Sermon: The Great Physician’s Touch Mark 1:21-28

Feb 1, 2008
The Great Physician’s Touch Mark 1:21-28

21They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. 22They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. 23Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, 24and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” 25But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” 26And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. 27They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” 28At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

Now a days, educated and sophisticated people don’t want to talk about things like evil and demons and all that stuff. We are all basically good people, right? It’s all just bad conditions that lead people to do bad things. If we just worked harder to improve things then acts of evil would not happen. Now I appreciate humanistic psychology, and our human capacity to be who God has made us to be. Yet, there are times when we need to be healed by our Great Physican. There are times when we need God to cleanse us from the spiritual poisons and toxins that hinder us from growing as Christians.
Have you ever had a moment where you sensed you encountered someone or something that really seemed evil? Have you ever wanted to have the authority of the priest in the Exorcist movie, and splash holy water on someone, “The power of Christ compels you!” Some of you have seen the documentaries of how the Roman Catholic Church still continues this ritual of purification. Many religions have a similar ritual that gives someone a psychological and spiritual release from the inner demons that are tormenting them.
When I was in seminary I volunteered as a chaplain at San Quentin State Prison. Every week we brought the chapel service to the people living with HIV/AIDs who had to be kept separate from the general prison population. One of the most remarkable encounters I have ever had with the forces of evil came while I was trying to serve communion. There was this scraggly, wild eyed prisoner on the other side of the fence who was determined to do every thing he could disrupt the sacrament. He yelled and screamed and tried to derail the service. I will never forget the looks he gave me. If there was ever a time I wanted to perform an exorcism it was then. He’s lucky I didn’t bring holy water with me that day.
One of the things we need to remember when we wrestle with these questions of good and evil, and the body of Christ’s role in confronting it; is that we too are vulnerable of becoming infected. We need enough humility to go through our own process of being cleansed. Blaise Pascal wrote, “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” We should never be so proud and sure of ourselves, that we presume that we do not need to receive a healing touch from the Great Physician.
We have seen the church at it’s worst when it is too sure of itself. In M Scott Peck’s People of the Lie, he warns us that we are on thin ice when we think we are good and all the evil in the world is outside of ourselves. When we have these blinders of denial on, this is when the forces of evil can work on us under the radar.
The Twentieth Century presented us with some challenging questions. Are we basically good as human beings? Students of history and psychology have been debating with the pop-self-help gurus for decades. As Christians, our tradition has kind of a middle of the road position. Yes, we have this notion of original sin. Evil has a stronger hold us, when we don’t have Christ in our life. But in our baptism, this is in some ways an exorcism, where we are cleansed and purified. We are united with Christ, as our new Adam who lifts this burden from us.
When we are baptized we participate in the death and resurrection of our Risen Lord. These cleansing waters enable the Great Physician to enter our lives in a deeper and more complete way. In our Baptism, we have received some of antidote we need against the forces of evil that try to possess our hearts and minds. One of our challenges is not be so puffed up that we think we are immune from evil taking hold in our lives. What’s the old saying, “ Well, Physician heal thyself !” We need to take our medicine if we are to be able to help heal others.
It’s appropriate that the priest performing an exorcism uses holy water. These cleansing waters are instruments of the Great Physician’s touch. What would have happened if a German Catholic priest had the courage to perform an exorcism on Hitler, or a Russian Orthodox Priest to sprinkle holy water on Stalin? Can you imagine how different our world would be today?
There is a remarkable story of two Jewish kids growing up in the Bronx. Philip Zimbardo and Stanley Milgram attended the same kindergarten class. These two boys grew up to be two of the most famous psychologists. It’s poignant that these two Jewish men’s did research that gives us some insight into how something as evil as the holocaust could happen.
Milgrim’s conformity study had people in a lab turning a dial that would shock someone as a form of punishment. The doctor in a white lab coat would tell the subject to keep turning up the dial on the machine to shock this disobedient person in the other room. “It’s for their own good.” The actor would be screaming bloody murder, yet some of the subjects were still willing to turn up the dial.
Zimbardo, Milgrim’s classmate from the Bronx, is well known for his Stanford Prison experiment. He set up a mock prison where college students took on the roles of playing guard and prisoner. Things got so out of hand they had to stop the experiment. Students playing the guards were mistreating the prisoners. If this happens at one of our most prestigious universities with some of our brightest and gifted, what does this say about our common humanity. We need to be humble enough to acknowledge that evil exists in this world and none of us immune from its influence.
Most of our children stories and cartoons have the same overarching theme. The forces of good battling against the forces of evil. As adult we see this all the time in the movies, Star Wars, the Matrix, Batman & Superman. We look for these heroes that give us courage that in the end the forces of evil will be defeated.
In some ways it’s appropriate that we now have a Jesus action figure (minus the kung fu grip). We really don’t need all these super heroes to be inspired and comforted by the hope we have that in Christ, good will finally triumph in the end. When Jesus walked that path to Calvary, and walked out of the empty tomb, Jesus, our Redeemer, conquered evil once and for all.
God’s entire created order was transformed that Easter morning. It’s hard to put words to such an incredible event. When we are baptized, the promise and deliverance of Easter is more fully realized. In these cleansing waters, we are initiated into the body of Christ. Here, the Great Physician is able to administer the vaccine for our souls.
Every Sunday when we pray our confession and assurance of pardon this is a cleansing ritual where our Great Physician can heal us again and again from any emotional or spiritual poison. Like the flu, we will never be fully immune from the evils of this world. But we know whose touch can always deliver us.
The Good News is that we are never beyond the reach of our Great Physician. There is grace and redemption extended to every child of God. We take our own medicine, so we are able to be instruments of God’s healing touch to others. Jesus is always ready and willing. He’s one of the doctors who still makes house calls. Any hour, any distance.