Jesus goes to church and fights with a fellow church member! There, got your attention?? It's not exactly like that, but it is a Sunday and Jesus is at church in our Gospel lesson today. And the church attendance "pressure" begins. When I was growing up my family was what some call "Chreasters" meaning people who attend at Christmas and Easter. I had a man at my Crawfordsville church that used to think that was pretty funny. Every Christmas he said "See you at Easter!" and he did! (His wife was a regular attender). Attending now virtually, and soon in person, is not a HAVE to, it is a GET to in my opinion!
Attendance in a church building isn't so much what the Christian life is about, but attending to God in one's heart, mind, and soul is the key!! And because we love the Lord we GET to come and worship together as a family of faith every Sunday. Today we continue in the Epiphany season with this week’s Gospel story from Mark chapter 1. As you may recall, the last two weeks we had Jesus calling his disciples. Now, it's "Sunday" and the Lord is going to church! The Scripture says it is the Sabbath, which has come to mean the 7th day, Sunday. Some believe the week starts with Sunday and, thus, the Sabbath is Saturday. This would be the belief system of the Seventh Day Adventists who hold worship on Saturday evening and take Sunday as a "Sabbath" day of rest!!
It doesn't really matter when or how, but that we celebrate the Lord and worship God every day. And then, for us, Sunday is when we get to do that together! Today in our Gospel lesson, Jesus encounters a man with an "unclean" spirit and casts the demon out of the man, thus healing him. The people who see this are amazed. Interestingly the "demon" calls out to Jesus and knows that He is the "Holy One of God!" And so do we! As we come to "church" today we already know that Jesus is the Holy One of God and we celebrate that every day.
