5 Epiphany - Mark 1:29-39

Sometimes Simon Peter gets it right.

For all his foibles and failures, Simon sometimes sees and speaks the truth, even if it is deeper than he realizes.

Long before naming Jesus the Messiah with no idea what that meant, he and his companions nail the truth in chapter one, saying to Jesus: Everyone is searching for you.

Centuries later, Saint Augustine prayed: Our hearts are restless until they can find rest in you.

The God in whom we are finally and fully at home, the God who makes a home with us in Jesus, is the real longing of every restless heart and thirsty soul.

We don't all, or always, realize that, of course.

We spend a lot ot time and energy and money hunting down other gods: popularity,

pleasure, security, success, fortune, fame, family, career, victory, health, prestige, power, or whatever else we think will make and keep us happy.

We chase after Christ not only in the usual suspects like sex, drugs, and rock and roll, but also among the noble idols like work and religion and fitness and family.

The gifts are so good that we can easily confuse them with the Giver.

We set ourselves up for disappointment, burdening these beautiful gifts with a weight they cannot bear.

We do the same to ourselves.

We wear ourselves out, to quote the theologian Johnny Lee. looking for love in all the wrong places.

In our frantic, impatient, demanding pursuit, even youths faint and grow weary and the young fall exhausted.

I read dire warnings about the massive wave of turnover coming to churches and think, "but

nurses and teachers and grocery workers and bartenders and therapists and social workers and so many others have it worse than we do."

What will become of an insatiable society addicted to instant gratification now buried alive in pandemic and political gridlock for over a year?

Our whole town is sick, and even Jesus only healed many of them, not all, before dashing off to the desert to escape into the mothering arms of prayer.

Is our way hidden from the LORD, disregarded by our God?

Where is our heart's desire now?

Send a search party and hunt the healer down: Everyone is looking for you!

Credit again to Simon and his companions for finding Jesus where we might not think to look.

They find him alone, in the wilderness, in the day's darkest hour.