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Writer's pictureRev. Gerald (Jerry) Reiter, Emeritus

Don’t Be Afraid; Just Believe

Sixth Sunday After Pentecost


When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” So Jesus went with him.


A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.


At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”


“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”


But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher anymore?”


Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”


He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him.


After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”). Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat.

Mark 5:21-43

 

The story of Jesus raising Jairus’ daughter from the dead is the last in a series of four miracles recorded by Mark. The first one was our Gospel lesson for last Sunday, where we read how Jesus calmed a great wind storm on the Sea of Galilee, causing the disciples to ask, “Who is this, that even wind and sea obey Him?”

 

Having calmed the sea, they continued to the east side of the lake to the area of the Ger’asenes – or Gad’erenes, if you prefer – where they were met by a wild man possessed with many demons. Here Jesus performed a miracle even greater than over wind and sea, driving the evil spirits out of the man and into a herd of swine. You know that story very well. (I could say that this was the invention of “deviled ham” but I won’t!)

 

When the people saw the man in his right mind, and the pigs all drowned in the sea, they begged Jesus to leave because they were afraid! This miracle was too much for them!

 

So, our Gospel lesson tells us that Jesus again crossed over to the other side of the lake. This time He wasn’t met by a mad man, but a sad and troubled man. For Jairus had a 12-year-old daughter who was dying – and he begged Jesus to come and put His hands on her so that she might live. This man was in torment!

 

I know something about how this man must have felt, because I once had a little girl who was dying. Right after my youngest child graduated from high school (she was 17 years old) she had her tonsils out. The operation went fine, but then the trauma began. As Valerie was coming out from under the anesthesia, she was given a shot of Demerol for pain. No one knew she was allergic to it. A short time later she told us she was dying. We said, “No, you’re just feeling like that because of the anesthetic.” But she said, “No, I’m dying – but it’s OK, I’m not afraid.”

 

Then at 3:00 the nurses shift changed, and the nurse coming on duty came in to check Valerie’s vital signs. But she couldn’t find her pulse, and a “controlled panic” began, with nurses in and out, then doctors, then phone calls to heart specialists, then the transfer to intensive care. Her blood pressure was down to 60 over 40 and dropping.

 

Her veins were collapsing in reaction to the Demerol, and they needed to get Dopamine into her, but couldn’t. Finally, after several tries, they got a needle into a vein and began to counteract the Demerol and constrict the veins, raising the blood pressure. She was under constant care all night, and went back to her room the next day.

 

What did I do during all this? I did exactly what Jairus did! I “fell at Jesus’ feet and pleaded earnestly with Him, ‘My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.’” Oh, I didn’t pray those exact same words, but that’s surely what I prayed – over and over and over again! And I called my pastor who contacted our prayer chain at church. And I called two friends who I knew were members of prayer chains. And the Lord heard our prayers, and Valerie was healed, and she lived!

 

But that’s not the way it went in our story, was it? You see, while Jesus was going with Jairus, a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years had touched Jesus’ robe and had been miraculously healed. And He stopped and sought her out, and assured her that she was healed of her disease.

 

And then the blow came to Jairus. I thing God I don’t know how he felt when he heard the words, “Your daughter id dead.” I can only imagine that the bottom fell out of his world.

 

His hopes had been raised as Jesus had gone along with him. He must have chafed at the bit when Jesus stopped to talk to the woman with a hemorrhage. And then his hopes were dashed with the news of his daughter’s death. Healing had been possible, but now death seemed to extinguish all hope.

 

But you know, as my mother-in-law often said, “There’s worse things in life than death.” And I think she was right.

 

Have you ever had a friendship that was hopelessly damaged? I mean someone that was a close friend, that you trusted, and confided in – and then something happened: some harsh words, a betrayed trust, an unforgivable act – and a long friendship is over.

 

Or maybe you’ve had your marriage die. Everything was so good for a while – maybe for years. And then another woman, or another man – or nothing so dramatic, just a realization one day that the love was gone – and the marriage is dead.

 

My mother-in-law had a saying about kids, too. (I think she had a saying for everything.) Speaking of kids, she’d say, “You raise a stick to break you back.” Break your hear might be more accurate, when it looks like you’re a failure as a parent, and there seems to be no hope for your kids.

 

And then there are those whose self-worth is a big, fat zero. It’s too common a feeling among teenagers. No one loves them; no one needs them; no one cares; and they might as well end it all now.

 

Or maybe you know what it feels like to go spiritually dry; to have your faith gone. God used to seem so close, but now He’s so far away, if He’s anywhere at all.

 

Hope extinguished. And that’s where our friend Jairus was, too. Right at the bottom. And then Jesus speaks! Did you notice? These are the first words that Mark has recorded that Jesus spoke in this story. And when Jairus hits bottom, Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.” Jairus had just been told, “Your daughter is dead” and Jesus says “Don’t be afraid; just believe.” How can He say such a thing? I’m sure Jairus must have wondered, but he found out when Jesus said, “Little girl… get up!” And she stood up – and walked  - and ate! How could Jesus do such a thing?

 

Well, we know He could do it because of who He is. We know He could raise Jairus’ little daughter from the dead because Jesus is who He claimed to be. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead was God’s great affirmation of who Jesus is. Paul puts it this way in his letter to the Romans: Jesus was “declared with power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead.” By raising Jesus from the dead, God was saying, “This is it; He is the Son of God; this seals it’ this proves it.”

 

Peter used this argument when he spoke to the crowds on the day of Pentecost: “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses… Let all the house of Israel therefor know assuredly that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

 

God the Father had made open declarations about His Son earlier. At the time of His baptism, when Jesus was about to begin His public ministry, God spoke from Heaven saying, “This is my beloved Son.”

 

The miracles that Jesus performed were also an affirmation by God of His Son – miracles over the elements, like wind and sea – miracles over demons and spirits of the unseen world – miracles over sickness and disease – and even miracles over death.

 

And the resurrection was God’s full and final revealing, declaring, and authenticating of all Jesus was and did on Earth.

 

But what was it that God was declaring His Son to be by this mighty act? He was declaring Jesus to be the Conqueror of Death! Raising Him from the dead was God’s perfect way of making this declaration, the perfect way of affirming it.

 

Death is Satan’s domain, his kingdom. Causing things to die is his ultimate work. He is himself the prince of darkness and the lord of death.

 

But Jesus is the Conqueror of Death. Jesus came that we might have life. And Jesus is the Conqueror of Death in all its shapes and forms; He is the conqueror of physical death, and we have eternal life in Him.

 

But Jesus is also the breaker of the power of death in every other area of our lives. Death destroys our souls as well as our bodies. It constricts our personalities, our minds, and our emotions. But Jesus has conquered it. Even before God actually raised Him from the dead, in the course of His teaching ministry Jesus had enunciated the truth that He is the resurrection and the life. To read the story of Jairus and his little daughter and to see in it just a miraculous incident in the life of our Lord is to miss most of the point. Jesus’ miracles point to even more significant and eternal realities, realities which we can expect to see happening in our own experience.

 

What could be more significant than a person physically dead being restored to life? I mean that was fantastic! Incredible! Life and death are the ultimate realities, aren’t they? The Bible’s answer is that more dreaded and fearful than physical death is spiritual death. And more glowing and vibrant than physical life is spiritual life. These are the ultimate realities! Spiritual life is that which combats and overcomes spiritual death. “The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the Law of sin and death” Paul wrote to the Romans.

 

Death causes a friendship to end, a marriage to die, a parent to fail, self-worth to disappear, faith to dry up. But life is that which combats death, and Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life.”

 

When we admit that we can’t solve our problems by ourselves – when we have faith in Him alone, and not a little bit of faith in ourselves and a little bit of faith in God – when we’re willing to go the whole way with Jesus Christ, the way of death to our cherished ideas of what is good for us, and what is due to us, we can enter into the full experience of His plan for us. When we die to reliance on ourselves, we can have fullness of life in Christ. God’s principle is always Good Friday – and then Easter Sunday! We can surely trust Him when He says, “Don’t be afraid; just believe!”

 

Amen


 

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