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2/7/21 - 5th Sunday after the Epiphany - Romans 8:28-30 - All Things? All Things!
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The Season
The Epiphany season focuses on the theme of Jesus revealing himself to us as God and Savior. At the same time the readings present us with a real conundrum. The conundrum is that he hides the manifestations of his deity, so that his glory remains a secret and a mystery, even while he is revealing it. The theme present in all of the Epiphany readings is: He shows his hidden glory to those he calls.


The Sunday
Though the call to faith is general and always miraculous in its capacity to create a willing following, it is also always individual. It comes to each in his own special or unique set of circumstances. Jesus both arranges and takes those circumstances into account when he calls us to follow him. He so rules over history that he allows and then overcomes the obstacles in each of us to heeding his call. Again he shows himself glorious, but hides the glory in apparent weakness.

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First Lesson: Job 7:1-7
Job’s experience of suffering is extreme but by no means unique. In pain his only recourse is prayer that trusts in the mercy of God and in the power of God to relieve and to rescue. The glory and the power of the gospel are evident in the basic fact that Job prays at all; he continues to trust in God’s mercy and his promises to hear and help in the face of such terrible suffering. Even with the expectation that the only rescue will be in death, Job does not abandon his trust. The devil causes and uses misery to drive us away from God; God uses it to drive us to our knees and then with the gospel to raise us up again in hope and trust that triumphs even if the suffering stays.



Second Lesson: Romans 8:28-30
Who are the ones who love him? Those he has called. All of their personal history he governs and uses to accomplish his own ultimate purpose of their sharing in his glory. Notice: Paul does not say that God pre-determines all things, but that God makes use of all things in the lives of those he has predestined. God remains God in ultimate control, without man becoming a robot in those things that are subject to man’s own control (limited though that control may be). Thus even the evil that we have and are God uses for our good: he humbles us with its consequence, and then he brings us to see the greatness of his grace in his pardon. Then alone do we begin to understand that the things we count as good are gifts of grace and not of merit. So we glorify God as he leads us from faith here to sight and glory hereafter.




Gospel: Mark 1:29-39
Look at all the problems and all the obstacles to following the call of Jesus. Everybody in town seemed to have trouble or sickness or demon possession. Even the mother-in-law of Peter was down sick with a fever that prevented her from hearing the Word and from serving her divine Guest. But each and every one of the problems and hindrances was a blessing in disguise. For each one of them gave people a reason to despair of their own abilities and to seek in Jesus the compassionate and merciful Savior. Notice that Peter’s mother-in-law gets the point of Jesus’ help immediately: she has been saved to serve. It is very useful for us to put our own problems and hindrances to following Jesus in that kind of a perspective: trials spur us to seek his help; his help should spur us to service. Notice, too, that Jesus’ eyes were always and at the same time in two directions: down to rescue and to save us in our need, and up to do it all as an act of worship and obedience to his Father. He prayed. Then he went on to proclaim the gospel and continue his work of casting out the devil.




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