Get Up and Go, a sermon based on Isaiah 40: 21-31 and Mark 1: 29-39, preached on February 4, 2024

Near the beginning of our Gospel lesson, we just read: “[Jesus] came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.” Couldn’t she have taken a nap first? Or might Simon have made her lunch? This moment in Scripture sounds like what may happen in your house. When Mom spikes a fever, she keeps working, whereas, the moment Dad gets a cold, he can’t leave the couch for a week. It’s safe to assume that Simon’s mother-in-law was so grateful to Jesus that she wanted to serve Him supper, or that she bounced back from the fever so completely that she felt better than she had in years. Mark’s gospel, originally written in Greek, uses the Greek verb “diakoneo,” which, translated into English, means, “to serve,” and gives us the basis for our word “deacon.” Many have read this passage with its use of the verb “diakoneo,” and concluded that Simon’s mother-in-law was the Church’s first deacon, for she was called into a particular kind of service that many here have been called to and that may also lead to feeling overworked. I once knew a Presbyterian who agreed to be a deacon in the church, and he told me that on the night he received a phone call asking him to serve as a church officer, he was so honored, he couldn’t help but say yes. Then, at the church service when he was ordained, he was moved to tears when all the past elders laid hands on him in front of the whole congregation, only just as he stood up and wiped the tears from his eyes, a man handed him a toilet brush and said, “Congratulations. Now get to work.” “[Jesus] came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.” That verse can be problematic, yet our second Scripture lesson from the Gospel of Mark doesn’t end there, so let’s keep going. After Jesus healed Simon’s mother-in-law, word spread about this man who could do miracles, so the town lined up to be healed by Jesus. We read that after Jesus “cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons… in the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.” It might not sound strange to hear that Jesus prayed. Of course He prayed. We could go into the nursery right now, and every child there would be able to tell you that Jesus prayed. Think, though, about what the Gospel of Mark is telling us about Jesus here. The theologians tell us that Jesus is fully human and fully God. He’s like us, but He’s also not like us. When we hear that, it’s difficult to know exactly how to understand what it means to be both fully human and fully God. Does that mean that He was faster than a speeding bullet? More powerful than a locomotive? Was He able to leap over tall buildings in a single bound? That’s Superman, not Jesus. Jesus is like us in the sense that His time was limited as ours is. Jesus is like us in the sense that He also had to prioritize His day as many different needs competed for His attention, yet He was unlike us, He was divine, in the sense that busyness never got the best of Him. It gets the best of me all the time. As my friend Victoria Chastain walked out of the 8:30 service, she thanked me for my sermon. “We needed to hear it,” she said, “but you know who needed to hear that sermon most of all?” she asked. Then she answered her own question: “You.” She’s right about that. I get busy. I want to keep going so that I get to everything and everybody, and it feels like weakness when I can’t. It feels like failure when I let someone down. Yet Jesus is divine, not in the sense that He could do it all. He is divine in the sense that He couldn’t yet never gave into the feeling that He had to. Jesus is different. Jesus wept like we do. Jesus laughed like we do. Jesus got mad like we do. Jesus got tired and stressed like we do, but when He got tired, He didn’t just keep on going. He didn’t forge ahead. He left his friends and took a break. He went off to a deserted place and prayed, rather than give into the pressure to keep going. Listen to this: When the crowds of sick people who needed the Great Physician lined up, Simon felt anxious. He felt that human anxiety that we all feel when people come around asking for help, and he did the most human thing that we so often do. He went looking for Jesus, and as though he were handing Him that toilet brush, he said “Congratulations, Miracle Worker. Now get back to work.” “Everyone is searching for you,” we read in verse 37. Do you know that feels like? A dad in this church told me that once he sits down on the couch, if he lays down to rest his eyes, it’s like a sensor goes off in the house. Suddenly, the kids line up to ask questions: “Dad, what time is my basketball game?” “Dad, where is my soccer jersey?” “Dad, what’s the weather going to be like next Tuesday?” That question about the weather is the one that really gets him. In his house, they each have a phone that he can’t keep them off, plus there are two Alexas, one in the kitchen and another in the living room. Any of these devises can tell them the weather, while for some reason, they go asking Dad about it.” My friends, Jesus knows that feeling. He knows about the demands people make for our time. He knows the feeling of being pushed and pressured and wanting to lock Himself in the bathroom, only here’s the difference between Him and all of us: When He felt His tank go to empty, He snuck off to be with God and wouldn’t allow Simon to make Him feel guilty about it. He went to that deserted place. He voiced His concerns to His Father. He listened to the Creator’s voice, and He remembered again who He was and what He was meant to do. On the other hand, while I aspire to begin each day with prayer and meditation, when I get too busy, what’s the first thing to go? Prayer and meditation go in favor of answering emails, yet emptying out my email inbox won’t fill me up when my tank is empty. Shopping on Amazon might make me feel better for a minute, but no amount of scrolling is going to lead me to the thing I’m looking for when I’m so tired that I lack direction. We must stop and rest, and we can’t give in to the feeling that we can’t rest because we haven’t done enough. Jesus didn’t give into that feeling. What about the mom who shows up at the bake sale with store-bought cookies? Does she feel like she deserves a break, or does our culture make her feel ashamed? A few years ago, I finally remembered to bring my carpool number when I went to pick up our daughter from elementary school. I couldn’t ever remember to bring my number for the line, and Mrs. Williams got used to that. She’d be there, plugging in the numbers. I’d wave and give her an apologetic look, then she’d laugh a little bit and forgive me, until one day I remembered that number. I pulled into the line, and as soon as I got to Mrs. Williams, I showed it to her, saying, “Look, Mrs. Williams. I did it.” She responded, “What do you want, a parade? For doing the bare minimum required of all parents?” Dads get more grace when it comes to this kind of thing. We get celebrated more for doing things like bringing cupcakes to bake sales. However, I don’t think we should be harder on dads for forgetting the carpool number. I think we should be easier on everyone, for if Jesus needed to be alone to recharge His battery, taking time for yourself can’t be wrong. Jesus was divine in accepting His human limitations and living within their bounds, so if you’re giving so much of yourself at the office that you come home and can only offer your family the leftovers, take a lesson from the Great Physician, and take a break. Now, I’m really preaching to myself. Hear me say this from personal experience: If you’re feeling pulled in a million directions, and you feel pushed into such anxiety that you’re losing sleep, follow the example of Jesus and go to that deserted place to rest and reorder your priorities. You can’t do everything, so do the most important things. Some, like me, say “yes” to everything and never get it all done. Others say “no” to every opportunity and never really get started. When Jesus felt stretched, He went to that solitary place, and He rested. Then, He listened and went on to Galilee, leaving a whole lot of unfinished business right outside Simon’s house. Were those people disappointed? Surely, yet even Jesus couldn’t do everything. He’s like us in that way. He’s limited, yet He’s different from us because He accepted it. If you’re stretched so thin that you’re miserable, remember that if life stops being fun, it may be that you’re doing it wrong. We were created, not for toil, but to worship the Lord our God and to enjoy Him forever. Jesus lived that principle, so go and do likewise. Do not lose direction. Do not be swayed by the crowd. Do not surrender to the anxiety of the ones who hunt for you because you were born, not to be busy, but to mount up with wings like eagles, to run and not grow weary, to walk and not faint. Amen.