Princeton Presbyterian Church

Princeton Presbyterian Church (EPC) Sermon # 1699

August 24, 2025

Mark 1.35-45                  Click here for audio worship.

Dr. Ed Pettus

(This is an extended outline, not a verbatim transcript.)

 

“Spread the News!”

 

 

And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.” And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons. And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once, and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.

 

• A Typical Day

 

This may have been a typical day in the life of Jesus. And yet, He probably seldom had a “typical” day in that His days offered a variety of situations to address and people to encounter. But it is very likely that Mark 1.35 shows us what Jesus would have normally done early in the morning. Jesus departed the home where He was staying, left the disciples behind, able to get away

before the crowds returned, and He went to a deserted place to pray. The day and days before were filled with activity. The day before our reading, Jesus was teaching in the synagogue, healing in the synagogue and also at Simon’s house, healed Simon’s mother-in-law, and people were crowding about the door all through the night seeking Jesus’ time.

The very next day, before sunrise, Jesus gets away to pray. A time of refreshing, a time of devotion, a time of communion with God the Father. Jesus is at prayer early in the morning but Simon tracks Him down and tells Jesus that everyone is looking for Him. I imagine that they want more of Jesus. But Jesus does not want to stay. His call is to spread the word, spread the gifts. He does not want to settle in and create a center for healing. His mission and ministry involved taking His message and miracles to others. The message is one of movement, a journey of faith; it is time to move on.

Jesus desires to expand the ministry and the two great themes finish this section of the story. Jesus went throughout Galilee proclaiming the message and casting out demons. Preaching and healing. Jesus will not be tied down to one location. His call is to preach the good news and to bring healing – whether that healing is in the form of exorcism, relief of illness, deliverance from oppression, filling the hungry, forgiving sin, whatever force that seeks to diminish the gift of life from God, Jesus will drive it out. That is the message of Mark’s gospel: to preach and cast out demons. To preach the word of life and to drive out the forces that seek to destroy life.

The gospel is our text for life. There are so many other “texts” in the world, but this one is ours, to counter all the other ones that seek to define us and, in the end, seek to destroy us. Let us live in the “text” of God, in this message of life and healing and prayer and service. Today we use the term “text” in a particular way as in text messages to one another on our cell phones. But the text of the Bible, the message of the Bible is not just something we type and send and then look to our phones for a response. The text that is the gospel is a text for life, God’s Word for healing and refreshment and power and discernment and also for what is crucial for us as it was for Jesus...prayer.

 

• Daily Prayer

 

There is no greater example for prayer than Jesus at prayer. Even before the sun came up the next day, Jesus was stirring in the house. He woke no one, but slipped out unnoticed. He went to a deserted place and there He prayed. If there was one thing Jesus practiced, and I’m sure there were more, but one thing would have been daily prayer. In the midst of the busy days, even all that occurred the day before on the Sabbath, in all of that, Jesus took time to pray. Have we ever been so busy that we failed to take time to pray? We might always say a prayer before we dig in to eat, but what about getting away first thing in the morning to set the theme of the day, a theme of prayer, a theme of awareness of Presence, and theme of dependence upon God’s daily provisions and guidance.

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went to a solitary place where He prayed. Obviously, Jesus was a morning person. I am not! Obviously, Jesus felt it was important to stop the busyness for a time in order to pray. Fortunately, for me and others like me, Jesus also prayed in the evening as in Mark 6:46 “After saying farewell to [the disciples], he went up to the mountain to pray.” In times of crisis, Jesus prayed all night if necessary, as he did in the garden of Gethsemane. We can pray early in the morning, through the day, late at night, the point is to set aside some time to pray!

One of the enemies of life today is busyness. We are all too busy. People preface conversations with me saying, “I know you are busy…” We cannot become too busy to pray. And if we pray, I believe that will open our lives to a way of life that is not busied. You see, we get busy too often with worthless things that take away from what matters. One of my favorite verses of Scripture speaks to worthless things, “Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways (Psalm 119.37). Life comes through God’s ways...ways of Word and worship and prayer and service. These are the ways that aid us in determining what matters and what does not, what boundaries we need to set for ourselves and for our children. I know the difficulties of balancing everything in a family and even as we grow older and the nest is empty, we still have to find the rhythm of prayer in the midst of “so much to do”. I know the line that most retired people tell me, that they wonder how they ever had time to work. Busyness draws us away from prayer, away from the Word, and away from God’s ways.

When the disciples find Jesus He sets a new direction for the day. Not that what had happened the day before was worthless in any way, but that perhaps in His time of prayer, He knew it was time to move one to something else, or at least, somewhere else. Jesus did not check His cell phone calendar to see a schedule for the day, but He came out of prayer and told the disciples, “Let us go somewhere else – to the nearby villages so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”

I have a friend who lived in Orlando, Florida and had moved to Atlanta. Both are large cities with lots of traffic. She had moved back to Orlando for a time and told me she was ready to move back to Atlanta because of the traffic. I wondered what she meant because both places are filled with bumper to bumper traffic most of the time. She said she was tired of driving in Orlando traffic because she said, “it’s bumper-to-bumper in both places, but at least in Atlanta they are moving at 75 miles per hour!” Orlando is full of tourist trying to figure out where the next exit will lead them. Atlanta is full of busy people trying to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. They are too busy to drive any less than 75mph!

People who live in larger cities will ask me what we do in a small town, and Princeton is certainly small compared to places like Atlanta or Orlando…but if we took a poll right now I’d bet that none of us could say we have nothing to do tomorrow, or every day this week. I think the question of small town life verses big city life prompts a larger question for us: why do we feel we always have to be doing something? Is it because we live in such a production oriented society that says we must be on the move 24 hours a day? Even if we are not busy there is an underlying pressure to look busy! In our busyness, have we lost the perspective that says that prayer is valuable to our life? But prayer is not valued in the world, certainly not in our society in ways we would like. We do not see people at prayer in television shows. We will occasionally hear people in crisis speak of prayer, but not so much as a daily practice. Prayer must surely look foolish to the world. But we know that prayer is an essential habit in the life of Christians. What the world does not realize is that our prayer is essential for them as well, as we lift them in prayer. Prayer was essential to Jesus as the author of Hebrews tells us, “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cried and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission” (5:7).

Jesus had many days like the one in Mark 1, teaching in the synagogue, a healing, lunch, more people seeking healing – a full day on the Sabbath. The very first order of business the next morning was prayer. Prayer prepared Jesus for more healing, more teaching, and all that constituted his ministry. We may discover that the more time spent in prayer, the less busyness will rule over us.

 

• Preaching and Healing

 

After Jesus is found by the disciples He tells them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.

He came to preach and heal. He came to save and deliver. He came to pronounce the Kingdom of God. Mark gives us a specific story of a leper, one who suffered from a terrible skin disease. At this point Jesus may have been outside of town, the only space where a leper could gain access to Jesus. Lepers were not allowed around other people. Their condition prevented interaction because the religious rules deemed them unclean and therefore could not be touched. In that sense it was not so much a health issue as a ritual issue. The leper is the first to speak: “If you choose, you can make me clean.” As far as we can tell the leper just wants to he healed of this particular skin condition. I would imagine that he had been cut off from family and friends. Perhaps some people blamed his condition on his sins. Maybe others jeered at him when they saw him and the pain moved deeper than the skin. All that we know is that he wants to be cleansed. Clean me up.

Jesus touches him and says: “I will; be clean!” Jesus does not ask any questions, he does not consider the man’s sins or life, he just cleanses him. Then Mark tells us: “Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.” It is an interesting choice of words, “the leprosy left him” as if it were a force – or a demon – that could leave or stay. But that is the language of the other healings as well. The unclean spirit “came out” of the man in the synagogue. When Jesus healed Simon’s mother-in-law the text says the fever “left her”. With this leper: “the leprosy left him”. Jesus drives out any force that would diminish human life, unclean spirits, fevers, or unclean diseases.

Jesus tells the leper: “show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” In order for the leper to rejoin the community the priest would have to make an examination to determine if he was clean and then the ritual for cleansing would render him a new man and able to return to society completely whole.

What we see in this interchange between the leper and Jesus is a poignant exchange of request, command, result, and witness. It is a common pattern of prayer:

Prayer request – we go to God with our desire;

God’s command – God speaks or acts;

Result – prayer is answered;

Witness – we tell of what God has done.

 

• Spread the News!

 

All of us have asked Jesus in one way or another to make us clean. It may be the cleansing from sin. Perhaps cleansing a sickness. Maybe to heal a relationship. Very often whatever answered prayer we have received is followed by a witness to that answer. God cleaned up my blocked artery. God cleaned up my debt. God forgave my sin and I have been washed clean by the blood of the Lamb. All good news. Jesus cleanses physical and spiritual ailments. We are all “lepers” in a spiritual sense in that we need cleaning. We need to come before Jesus with a request: “Make me clean”. In essence every time we hear the assurance of pardon that comes after our prayer of confession we are hearing Jesus say: “Be clean”. And immediately we are clean! If we follow the lead of the leper we would go out and spread the word that the Lord of Life has forgiven us of all our sins. We can live now, without condemnation, without fear, without a distorted perspective. We have been cleansed by Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross. We come to Him for cleansing in repentance, in prayer, in faith, in worship, in the Word.

The leper could not contain his joy. “I gotta tell somebody.” The way this section of Scripture reads it is likely that Jesus did not want the leper to spread the news because of crowd control. Jesus could not enter a town, but had to hide out from time to time because people kept coming to Him. The more they heard, the more word spread, the more they came. Jesus told the leper not to speak of it and still he did. But Jesus commands us to spread the word! How much more might people come to Jesus if we were to spread the word of what He has done for us. Every one of us has a story to tell, something Jesus has done. A story of salvation, a story of healing, a story of hope, a story of prayers answered. The leper went out and talked freely and spread the news. Can we go out this week a spread some more news? Spread it as best we can and know that the Holy Spirit goes with us, to give us the words, to give us the ability to articulate our stories, to spread the news, the good news of Jesus and what He has done. Amen.