Please note: The following sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.

It was a human tragedy.

The parents had tried everything to be of help,

but their only son’s problems were so serious.

The demon that afflicted him would not let him  go.

We hear them calling out in anguish and sorrow:

“Teacher! I beg you, look at our son—our only son.

You can do something when no one else can.”

Jesus expresses a bit of impatience because even the people closest to him still don’t understand what is happening.

But then he did give the word, and the boy was healed, and was given back to his family.

This is such a painful story for us to hear, not because someone is healed, but because the persons healed are not us.

We pray using our own words and the words of the most skilled writers.

We sing with the voice of the psalmists and the voices of the hymnists across the centuries.

We may be making use of therapies and the best of medical care yet available….

and it seems as though our prayers are to an absent God, our praise of God is unheard, and the skills of every physician ineffectual.

It doesn’t matter what the demon is for you; Legion is their name.

It may be one of the giants: a cancer, an addiction, an all-consuming hatred.

It may be one of the junior ones that are just as deadly:  

a filthy little habit we just can’t shake,

a jealousy of some one else’s situation or possessions,

or the clever one that is so well hidden that we feel smug enough to say “There are no demons chasing me”

It doesn’t matter what the demon is for you; Legion is their name, and if we fight them alone, we will lose.

In the gift of Holy Baptism, the Lord says,

“You are not alone; you are mine, and I will hold onto you forever.”

But the power of sin, death, and the devil is so strong...it seems to be winning.

“Not true,” says Jesus.

And just to prove the point, he reaches out with his word and healed that parent's son one day in Israel.

It is a sign, you see, of what the Lord God will do with each of us. 

Some of that may happen now, and the task will be completed in the fullness of heaven.

Oh, but it is that part which happens now, once in awhile...

...couldn't it be more, and greater,

and couldn't it include my son, right now?

It is with profound anguish that we pray those kind of prayers.

We've prayed them for ourselves; we've prayed them on behalf of others such as Rob.

Remember...whenever they are granted, the healing that comes to us

is a sign of the greater healing still to come.

It is to be just enough for us to be inspired by the healing of someone else

that we will be enabled to continue the fight together with the Lord Jesus  against the demons in our own lives.

Jesus will win,

Jesus has already won in his death and resurrection,

Jesus wins day after day;

and because of that, we shall win, too.

Parents, family, friends, and brothers and sisters in Christ grieve the death of Rob.

But that is not the last word for Rob or for us.

My favorite cousin in my growing up years was a kind and gentle boy, thoughtful, ready to help anyone around him, and popular enough to be elected a class officer as a high school freshman.

But something happened.

I never did learn the name of the demon that chased him to death.

Apparently he couldn't handle the pressure, the responsibility brought by notice and popularity.

He fled from everyone for awhile, and then life fled from him, somehow.

I remember the nonstop drive to Minnesota,

I remember playing the organ when I could hardly see through the tears,

I remember standing near as his parents put the first handful of earth on the coffin.

I remember thinking, “We'll remember him just as he was before all this started.”

That, of course, is the problem.

We'll remember my cousin Peter, and Rob, just as they were.

But time goes by, and we grow and change,...

but my cousin Peter and Rob will stay exactly the same in our memories.

And it is so sad; the demons that chased them were so fierce.

But here is the good news:

even though we can only remember them as they were, the Lord Jesus knows them as they will finally be when he is done creating.

When every dark and sinister power has been defeated.

When we know that our long-continued prayers have not been forgotten, just answered in God's good time.

When we finally realize that our hymns are echoes of the song that goes on all the time around the throne of God.

Next, we're going to sing a tender and confident hymn.

We can dare to put our heart into it because the Lord Jesus has put his love into our final victory over evil of every sort: sin, death, and Satan itself.

Let's not dwell on ourselves, and let's not dwell on  Rob, as the demon-plagued persons we have been,

but as the redeemed of the Lord we are and will yet become, to the glory of God.

Remembering this future, let all say Amen, Amen.

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St. Mark's Lutheran Church

142 Market Street

Williamsport, Pennsylvania

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