The Power of Jesus is for us

Mark 4:45f

I went to a conference once where a pastor made a presentation of his Superman comic books. If you are not familiar with Superman, he is a comic book character who first appeared in June 1938. He was sent to earth as a baby by his parents who lived on the planet Krypton that was destroyed shortly after Superman was sent toward earth. He landed in the middle of the US and was raised by a couple who found him in his spacecraft. As he grew up he discovered he had extraordinary powers that allowed him to fly, have X-ray vision and unlimited strength. He began to use his powers to protect people victimized by accidents or criminals. His credo was to fight for “truth, justice and the American way.”

This pastor at the conference had a tremendous collection of Superman comic books. He had the first issue and most of those that followed. What was interesting in his presentation of the covers of these magazines was his thesis that these covers reflected America’s view of God over the years.

In the beginning, Superman was all powerful and all good. As America’s view of God weakened, Superman began to appear on the cover lying in weakness, defeated by a piece of kryptonite. At the time in the 60s when theologians began to speak of the death of God, Superman appeared on the cover having died. When the women’s liberation movement began, female superheros began to appear on the cover with Superman and at times showing that Superman was defeated by these female superheros. These covers reflected the concept of God held by Americans and that God began to be more and more human with the frailties and limitations that come with humanity.

In 1987 there was a book written by Rabbi Kushner titled, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. This was an enormously popular book, popular even among Christians and discussed in church Sunday School classes around the country. But at the heart of this book is the thesis that God is impotent, unable to do anything about the suffering that exists in our lives. Evil exists and bad things happen to good people because this is the course of life and although God loves us, he cannot do anything to take away the suffering we experience.

Is God impotent? Is God powerless to help people in need in this world?

Mark responded to a similar question in his gospel. Remember that Peter had just been crucified by Nero in Rome. Christians in Rome were being persecuted. Where was God in this suffering and persecution? I am confident Christians were praying for safety but even so, believers were taken to prison, beaten and killed. Don’t you think these Christians for whom Mark was writing his gospel asked this question: How powerful is Jesus?

Starting in Mark 4:35 and going on to Mark 5:43, Mark tells four stories about Jesus that declare without hesitation that Jesus is all powerful. He is not limited in what he is able to do. He is not like Superman lying next to a piece of kryptonite that saps his strength. He is not powerless to help us when we confront evil. He is all powerful.

In these four stories, Mark declares that Jesus has power over nature. He has power over demons. He has power over disease and he has power over death.

We’re going to do an overview of these stories today and when I next preach, on the 27th of June, we will pick up these stories and look at them in more detail.

In the first story Jesus is with the disciples crossing over the Lake of Galilee when the boat is caught up in a storm that is serious enough that it frightens even the experienced fishermen among them. Jesus is asleep in the stern of the boat and the disciples have to wake Jesus up from his rest:
“Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

What causes a storm? Differences in air pressure with high pressure rushing into low pressure areas causes wind which at sea creates waves. How do you stop a storm? We can’t. We are powerless against storms. All we can do is minimize their affect on us by hiding under some sort of shelter. But Jesus woke up from his nap and rebuked the wind and spoke to the waves and the sea became calm. This was an amazing miracle that involved changing the air pressures around him.

Jesus has power over nature.

When Jesus arrived at the other side of the Sea of Galilee, he and his disciples came into contact with a man who was possessed by demons. I have had very limited contact with forces of evil. On just two or three occasions have I been aware that there was some sort of demonic presence but in these cases, the person involved was fairly subdued. The people I met who seemed to be under some demonic influence could walk down the street and no one would be able to tell the difference between them and anyone else.

This man was different. He was someone to stay away from. If you had compassion on him, you approached him with some food, never taking your eye off of him, set the plate of food down on the ground and got away as quickly as you could. This man was always in motion, not able to stay still. He was naked, tearing off any clothes people attempted to put on him and he possessed supernatural strength. People in the area had tried to bind him up with chains but he was able to break and tear off the iron chains with which his feet and hands were bound.

Jesus confronted the demons who were victimizing this man and cast them out into a herd of pigs and when the people from the town came they were amazed because he was sitting down, something they had never before observed; he was dressed, it must have been for them like seeing an animal wearing clothes; and he was in his right mind. He was talking with people, engaged in dialog with people.

Jesus has power over demonic forces.

Jesus and his disciples crossed over the Lake of Galilee once again and a crowd gathered to be with him. Among them was a synagogue ruler named Jairus. He pleaded with Jesus to come with him to help his daughter who was dying. They set off and en route, with all the people crowded around Jesus, a woman who had hemorrhaged for twelve years came up to Jesus and touched his cloak. She was instantly healed and Jesus felt the power come out of him.

Jesus has power over disease, just touching his cloak was enough to heal this woman.

With this interruption, a servant of Jairus came and told Jairus that it was too late, his daughter was dead. But it is never too late for Jesus. He told Jairus to continue to believe and continued on to the house where the funeral mourning had already started. Jesus took Peter, James and John, along with Jairus and his wife, and went into the room where the dead little girl lay. He spoke to her, “Little girl I say to you, ‘get up,’” and she stood up and walked around the room.

Jesus has power over death.

Jesus has all power at his disposal. From this understanding I want to go in two directions. In my thinking about the power of Jesus I came to a fork in the road and wanted to go in both directions so we will explore them both.

The first fork begins with this question:

Wouldn’t Jesus be a handy friend to have around? You go on a camping trip and decide to take a hike. As you are climbing a mountain, a storm strikes the ridge you are on and bolts of lightening come crashing down. It is terrifying and your life is in danger. If Jesus were with you, he could put down his pack and rebuke the storm and all would be calm and the hike could continue in safety.

A friend becomes ill, develops cancer or AIDS or MS and begins to deteriorate before your eyes. Week by week his health worsens. Wouldn’t it be nice if you had Jesus as a neighbor who could come over to your friend’s house, pray for him and he would instantly be well?

Your daughter or son dies or perhaps it is your nephew or niece. What a tragedy! So young and so full of potential! Wouldn’t it be nice if Jesus were here so he could raise that young man or woman from the dead. While everyone was sitting around the church mourning the death of this wonderful young person, Jesus could come forward to the casket, speak words of life and the corpse would sit up, climb out of the casket and begin to speak to people thanking them for coming but saying the funeral was a bit premature. “Thank you. Come again some time in the future.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if Jesus had not ascended but had stayed to help us in our suffering?

In John’s gospel, Jesus spoke in chapter 14 to his disciples
Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.  12 I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.  13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.  14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Jesus pointed to the miracles he had performed as evidence that he was the Son of God and he went on to say that anyone who has faith in him will do even greater things than what the disciples had seen.

This is not an isolated, one-verse teaching of Jesus. In Matthew 21 there is a story of Jesus cursing a fig tree because it did not bear fruit and the tree withered. The disciples were amazed at this power of Jesus and Jesus taught them:
“I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done.  22 If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

We do not need to have Jesus physically present with us, he intercedes for us from heaven and he has sent the Holy Spirit to work God’s miracles through us. Whether we are hiking and caught in a storm, a friend becomes ill, someone is possessed by demonic forces or someone dies, Jesus is present with us and we have his power to make a difference.

Is there any evidence that what Jesus said is true?

When Jesus sent out the 12 disciples and later the seventy-two disciples:
he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases,  2 and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.
And when the seventy-two returned, they
returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”

Read through the book of Acts, Luke’s history of the early church, and you will read of the disciples healing and casting out demons in the name of Jesus. Peter and Paul are recorded having raised to life someone who had died. I can’t think of an example of the followers of Jesus having power over nature, but perhaps someone will come to me after the service and help me with this. But the disciples did exactly what Jesus promised and in the name and power of Jesus, they healed the sick, cast out demons and raised the dead to life.

The power of Jesus did not end with Jesus but continued with his followers.

But did the power of Jesus over death, demons and disease end with the immediate followers of Jesus?

In the last 100 years, there emerged a theology that made this claim. But the 1900 years before this theology became popular and the experiences of Christians in the 100 years since this theology was developed prove it wrong. I don’t have time today to go through all the relevant testimonies. But the writings of the Puritans who left England to go to North America, testimonies from the monks and nuns in the Middle Ages, the writings of the Reformers like Wesley and Whitfield and others testify to the power of God to heal and deliver people from demonic influence. Throughout the history of the church, Christians have healed and defeated the powers of darkness in the name of Jesus.

People today continue to be healed. People continue to be delivered from demonic possession. And people even continue to be raised from the dead. Theology not withstanding, God continues to work in his church.

Where do we see evidence of the power of God in RPF?

We could offer some time for people in our congregation to come forward and tell their stories of God’s healing power in their lives and in the lives of others and those are good and true stories. But to be honest, we don’t see very often in our midst a demonstration of the power of Jesus over death, disease and demonic possession. We may pray for someone who is not feeling well but these stories lack the dramatic punch of the ones we read in Mark’s account.

Phil List developed MS and we prayed for him for healing and he left to go back to the US where his health continues to deteriorate. We have prayed for healing and have not seen healing take place, at least not in my experience.

When I come back in a couple weeks, this is one of the topics I want to pick up and explore as we look at these stories in Mark.

But because we have not seen the power of Jesus worked out in this way does not mean that Jesus does not have the power to work in and through us to bring healing and deliverance and life. And it does not mean that we should not continue to pray for healing and deliverance.

I believe the time is coming and I do not think it is far off, when we will see the power of Jesus unleashed in this way. God is the great orchestrator and he has his own time for doing what he wills to do. I believe the time will soon come and when it comes, we must be ready for it.

When the power of Jesus is unleashed among us, how will we react? Will we rejoice in what God is doing? If you think everyone will automatically open their arms and welcome the power of Jesus, you may be surprised.

Look at the reaction of people to the demonstrations of the power of Jesus in the stories we have talked about this morning.

When Jesus calmed the storm, what did the disciples do. Did they rejoice? No. Mark says the disciples were terrified.

When Jesus cast the demon out of the Gerasene demoniac, how did the people respond? Did they thank Jesus for making their region safer now that this man would no longer terrorize them with his strength? No. They pleaded with Jesus to leave because they were so afraid of what Jesus might do next.

When the woman who was healed of hemorrhaging by touching the cloak of Jesus she was healed but she then fell at his feet with trembling and fear.

When Jairus’ daughter was raised from the dead, the people were completely astonished.

In three of the four cases the reaction to the work of Jesus was fear. In the fourth, the raising from the dead of Jairus’s daughter, they were left standing there with their mouths hanging open with nothing to say.

I believe there is wisdom in God waiting until we are ready for the ministry he is going to unleash among us and among all the churches of Morocco. Until that time comes, we need to prepare ourselves. We do not want to be like the people of the region of the Gerasenes who were so afraid of the power of Jesus they preferred he leave.

We want to be like the disciples who rejoiced in the power of God that was given to them. We will talk more about this over the summer as well, how to be prepared for the work of God among us. If you will be away over the summer, I encourage you to ask for these sermons by email or check them out on our website.

That is one fork I wanted to take. The second begins with a confession.

It became clear to me this past weekend that I have been having a problem in trusting the power of God in my life.

I have had growing responsibilities in several areas of my life and as I have tried to cope with these rising responsibilities, I have increasingly tried to control the events going on around me. I have worked to become more efficient. I have tried to manipulate events around me so that what I see as being necessary to make progress comes to pass.

I think it is necessary for us to work to become more efficient. We need to strategize to bring to pass the vision that God has given us. But the problem for me has been that I have not trusted God to accomplish his will in my life and in the life of the church around me.

Let me give you an example. A friend of mine, Tracy, is a pastor in the US and in response to an email I sent to friends and family asking people to pray for God to provide someone to help me in the church, he and his wife felt led to pursue coming here to Rabat to work in the church. Tracy is a very talented man. He was one of the pastors in the church Annie and I attended before we came here to Rabat.

He wanted to come in June but I told him I would be in the US so that would not work. So I suggested he come in the fall. But he said he wanted to come earlier than that. He suggested July and so we made plans for him to come. This weekend the board met and it became clear that this was not a good time since many of the people of the church will be gone. So Friday night I called Tracy with butterflies in my stomach. I realized I was worried he would say that it seemed this was not going to work and he would not pursue coming.

But when I talked with him he said he would take this as God’s leading and will talk with his wife to find a time to come this fall.

I realized as I hung up the phone that if God wanted Tracy and his wife to come here to RPF to help with the church, he will do that and I do not need to be anxious and try to manipulate events to make happen what I think needs to happen.

The problem with trying to manipulate events to make happen what I think needs to happen is that I hurt people in the process and that is destructive and not at all what God wants.

In a sense I have been out of control and I need to listen to Psalm 46 where the psalmist wrote these word from God:
“Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”

You may feel as well that the world around you is moving too quickly and you are being overwhelmed. I encourage you to remember that Jesus is all powerful. There is nothing he cannot do for us. We do not need to be anxious.

We are too often intimidated by the events of the world around us and fail to remember the power of Jesus in our lives.

Know this morning that Jesus has power over all of your life. Jesus has all power and uses it in our lives in ways he knows is best for us. Trust him. When you move out in your own strength as I have been doing lately, fall back into his arms and trust him. Let him lead in the events of your life. Know that whatever happens you will be safe in his arms because he is with you.