes in love for us, he uses our ailments to serve a higher purpose, like giving us an opportunity to cling to him a little more tightly, pray a little more fervently.  Or maybe he intends to use our ailments as a means to ultimately take us to heaven.  Whatever the case, it’s a comfort to know that the same Creator God who designed our bodies in the first place has the ability to repair them in his time and way.

            Well, if that’s true that Jesus cares for our bodies, well then, isn’t it appropriate for us to show that same kind of concern for the physical welfare of people around us?  Isn’t that what God’s will for our lives is?  How does Luther put it in the meaning to the Fifth Commandment?  “We should fear and love God that we do not hurt or harm our neighbor in his body, but help and befriend him in every bodily need.”  Help and befriend him in every bodily need.  What does that mean?  Well, for many of you, it means making a donation to the relief effort in Haiti, or dropping off a bag of groceries for the Apple Valley Food Pantry or supporting the efforts of our children to prepare 285,000 meals for needy children around the globe in our in our Children Feeding Thousands program.  For others it may mean bringing a bowl of soup to a neighbor who is sick or offering to watch the kids of a mom who needs some help. 

            In each of these cases, what’s really happening?  Aren’t you, in effect, serving as the arms and legs of God?  Martin Luther liked to say that God wears us as his masks.  In other words, he’s behind what we do to meet the needs of our fellow man.  Let’s face it, God typically doesn’t drop bags of food directly from heaven.  Instead, God has us hand them out for him.  And of course, as we serve as God’s welfare agents, we do so not to win a few brownie points with God.  Rather, we do it because of the grace God showed to us first.              So, as you think about how God cares for the physical needs of mankind, as the Psalmist says, “He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for man to cultivate-- bringing forth food from the earth” (Ps 104:15);  as you think about how Jesus cared for the physical needs of the people of his day: feeding the 5000, healing Simon Peter’s mother in law, or as well as all these others in our text—when you put all that together, it’s pretty clear that Jesus does care about people’s physical needs.  And therefore so should we.

            And yet, here in our text, Jesus makes it clear that in addition to caring for people’s physical needs, there was another need he felt compelled to meet.  Even as people were trying to hang on to Jesus, so that he would be available to keep meeting their physical needs, what did Jesus say to them?  He says, No, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.”  Really, that brings us to our second point:  Jesus meets the needs of sinners not only by caring for their bodies, but also II. By Sharing the Good News.

            Now, what does that mean, that Jesus came to share the good news of the kingdom?  Well, there were a lot of Jews in Jesus’ day, and in fact, people still today who take that to mean that Jesus was planning to establish an earthly kingdom, where peace and justice and goodness will finally prevail.  But that’s not the kind of kingdom Jesus is going to establish.  What did Jesus say in Matthew 10:34?  “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword”.  No, the kingdom of God that Jesus is referring to is not out there in the world.  Rather it’s in here (in the hearts of human beings).  Whenever the Holy Spirit leads a person to know and believe that Jesus is his or her Savior and Lord, then the kingdom of God has been established in another human heart.

            And what tool does the Holy Spirit use to bring that kingdom into human hearts?  He uses the Gospel, that is, the Good News of God’s love in Christ.  Whether the gospel comes through the washing of Holy Baptism or through the covenant of Jesus’ body and blood or though the words of Jesus himself, the message is always the same:  Because Jesus lived the perfect life you cannot live, because Jesus absorbed the punishment your sins deserve, God now declares that you are not guilty.  You’re back in fellowship with God.  God is not holding anything against you.  He’s on your side and has a place prepared in heaven for you when you die.  That’s the good news that Jesus said he just had to preach.

            But now someone might ask, “Yeah, but is that message more important than taking care of people’s physical needs?  Is it more important to bring people the gospel than to bring people food and clothing?  Well, certainly those two things are connected.  In many cases, it’s a both/and, not an either/or.  And yet remember that it was Jesus himself who said, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36).  Or to put it another way, what good is it if a man is well fed and healthy and still on the path to hell?  As Christians we must do more than alleviate the temporary effects of sin in the world.  We must put point people to the eternal solution for sin.  Put a Band-Aid on the blister.  But bring the cure for the cancer.

            If you think about it, isn’t that how Jesus handled this balancing act between physical and spiritual needs.  When those four men tore a hole in the roof and dropped the paralyzed man in front of Jesus, what’s the first thing that Jesus did?  He said, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” (Matt. 9:2)  In other words, he met the man’s greatest need—the need to be right with God, the need to know that his illness was not some kind of punishment at the hands of a cruel and capricious God.  But once he took care of the man’s biggest problem he went on to say, “Get up, take your mat and go home.”  After addressing the man’s spiritual need, he also took care of his physical need. 

            Tell me, does that have any application for our lives today?  I think it does.  If you have a friend or co-worker who just lost a loved one, you can’t bring their loved one back from the grave, but you can tell your friend about the One who has gone into the grave and come out again.  You can tell him about the One who for you has removed the sting of death, the One who is the Resurrection and the Life.

            If you have a family member who has been diagnosed with a dreaded disease, you may not be able to lay your hands on that person and heal her body.  But you can assure her that her life is in the hands of her Savior God—hands that still bear the marks of the nail as proof of his love for her.

            If you know a family that is really struggling financially, you may not be able to write out a check to pay off all their debts, but you can bring the good news that their debt with God has been paid in full, by the blood of God’s Son.  And if God takes care of the sparrows, for whom Jesus never died, how much more will God take care of the people for whom Jesus did die.