30 Jun 7/2/23 Mark 5:21-43 “4th of July Message”
7/2/23 Mark 5:21-43 “4th of July Message”
Today, I think that we have something to celebrate. In spite of all the goofy things happening in our society, in spite of all the bad things that happen all around us, we still have the greatest country in the world, even if they are trying to erode our freedoms. We have been blessed as a nation by God and I would like to see us continue to be blessed for another 200 years, at least. There will be many obstacles that will have to be dealt with for this to happen. There is a population problem, there are food shortage problems, there is the ever presence of some sort of nuclear war or disaster and this just names a very few of the things that we will have to deal with in order to last another 200 years. But the biggest problem that we have, that the world has is a problem of the heart. As a country we just don’t believe in Jesus any more unless we can make our own definition of Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit. There was a letter to the editor one time that summed it up very well. God doesn’t change. The Bible doesn’t change. It is totally wrong for us to try to change God so that He fits into our society, our country. And this is what mainline denominations have been doing. We have to change to fit into God’s ways or we will be out of His ways for eternity. Today, we are going to look at a scene with Jesus where He shows us just what it takes to be part of His world.
The United Nations tells us that approximately one tenth of the world’s population is suffering from some sort of disability. There are many physical disabilities caused by illness, accidents and war. We all know of people with disabilities. There are also many types of mental disorders that affect millions. Then if we top this off with all the people we know who just suffer some illness like cancer or heart disease, we can see that there are lots of people with disabilities. We have all seen these people, some of us are these people or many of us are very close to one of these situations.
Things weren’t any different in the time of Jesus. As a matter of fact, they might have been worse. I always say that they had no health care in those days because it was totally different than what we think. If we get sick, we can go to the hospital or clinic where doctors will try to help us. In the time of Jesus, they did have what we might call physicians. Only rich people had access to anything that might resemble any real help. The common people could go and spend their money on some sort of shaman who would try to heal them by saying a chant or waving an object over them. If you were lucky, they would give you some sort of natural concoction that would have probably been available at home. Anyway, they weren’t real doctors like we know them today.
So, we begin today with Jesus walking along with the crowd when one of the synagogue leaders, Jairus, comes up to Him, falls before Him and pleads that Jesus will come and heal his daughter who is dying. This is an instance where we see one of the local Jewish leaders who is a believer in Jesus. This was not always the case but it happened more when Jesus was away from the main Temple in Jerusalem and in the countryside than when He was at the Temple. Anyway, the faith of Jairus brought him to Jesus.
Sometimes I wonder about our faith when it comes to healing people. I know that there are many who claim that they can heal people in the name of Jesus and I believe that they can, some of the time. I think that we all can heal in the name of Jesus, some of the time. I think we all know this but we get a little dragged down. We usually think of a healing as something dynamically magnificent like saving someone from death or curing an incurable disease. Often times we forget that we also need healing from everyday events, like a cold or gall bladder attack or tonsils.
We need to be reminded that we are to come to Jesus for the little things also. Jairus came to Jesus for a big thing, the healing of his daughter. Through this, we should be able to see that we can and should come to Jesus for all things big and small. Please remember this as you go about your week. Come to Jesus for anything and everything. It was just a few years ago we had 4 people from each church that had been healed through our prayers. That is 8 people in just a week. This is a reason for us to rejoice. These things happen daily, even in our small churches. Don’t be afraid to bring your healing requests to church so we can all pray about it. On that Sunday, I just wanted to shout out, ‘Thank you, Jesus. Thank you!’
Anyway, this isn’t all that is going on here. The crowd starts out for the house of Jairus. Suddenly Jesus knows someone has touched Him. If we think about it, Jesus knew what was happening all the time but He was going to use this for a teaching moment. He asks who touched Him. Finally, we find out that it is a woman who has had some sort of bleeding disease for 12 years. She had spent all her money on the doctors of the day who would have waved a magic wand over her or something very similar. She has been so sick for so long that she is desperate. Now she comes to Jesus.
It is her desperation and her faith that bring her to Jesus. But notice that this is a woman. Any time we have a woman as a lead character in a Bible story, pay close attention because women held very minor roles in those days and they sure wouldn’t have come forth and touched someone like Jesus. The second thing to notice here is that she is unclean. She has been bleeding for years and it was against Jewish law to touch anyone who was bleeding or to be touched by blood. If you touched blood, you became unclean. If you just look at this story on its face value, this poor woman doesn’t have a chance except through Jesus and according to Jewish law, He shouldn’t touch her either. But He cures her.
Believe it or not, this type of thing still happens today. I would say that we have many unclean people in our midst but we are nice enough not to call them unclean. I would say that we that we try to avoid alcoholics and drug addicts as much as possible. The same can be said of any of the fringe groups in our society. We don’t like to be around people who are different from us. We definitely like it if the poor would just stay where they belong. As a matter of fact, when you look at our behavior, it might be a lot worse than the ancients. At least they would come right out and say someone was unclean rather than giving them the cold shoulder or silent treatment like we do today.
Regardless of what these people do or who they are, they are still people. They are still children of God. They deserve just as much respect as anyone else. They also deserve to be able to touch the cloak of Jesus. Often times these marginal people feel that they aren’t good enough to come to Jesus. Many times, this is because we don’t make them feel welcome. I don’t care who you are or what is going on in your life, you need Jesus. You deserve the forgiveness that only Jesus can give. I know this first hand because Jesus forgave me and gave me a new life. If you know anyone out there who might be marginal, and I think we all do, show them Jesus Christ by what you do and speak. Invite people to come to church. I know there are people living right beside you in this community who think they are too bad; they have done too many things wrong for Jesus to ever give them a chance. These people are out there and there are some who are right beside you. Invite them today and invite them often.
So far in this reading we have two people who have faith in Jesus. I want us to also see that Jairus was a very patient man. He doesn’t interrupt Jesus during the scene with the woman. He waits patiently until Jesus finishes.
This is another area where we all fall, including yours truly. I always want things done on my time table. I want someone healed now. I want a marriage fixed now. I want this and I want that. I don’t even consider that Jesus may have a far greater and better plan than I do. It is only after thinking about it for a minute, that I realize that I am wrong in all of this. Jesus has all the knowledge of the world compared to my little trinket of knowledge. He has all the power and I have no power at all. He has all the love and I only know the beginning of love. It is no wonder that His plan is always best. Jairus points the way for us with his patience as he waits for Jesus.
So, we have two people who are faithful, the woman and Jairus. What about the girl? While all these things are happening to the woman, a messenger comes and tells Jairus that his daughter had died. So, he figures the way we would all figure. What is the use in calling Jesus to come and help when the daughter is already dead?
This is the way we think about many things in our lives. We have a few references that Jesus and some close followers of God raised people from the dead but these are rare cases. They are the exception and not the rule. Even today these are the rare cases where someone has died and they are brought back from the dead. It happens but it is, once again, rare. Just for clarification, when I die, I don’t want to come back from the dead because I think I would rather stay in heaven. Even though I love all you people I think I would rather be in the place of perfection.
But Jesus says come with me and He takes 3 disciples and Jairus and goes to the girl. He tells the people that the girl is not dead but only sleeping. I’m going to come to the defense of all these people. I think that they had seen death before and they knew what it was. This girl was dead. But I don’t think that Jesus was talking about physical death when He said that she was only sleeping. She was physically dead but she had always been spiritually asleep and that is what He is telling the people. We aren’t told but I think that there were two miracles here. We have the raising of the physically dead girl and the spiritually dead girl.
The miracle that grabs our attention is the physically dead person coming to life. This is great but we should have our focus on the spiritually dead person coming back to life also. I was one of these people as were some of you. We can look around us and see all the spiritually dead. I am really sorry to say that we have many clergy who are spiritually dead as they follow the teachings of false doctrine. How in the world are we supposed to lead people to Jesus Christ when our own leaders don’t even know Him?
Anyway, this girl came back to life and then we know nothing about her again. She was a miracle and many saw this happen. This was a teaching moment for Jesus. And then He tells the witnesses not to tell anyone. We think He does this in several places because it wasn’t His time yet.
Well, Jesus has had His time and I’m here to tell you today that it is our time to go out and tell everyone we see. Let’s not hide this message anymore. We are to take this message of love and hope and we are to talk about it and sing about it. We are to shout about it! We are to live our lives like we mean every word of the message. We are to talk about Jesus in our coffee shops, barber shops and every place we go. I remember one day when I ran into a man who I knew very well in my old life. We had quite a chat and covered a lot of ground in just a few minutes. He asked me if the ministry was going well. I told him it was and I asked Him if he knew Jesus in his life. I planted a seed. That is all it takes. Just plant the seed. Jesus will take care of everything after that.
I like to think of this as my 4th of July message. You may be wondering what these three people have to do with the 4th of July. They have everything in the world to do with the 4th of July. This is a story of 2 people of faith and a dead person. We have a country of faith with many dead people. As I have said before, our country was built on the Bible. It was built on the teachings of Jesus Christ. You can holler and scream at me about how I cannot say such a thing because it is not politically correct but you will never ever convince me that I am wrong. We are the people of faith in this country. We have to quit sitting back and taking all of the smear tactics of Satan. We have to learn to call things that are totally wrong, the works of Satan. He is evil and he is the enemy. But he is also defeated. He is a loser. We have Jesus Christ and with Him all things are possible. We can do anything through Jesus Christ and that includes taking back this country that Jesus built. We are the Ezras and Nehemiah’s from the Old Testament and we have to rebuild the Temple which is this country. With the help of Jesus Christ, we can do it.
You have faith. Jesus loves you so much that He has given you faith. You will spread this faith one person at a time. Don’t worry about the masses, just minister to the person in front of you. When you are talking to someone, just let Jesus flow out of you in the most natural way possible. Jesus will take care of the rest. He loves you so much that He wants you to love all your neighbors as yourselves. When you think about it, this is really something quite extraordinary. And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us. Let’s pray.
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