Interruptions!

Sermon for 4/23/2006

Mark 5:21-43

Interruptions!

Introduction:

A. I have been studying feverishly on a sermon and it just isn’t coming together. Finally, the Lord helps me and shows me how it can come together. I am ready to record the thoughts when the phone rings. I pick up the phone and talk for about 10 minutes. Then I come back to record the notes for the sermon but unfortunately I have completely forgotten these thoughts and the rest of the day I frantically try to remember what was revealed to me before that phone call.

B. Samuel Coleridge was a great writer. On one occasion in the summer of 1797, Coleridge was taking a nap. In this nap he was given a grand vision of a poem, the verses already worked out. Coleridge woke up and quickly began writing down each line. But then, there came a knock at the door. Later in his notes, he refers to his visitor as “a man from Porlock” and gives no clue as to why he came or what took place. He returned to the poem as hour later, only to find that while he still retained a vague recollection of this dream, the rest had vanished like the morning mist. He tried to piece it together as best he could but from his point of view it never was like the original. The work is Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan.”

WBTU:

A. From our verses this morning we could talk about many things.

C. WE notice that as Jesus was on his way to heal Jairus’ daughter, he is interrupted by this woman with the issue of blood. Both of these miracles are intertwined. Something would be lost if these two accounts were separated.

D. Have you ever heard the saying, “Life is what happens when you’re making other plans?” We have the whole thing mapped out, and then life happens and our course is changed. If we truly live and experience life, we soon discover we can’t control life, that it never goes quite as planned, there are a lot of surprises along the way. Well this is kind of what happens to Jesus in this story. He has his course mapped out, plans to go heal Jairus’ daughter. Then life happens. The woman with the hemorrhage comes in and his plans get changed a bit.

E. Interruptions! What to do with them? They are frustrating to everyone trying to get some work done. Some interruptions are good and are means of great opportunities. Other interruptions are detours that lead down dead ends.

F. Is this interruption an opportunity or is it an obstacle?

Thesis: Some interruptions are sent by God (Opportunities). Other interruptions are not sent by God (obstacles).

For instances:

1. Some interruptions are sent by God (Opportunities).

A. Interruptions are often irritating. One of the most irritating is salespeople on the telephone! I feel for them. What a terrible job? Their calls never come at a convenient time, and their sales pitches are intrusions into my daily routine. There is one woman who sees such calls as opportunities from God. She witnesses to these salespeople about Jesus Christ. Many times her efforts are met with resistance but hey they interrupted her day and she might as well do something productive with the call.

B. In the hundreds of interruptions of our lives, is it possible that they really could be of a divine purpose? Could God actually be saying something to us?

C. G. H. Morling in The Quest for Serenity- A valuable study of the Gospels could be made, noticing how many times Jesus gave some of His greatest teachings in circumstances where he had simply been interrupted. How different this is from us; we hate to be interrupted. To Jesus, the importance seemed to lie in the person whose path had crossed His own. Things don’t just “happen” in the providence of God. The interruption may well be our highest task at that very moment.”

D. Look at this story. Jesus is with a large crowd. He is interrupted by Jairus. Jesus agrees to go with Jairus to see his daughter. On the way, a woman who suffered from a hemorrhage for many years heard that Jesus was coming that way. She worked her way through the crowd to get to him. As she reached through the crowd, her hand came into contact with Jesus robe. Suddenly, power flowed from the Master into her body. The woman knew that she was healed. Then Jesus stopped. “Who touched me?’ He asked. The disciples must have been a little irritated at the delay as they answered, “Who touched you? A hundred people are pressing in on you and you ask who touched you?”

E. Jesus scans the crowd looking for this individual whose touch had so much faith. As his eyes locked onto hers, the woman dropped to her knees, afraid she had done something wrong. “Master,” she yelled, “I touched you. You see, I’ve had this condition…” When she ended her story, the Lord smiled and said, “Daughter, your faith has made you whole. Go in peace. You are healed.”