Epiphany 5

Flight 401 was bound for Miami from New York City with a load of holiday passengers. As the huge aircraft approached the Miami Airport for its landing, a light that indicates proper deployment of the landing gear failed to come on. The plane flew in large, looping circles over the swamps of the Everglades while the cockpit crew checked out the light failure. Their question was: Had the landing gear actually not deployed or was the light bulb just defective?

The flight engineer began fiddling with the bulb.  He tried to remove it, but it wouldn't budge.  Another crew member tried to help out...and then another.  Believe it or not, all eyes were on the little light bulb that was stuck. No one noticed the plane was losing altitude!  Finally, it dropped right into a swamp.  Many were killed.  While an experienced crew of high-priced, seasoned pilots messed around with a 75-cent light bulb, an entire airplane and many passengers were lost.  The crew forgot the most basic rule of the air: "Don't forget to fly the airplane!"

The same thing can happen to the church. The church can have so many activities, programs, projects, and committee meetings, that the congregation forgets its primary objective.  With how many people were crowding around Jesus for help, it wouldn’t have been hard for Him to lose focus, either.  But Jesus never lost sight of his goal.  What goal?  Jesus said it was to preach.  That is why I have come.  To preach!  There may be some healings along the way, Simon, but let’s not get lost in the hysteria. Let’s stay focused.  I have come to preach the good news of the Kingdom of God!

Jesus came to proclaim some good news: that He has overcome everything that could harm our souls!  Jesus Overcomes!  On the way to bringing real meaning to that message, Jesus overcame many things.  Diseases. Devils. Distractions. He was never distracted from his goal.  He stayed focused.  So He did in the end overcome all the things necessary to bring us the best news we could get!  A complete victory over sin, death, and the devil!  Jesus Overcomes!

We live in a broken world.  Everything breaks.  Everything is broken.  Everyone seems to have something broken about them.  Broken bones, scraped arms, stiff backs, sore muscles.  Colds, coughs, flu, fever, strep throat, migraine headaches.  Major back problems, limps, arthritis.  High blood pressure, diabetes, leukemia, cancer.  Heart disease, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia.  People are broken.  Bodies are hurting.  Emergency rooms are filling.

Nothing much has changed since the day Jesus walked this earth.  Did you notice, how, as soon as the Sabbath day was over at sunset, the people began dragging all their sick to Jesus?  The whole town was surging up to the door!  Everyone had some kind of ailment.  Everyone was hurting!  What could Jesus do about it?  How about healing them all!  Beginning with Peter’s mother-in-law, He healed all the sick.  Jesus Overcomes Sickness with His Healing!

He still does today.  When you get over that cold, who should you thank?  Don’t you remember that it was God that gave you your immune system?  When your body heals that broken bone, who is glorified?  When you see the miracle of the person in your family or in the news who is suddenly better, and the medical doctors can’t explain it, who must you give all credit to?  Jesus still heals today, friends!  Call on Him to heal your infirmity!  Call upon Him in prayer to heal your loved ones who are suffering!  Jesus overcomes sickness with his healing!  If it is the best for our soul, He will heal our body!  He wants us to come to Him and ask for it!

Jesus spent that evening healing people with various sicknesses.  But He also took on the devil.  Many people being brought to Him were possessed by demons.  These people were not just suffering from emotional imbalance or organic disease.  They had become the dwelling places of unclean spirits.  The devil was doing his work, because never at any moment in history was he as scared as he was at this time.  But using his Word alone, Jesus threw them out, showing his complete authority over the devil.  Jesus Overcomes Satan with his Word!

Friends, Jesus overcomes the devil in our lives too.  Whether or not you have been possessed by a demon, the devil works at you.  Temptations to doubt that God could love you, whisperings in your ear to go beyond loving yourself to being selfish, the shiny new things of this world calling out to you that this is what life is all about, little subconscious ponderings that maybe God isn’t real anymore, or maybe even electronic images that drag you toward lust and greed are all attempts by Satan to get back at the powerful Saviour who already defeated him!

So friends, as the Devil makes his attempts, remember: Jesus Overcomes!  During World War II, a German officer was describing the capture of an American unit early in the fighting. This unit had in its possession a box which contained a cake. What was remarkable about the cake is that it had been sent to an American soldier from Boston and it was still fresh!  This German officer described his feelings when he realized that the Americans had the resources to fly over cakes from home even in the midst of a global war!  He said he knew right then that they would never defeat an enemy that had such resources for the waging of the battle!

You and I have a resource that can help us in life’s daily battles, if only we will make room for it. It is time alone with God. It is one-on-One communication with the Creator!  When our enemy sees this resource, he will know he is defeated. This is a resource that even Jesus needed as He was in the midst of battle against the forces of evil.  He knew He had to remain focused on the reason that He was here.  He wasn’t here just to heal sick people or cast out demons.  So He needed to spend some time with his heavenly Father in prayer to be re-focused and re-fit for battle.  Jesus Overcomes Distractions with Prayer!

A little boy and his father were walking along a road when they came across a large stone. The boy looked at the stone and thought about it a little. Then he asked his father, "Do you think if I use all my strength, I can move that rock?"  The father thought for a moment and said, "I think that if you use all your strength, you can do it." That was all the little boy needed.

He ran over to the rock and began to push on it. He pushed and he pushed, so hard that little beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. But the rock didn’t move—not an inch, not half an inch. After a while, the little boy sat down on the ground. His face had fallen. His whole body seemed to be just a lump there on the earth. "You were wrong," he told his dad. "I can’t do it."  His father walked over to him, knelt beside him, and put his arm around the boy’s shoulder. "You can do it," he said. "You just didn’t use all your strength.  You didn’t ask me to help."

The world in which we live tells us that we have to be strong and independent. It tells us we can’t count on anyone or anything else. And yet, because of Jesus, we have a ready resource in God, strength for those who ask.  Jesus Himself modeled for us how important that is!  He needed to spend time alone with his Father, to be strengthened and refocused for his task.

You see, although Jesus performed many great miracles, He did not come primarily as a miracle worker.  Although He healed many sick people, He was not primarily a healer.  Although He cast out many demons, He did not come primarily as an exorcist.  No, Jesus’ mission was to redeem the world, to save the lost.  He told Simon that they needed to head out to more places and do what He really came to do:  Preach the Gospel!  He felt such a need to share that message with more people because it was the message of eternal life through Him!

The miracles Jesus performed were wonderful, but they had a purpose behind them – a greater purpose.  They pointed to the authority, power, and identity of the One who performed them!  They underscored what Jesus had come to do – his primary purpose – namely, to preach the Gospel!  Finally, Jesus Overcomes SIN with His Gospel Proclamation!

The real reason He was here was to defeat once and for all the hold of SIN on our lives.  He was here to live the perfect life that we couldn’t.  Jesus didn’t give in to Satan’s temptations where we did.  Jesus wasn’t selfish when we were.  Jesus helped others when we let them remain hurting.  He was perfect.  But He knew his road would end at the cross, where He would have to suffer and die.  Where He would be separated from his heavenly Father because of our sins.  The ultimate substitution.  The ultimate sacrifice.  And the ultimate victory on Easter, when He would walk out of his tomb alive!  This is the gospel, friends!  The good news!  The message Jesus was so focused on proclaiming to all the other villages!  This is why He came!

The Pelicano is the world’s most unwanted ship.  Since 1986 she has been the hobo of the high seas.  No one wants her.  Sri Lanka doesn’t.  Bermuda doesn’t.  The Dominican Republic turned her away.  So did the Netherlands, the Antilles, and Honduras.  The problem is not the boat.  Though rusty and barnacled, the 466-foot freighter is seaworthy.  The problem is not the ownership.  The owners have kept the license current and taxes paid.  The problem is not the crew.  They may feel unwanted, but they aren’t inefficient.  Then what is the problem?  What is the reason for years of rejections?  Why is the Pelicano the most unwanted ship in the world?

Simple.  She is full of trash.  15,000 tons of trash.  Orange peels.  Beer bottles.  Newspapers.  Half-eaten hot dogs.  Trash.  The trash of Philadelphia’s long summer of 1986.  That’s when the municipal workers went on strike.  That’s when the trash piled higher & higher.  That’s when Georgia refused it and New Jersey declined it.  No one wanted Philadelphia’s trash.  That’s when the Pelicano entered the picture.  The owners thought they could turn a quick penny by transporting the rubbish.  The trash was burned, and the ashes were dumped into the belly of the boat.  But no one would take it.  Initially it was too much.  Eventually it was too old.  Who wants potentially toxic trash?  Trash-filled ships find few friends.

Trash-filled hearts don’t fare any better.  Can you relate?  Is there garbage in your heart?  In the hold of your soul?  Life has a way of unloading her rubbish on our decks.  Your husband works too much.  Your wife gripes too much.  Your boss expects too much.  Your kids whine too much.  The result?  Trash!  Load after load of anger, guilt, pessimism, bitterness, bigotry, anxiety, deceit, impatience, and selfishness.  SIN!  It all piles up.  And who wants to offer dock space to a smelly heart?  There is only One who could.  Jesus.  The One who overcomes sin.

How could you change the plight of the Pelicano?  Change her cargo.  Load the decks with flowers instead of trash, presents instead of ash, and no one would turn the ship away.  Change the cargo, and you change the ship.  That is exactly what Jesus did for us!  He changed our cargo!  He changed what is inside of us!  He removed the trash.  Took away the sin.  And replaced it with his beautifully perfect life.  When we pull into God’s harbor, He no longer sees or smells trashy sin, but the perfect words, thoughts, and actions of his beloved Son.  That is the good news, friends!  That is the good news Jesus wanted to share with us, the good news He was so focused on preaching and proclaiming!  That is why He came here!  Amen.

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