Church of the Holy City

That Is Why I Have Come

That Is Why I Have Come
Rev. Dr. David J. Fekete
February 12, 2012

Isaiah 40:21-31 Mark 1:29-39 Psalm 147

After Jesus had preached in the synagogue and healed all the sick in the whole town of Capernaum, his disciples found Him praying the next morning. Jesus told them that He wanted to go to the nearby villages to preach there also. And He said the words that characterized His whole incarnation on earth, “That is why I have come.” Jesus’ whole ministry on earth was to heal humanity. In the story we just heard, Jesus teaches in the synagogue. Then he goes to the home of Simon and Andrew, heals their mother-in-law, and then the whole town brings the sick to Jesus to be healed. This was a typical day in the life of Jesus. Think of it! Think of what an average day in the life of Christ was. Teaching, preaching and healing. His whole life was one of service to the human race. His whole life was dedicated to our salvation. When the disciples were arguing about who was the greatest, Jesus told them the least would be greatest and the servant, not the master. Here we find another statement as to why Jesus came to us, “I am among you as one who serves” (Luke 22:27).
Our Bible readings this morning talk about God’s two great qualities: divine love and divine wisdom. In Isaiah we hear first about God’s infinite wisdom. We hear about how God created the universe and how He knows all the stars by name. The Prophet then says, “His understanding no one can fathom (Isaiah 40:28). When we think of the vastness of the universe and think of the God that made it and keeps it all in balance, we are lost in wonder. And yet, this vast, unfathomable God is also a God of love and compassion. Just as He sustains the tiniest atom or quark, so He cares and sustains the least of each human being. After praising God for His unfathomable wisdom, the prophet then turns to God’s care for the human race. He says,
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint (Isaiah 40:29-31).
We see these two qualities of God in our New Testament reading, too. Jesus demonstrates His divine love and wisdom in His ministry to the world. His wisdom is shown in His teaching in the synagogue. He amazed His listeners because, “he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law” (Mark1:27). And immediately after enlightening His listeners, Jesus showed His love for the human race by healing the sick.
We can think of love and wisdom as two separate things. But in fact they work so closely together that they are one. In fact, love and wisdom flow out of God as one. Swedenborg begins his discussion of God’s love and wisdom by discussing them separately. Swedenborg’s discussion sounds quite personal even in this somewhat abstract topic.
No one can deny that in God we find love and wisdom together in their very essence. He loves us all out of the love that is within him, and he guides us all out of the wisdom that is within him (DLW 29).
Swedenborg then goes on in a rigorous philosophical way to say that God’s love and wisdom are, in fact, one:
Since the divine reality is divine love and the divine manifestation is divine wisdom, these latter are distinguishably one. We refer to them as “distinguishably one” because love and wisdom are two distinguishable things, and yet they are so united that love is a property of wisdom and wisdom is a property of love (DLW 34).
We can see how God’s love and wisdom are united when we consider Jesus’ ministry. His healings are united with His teachings. And His whole ministry was to save us and bring us into a loving relationship with God. The miracles that Jesus performed showed His love for the human race, in that He wanted to relieve our suffering. But the healings were also symbolic of what Jesus was doing for our souls. All the illnesses that Jesus cured symbolized spiritual illnesses that Jesus teachings cured. So as Jesus healed bodies through His miracles, He also healed souls through His teachings. Healing both body and soul is how Jesus’ teachings and Jesus’ miracles were united. Through His healing miracles, Jesus opened the eyes of the blind. And through His teachings, Jesus opened the eyes of the spirit to heavenly truths. As Jesus’ miracles healed the lepers, His teachings showed us the way to purify our souls from sin and base instincts. Love and wisdom came together in Jesus’ ministry. Jesus showed his care for the human race by providing for the wellbeing of their bodies. But more important was Jesus care for the wellbeing of our souls. Swedenborg tells us that all Jesus’ miracles symbolized what He was also doing for the souls of the human race,
All Divine miracles represent states of the Lord’s kingdom in the heavens, and of the Lord’s kingdom in the earth, that is, of the church. This is the internal form of Divine miracles (AC 7337).
So all Jesus miracles had a spiritual significance, too. Swedenborg explains,
All the miracles which the Lord Himself wrought when He was in the world signified the coming state of the church; thus that the eyes of the blind were opened and the ears of the deaf, that the tongues of the dumb were loosed, that the lame walked, and the maimed and also the lepers were healed, signified that such men as are represented by the blind, deaf, dumb, lame, maimed, and leprous, would receive the gospel and be spiritually healed, and this through the coming of the Lord into the world. Such are Divine miracles in their internal form (AC 7337).
So we can think of Jesus’ miracles and Jesus’ teachings as outer and inner. The healing miracles were physical, or outer. And the teachings that purify the soul are inner. We can also see them as love and wisdom. Love heals us and wisdom enlightens us.
The story of Jesus’ miracles is just as relevant for us as it was 2,000 years ago. We need the healing of Christ’s Gospel in our lives. We need to receive the Gospel message of love in order to become angels in God’s heavenly kingdom.
What was that Gospel message around which the Christian church grew? Let us again think about Jesus’ life. He did not come to rule but to serve. His entire life was dedicated to relieving suffering from people–both physical and spiritual. This is the Gospel message of love. We are not here for ourselves alone. We are here for each other. We are all going through life together and we are all each other’s responsibility. Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to make the people we know happy and to relieve their suffering. I think that His Holiness the Dalai Lama said it best, and I’ll close with a citation from his book, My Spiritual Journey. In this passage, His Holiness explains the nature of compassion–the cardinal virtue of Buddhism,
We sometimes wrongly liken compassion to a feeling of pity. We should analyze the nature of true compassion more deeply.
True compassion does not stem from the pleasure of feeling close to one person or another, but from the conviction that other people are just like me and want not to suffer but to be happy, and from a commitment to help them overcome what causes them to suffer.
This attitude is not limited to the circle of our relatives and friends. It must extend to our enemies too. True compassion is impartial and bears with it a feeling of responsibility for the welfare and happiness of others (My Spiritual Journey, p.20)
We can only pass on what we, ourselves, have. Let us take to heart the teachings of Jesus, the Dalai Lama, and other great masters of religion. Let us remember that we, too, are not here to rule, but to serve. Let us remember that others are just like us, and want to be happy, too. Let’s do what we can to make that happen.