Do Not Lose Heart

Genesis 3:8-15; Psalm 130; 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1; Mark 3:20-35

Today’s story from the Gospel is in the form of a sort of “story sandwich,” with Mark beginning a story, then switching to a different story, then going back and finishing the first story. In this particular case the structure is a little more complex than that and is something called a “chiasm,” but “story sandwich” will do for now.

In this case, the “filling” in the sandwich has to do with the scribes claiming that Jesus is using the power of Satan to cast out demons.

And the “bread” of the sandwich has to do with Jesus and his relationship with his family. In the first verse, they want to take him away because they think he’s lost his mind. In the final verses, Jesus seems to reject them in favor of those who do God’s will.

We don’t often think about Jesus having issues with his family, but it seems like he did. There must have been some reconciliation later – Jesus’ brother James, for instance, became an important figure in the early church, the leader of the church in Jerusalem. But in the short term they had some trouble understanding what was going on. Why was Jesus doing these things? Where did he get these weird ideas? Why couldn’t he come home and behave like a good boy?

We know that Jesus cared for people with families. He comforted the disciples who had left their families to follow him. So we know this situation must have been difficult and painful.

Everybody has family problems. Even Jesus.

Paul had family problems too. Paul regarded the church in Corinth, a church he founded, as his family. His second letter to that church is a very complex composition, so complex that scholars have trouble deciding if our text was made up of fragments of several letters or if it all is of one piece. But it is obvious Paul is writing to the Corinthians out of deep sorrow, deep PAIN, for the way things have been going.

You see, other teachers have come in, claiming that Paul was not an apostle, and that he did not carry the true Gospel. Paul has been put in the position of having to defend his apostleship to a church that he founded. To people to whom he had brought the good news.

Paul is not deterred. In this wild letter he goes from angry to pleading to earnestly trying to convince. Read through it sometime. Paul is desperately trying to convince these people. And he is suffering.

But Paul is not deterred, because of his faith in the message he has proclaimed. As he tells the Christians in Corinth, everything is for their sake, so that God’s grace make extend to more and more people. And even though we know our physical bodies — our earthly homes — won’t last, we know that we have an eternal home with Christ waiting for us.

And so Paul writes the phrase that stuck with me after reading these passages: “So we do not lose heart.”

Do not lose heart.

Jesus did not lose heart when his family thought he was insane, he did not lose heart.

Paul did not lose heart when a church he founded turn against him.

Christians throughout the ages have not lost heart even when threatened with persecution and death.

Holy Cross has been through some tough times. I can remember weeks when we had to choose which bills to pay. But we still did not lose heart.

Guess what? We will have tough times again. But we should not lose heart.

Do not lose heart.

Even when those may close to us seem to turn against us, we do not lose heart.

Even when things seem impossible, we do not lose heart.

Even when things in our country seem totally out of control, we do not lose heart.

We do not lose heart even when innocent civilians are killed in bombing and missile attacks.

We do not lose heart even when more and more people are killed in senseless gun violence.

We do not lose heart when we stand with our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters and let them know that God loves them, no exceptions. That they, too, are created in the image of God.

And when people attack us for making that stand, we do not lose heart, even though it hurts. We must remember that the opposite of courage is NOT fear, but despair.

We do not lose heart because we have a Savior who has already beaten the enemy. Whether you believe Satan to be an actual person or simply a symbol of the evil that is in the world. Jesus has already beaten that evil. Jesus has tied up that “strong man,” as he’s alluded to in today’s gospel, and ransacked his house. He’s already done the hard part.

Jesus has already won the victory. All we have to do is take advantage of that victory.

We do not lose heart.

And that means we can accomplish ANYTHING.

Amen.