Why Jesus Came

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, January 10, 2021.  The Bible verses used are Mark 1:21-39.

            When you think of Jesus’ life on earth, and the things he did while he was here, what do you think of?

            You might think of the healing that he did, and that’s very important.  By one count, the Bible gives us twenty-two stories of Jesus healing people.  Clearly the writers of the gospels, inspired by God, considered Jesus’ healing very important.

            You might think of Jesus’ miracles, feeding over five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish, turning water into wine, that sort of thing.  Those are very important, too.  The healing could be considered miraculous, too, of course, but there are at least seven other miracles Jesus performed that have nothing to do with healing.  The writers of the gospels, again inspired by God, clearly wanted to make sure people knew about those miracles.

            You might think of Jesus driving out demons, and that was also very important.  There are at least eleven instances in the gospels of Jesus driving out demons.  So again, the gospel writers, inspired by God, clearly wanted to make sure we knew about that.  They considered it to be very important.

            But while all of these things were important, none of them was the most important thing to Jesus.  Let’s look at our Bible reading for today.

            We read about Jesus healing people.  We read about Jesus driving out demons.  And of course, that got people’s attention.  Everyone started coming around, looking for Jesus.  Wanting Jesus to heal them, or their loved ones. 

            How does Jesus react to that?  Does he revel in the attention?  Does he try to take advantage of it somehow?  No.  He withdraws.  He goes off by himself.  The disciples have to go looking for him.  They find him and they tell him everyone’s looking for him.  Does he go back?  No, again.  He says, “Let us go somewhere else...so I can preach there also.  That is why I have come.”

            To Jesus, the most important thing was the preaching.  Sharing the good news.  Telling people about God.  Telling them to repent of their sins.  Telling them the kingdom of God has come near.  Telling them about the salvation that was available to them.  That was what Jesus considered the main thing about his ministry.  Not the healing.  Not the miracles.  Not even the driving out of demons.  The main thing was to share the word of God.

            In fact, Jesus sometimes seems to think this other stuff--the healing, the miracles, and so forth--was getting in the way of his ministry.  That’s one of the reasons why, when he’d heal someone, he so many times would say “Now don’t tell anyone about this.”  That was not what he wanted to be known for.  Jesus did not want to be known as a magician.  He did not want to be known as someone who performed tricks on command. 

            After all, if you become known for your flash, for your tricks, what happens?  People start just coming to see the show.  They want to see if you can top yourself.  Okay, you healed someone.  What do you do for encore?  Oh, you raise somebody from the dead?  Awesome!  So, what’s next?  How are you going to top that?

            Jesus did not come to put on a show.  Jesus came to offer salvation and eternal life.  His message was that the kingdom of God was near.  The other stuff, as important as it was, was not the main reason Jesus came.

            And the other thing is, when you start healing people, when you start feeling people, when you do all this stuff, where do you stop?  There’s no end to people who need healing.  There’s no end to people who are hungry.  Jesus could’ve spent his entire time on earth healing people and he would never have run out of people who needed healing.  He could’ve spent his entire time on earth feeding people and he never would’ve run out of people who were hungry. 

            So we ask, well, then, why did Jesus do all this other stuff in the first place?  Why do the healing, the miracles, all that, if it just got in the way?

            Well, I think the reason Jesus did it is simply because he loves us.  Jesus saw people who needed help.  He saw people who were in trouble.  He saw people who needed healing.  He saw people who were possessed by demons.  He knew he was the only one who could do something about that.  And because he loves us, he simply could not turn his back on those people.  Even if he knew doing this might get in the way of his ministry, he simply could not ignore people’s needs. 

And so, he did it.  He did the healing.  He did the feeding.  He did all of that.  He did it out of love.  But he never lost sight of the main purpose of his ministry.  His main purpose was to share the good news.  His main purpose was to offer salvation and eternal life, to let people know that the kingdom of God was near.

I think there’s a lesson there for us.  There’s a lesson for us as individuals, as a parish, and as a denomination. 

We talk a lot about missions in the United Methodist church.  And we do a lot of mission work.  And that’s great.  It’s wonderful.  I am not suggesting that our mission work is not important, nor am I suggesting that we should cut back on it.  Our mission work is very important.  We need to keep doing it, and even do more if we can.

But too often, our mission work consists simply of doing good things.  It’s like the healing and the feeding that Jesus did.  It’s very important that we do those things, just as it was important that Jesus did them.  And I hope we do them out of love, just as Jesus did the things he did out of love.

But as important as missions are, they are not the main purpose of the church.  The church is not a social welfare agency.  The church is a religious organization.  Its main purpose is to spread the good news.  It is to let people know about the salvation and eternal life that’s available to all of us through faith in Jesus.  It is to let people know that the kingdom of God is, in fact, near.

In Matthew, the last words Jesus says to the disciples are these, “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

Make disciples.  Baptize.  Teach.  Not heal.  Not feed.  Make disciples, baptize, and teach.

Again, this is not to say we should stop doing mission projects.  It’s not to say they are unimportant.  That’s one of the ways we put our faith into action.  There are, of course, the words of the apostle James, which many of you may have already been thinking of.  He said, “Faith without works is dead.”  We don’t want to have a dead faith.  And one of the ways our faith is kept alive is through our mission projects.  Again, we need to do those things, and we need to do them out of love, just as Jesus did.

But while faith without works is dead, I think it’s also true that works without faith are dead.  If we just focus on doing things for people, but we don’t share the gospel with them, what have we done?  Well, maybe we’ve made their lives on earth better.  Maybe we’ve made their lives on earth easier.  But we have not taught them about the Savior.  We have not baptized them.  We have not brought them any closer to salvation and eternal life.  We have not let them know that the kingdom of God is near.  And we have not made a disciple of Jesus Christ.

As individuals, and as a church, there is no better model we can have than Jesus Christ.  Jesus did all kinds of things to help people.  He did heal people.  He did feed people.  He did do all kinds of things that were aimed at making people’s lives on earth better.  And you and I should do that, too.  And so should our church.

But we need to remember that those things are not our main purpose.  Our main purpose as a church is to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Our main purpose is to go and make disciples.  And that needs to be somehow involved in everything we do.  I’m not saying it has to be the main focus of everything we do, but it needs to be involved somehow.  There needs to be some connection we can draw between what we’re doing and the goal of making disciples of Jesus Christ.  If there’s not, then we might need to take another look at whether it’s really a proper thing for the church to be doing.

It is good to make people’s lives better on earth.  Jesus did it.  We need to do it, too.  But the reason Jesus came is to offer salvation and eternal life.  The reason Jesus came is to let people know the kingdom of God has come near.  That’s the reason the church is here, too.  As we enter this New Year, let’s do those things in every way we can.