There is a sense of urgency in today’s gospel from Mark. Jesus sends out the Twelve, two by two, and tells them to take nothing except a walking stick for the journey. With no food, no luggage, no money, they are to preach, drive out demons, and anoint the sick with oil. He has given them no material possessions. Rather, they have enormous spiritual power.

Today, that sense of urgency is all but gone. It has been nearly two thousand years and few are living without money or food. To be sure, there are millions living in misery throughout the world. But they are not the messengers, but rather the recipients of the message. Not everyone has the power to drive out demons or to anoint the sick with oil. Those powers are delegated to the Church by inheritance from the Twelve.

The loss of urgency can be attributed to a sense of lethargy about the need to repent. We have heard so many times, we have grown weary of hearing it. Weary that is until a crisis comes into our lives. And crises do come. Then is the time to turn around (the literal meaning of “repentance”) and seek the spiritual powers given to the Church.

Those spiritual powers are embedded in our system called the sacraments.

Many times over the 40 years of my ministry I have witnessed the power of the Sacraments. I want to choose just one example.

One evening when I was a pastor in McCall, I was summoned to the Emergency Room at the hospital. I lived directly across the street from the hospital, so it was not a long journey to get there. But when I arrived, the patient – a woman from Council, Idaho was just then pronounced dead. The doctor announced the time of death and the medical personnel were beginning to disconnect the various monitors. While they were doing this, I reached over and anointed the lady with the Oil of the Sick. When I did this, the doctor suddenly and rather dramatically said, “Wait a minute, I hear a heartbeat”. The woman was alive. Needless to say, everyone in the room: medical personnel and family were stunned. Everybody, but me. I had seen this happen before.

It does not happen all the time, of course. But we also do not see all the time the power of the Sacraments. We are too busy gathering money and possessions. We are in a hurry, to be sure, but not for the evidence of God living among us.

In less than a week, Lent begins. Much preparation now taking place is in the nature of carnival and other games.

We might do better to put some of the games aside and prepare ourselves to pay attention to turning our lives around and be ready for the power and mercy of God.

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