Jairus MONOLOGUE
(Stands behind a pulpit to face his congregation)
How does a man deal with having his world rocked, not once, but twice in the same day? I mean, when you’re a “man of the cloth”, you’re supposed to have it all together, you know? You see people die, you’re supposed to have all the right words to comfort and encourage; you talk about God’s love and God’s care and all of those things—and then it happens to you. And for certain, you have your theology all in order; why, people look to you for answers, you know? You’ve got to know God, His ways, His truth, so that you can teach them. And I thought I had it all together…
She’s my angel, my only daughter, 12 years old and so full of life; it’s hard even now to think about it. It started as almost nothing, a sniffle and a headache. We put her to bed; she lay her head on this pillow and rested. We figured she’d be up and about in no time, but instead, she just kept getting worse, day after day, a terrible cough and terrible pain in her head. She couldn’t keep anything on her stomach. We called in the doctor, but he was no help; in fact, the news he gave us scared us to death. She might not pull through, he said…and suddenly, all of the words that came so easily when I spoke with others just didn’t seem all that helpful. What do you do when the doctor tells you that there’s nothing he can do? My wife was almost hysterical, and I was looking for answers, for anything that would give us some glimmer of hope. And then this crazy thought came to mind.
A man will do some rash things when he finds himself desperate…
There was this fellow Jesus in town. I’d heard about Him, and I’d pretty much written Him off as some kind of quack, one of these religious charlatans who pops up from time to time to rip people off and score a quick buck on the superstitions of poor people. And from what they said, He was running roughshod over our traditions and our ways; He sure had a lot of my colleagues upset at Him. Some of them were even plotting how to get rid of Him (and make it look like an accident, you know!). Everything in my religious framework said, “This guy is a quack; don’t put any faith in Him!”
But the people, oh the people thought He hung the moon! I got tired of hearing the stories of how many deaf people were now hearing and lame people walking and blind people seeing; I figured He was a pretty good trickster, and these poor gullible folk were just swallowing this thing hook, line, and sinker. Hmmm…I guess a man’ll do some rash things when he finds himself desperate…
But I couldn’t get that crazy thought out of my mind: what if this Jesus character can heal her? Without telling my wife, I left the house to find Him. That was pretty easy; there was a mob. I pushed my way through, and before I knew it, I was standing face-to-face with Him. It was like…it was like He knew I was coming, you know? I knew that there were people around who might know me, but this was my daughter, and I didn’t care what I looked like or what they thought; I just fell at His feet and started to beg Him to come and heal her. I didn’t have to beg long; He picked me up and just said, “Let’s go!”
But we hadn’t gotten far when He stopped, dead in His tracks. “Who touched me?” he asked. Some of His men picked up on the irony of that right away; I mean, there were people all around, crowding. There must have been hundreds who had “touched him”. This woman raises her hand, and explains that she had reached out and touched Him, hoping that just His touch would heal her; she’d been sick for years and years, she said. And just like that, Jesus says to her, “Go in peace; your faith has healed you”. Just like that!
“Wow”, I thought, “maybe I’ve come to the right man!” But just then, my best friend appears, and the look on his face told me the news: “she’s gone”, is all he said, and at that moment, my whole world caved in. It was too late; I’d waited too long. The tears started to come, but Jesus just winked at me and said, “don’t be afraid; she’ll be okay, just have faith.” What choice did I have?
It seemed like it took us an eternity to get there, but we made our way back to the house, and Jesus went right up to her bedroom. She looked like she was asleep, resting so peacefully on her pillow…but I knew differently. That didn’t stop Him; He just took her by the hand and said, “Child, get up!” My wife and I waited in wonder and grief and hope and…and…and her eyes opened, and she smiled, and Jesus smiled, and she sat up in bed! After we’d hugged and hugged and kissed, Jesus just looked at my wife, and with a laugh in His voice, He says, “You’d better get that girl something to eat!” And with that, He left.
So what do you do when your whole world is rocked…twice…in the same day? You let Jesus put it all back together, I guess!
SERMON
Jairus
Mark 5:21-24; 35-43
April 6, 2003
How do you deal with a hopeless situation? Thankfully, I now have the answers…answers to such topics as “How to Evade a MiG”; “How to Win a High-Speed Car Chase”; “How to Escape from Handcuffs”; “How to Escape a Sinking Cruise Ship”, and others. Helpful stuff, huh? Even more exotic stuff like “How to Perform the Jedi Mind Trick” and “How to Perform the Vulcan Nerve Pinch” are included in a great gift I received this past Christmas: The Action Hero’s Handbook. I looked for the most hopeless situation described, and I found out how to save someone who’s hanging from a cliff (read excerpt on page 62 beginning with “The accomplished action hero…” to end of paragraph, then read bullet points). Hope that was helpful! With that in mind, stand with me as we read our text together today!
The man in our story today faced a situation which could certainly have been described as “hopeless”. But I beg to differ. You want to sell hopeless? Go somewhere else. Because Jesus doesn’t do “hopeless”!
Jairus was a man of power and position.
Highest-ranking religious leader in Capernaum
Possibly a Pharisee, a member of the group that ridiculed and opposed Christ
He was a man of social and religious prominence, a man who risked ridicule and rejection in coming to Jesus
Yet, he was a desperate man
Verse 23 uses the term “little daughter”; that’s what she was to Jairus.
It seemed only yesterday when that newborn’s cries had filled the home.
He had rocked her to sleep, bounced her on his knee, and when the time came, helped and watched as she’d taken her first steps.
His heart melted each time a tear fell from her eye.
When she said, “Daddy”, a lump would rise in his throat.
He had watched as she had grown now to the verge of becoming a young woman, but now as she was about to enter her adolescent years, a deathly illness had come on her.
No conventional treatment was effective.
So, out of selfless concern for his daughter, and in desperation with no care for his reputation he comes and bows at the feet of Jesus acknowledging his need and demonstrating faith in Jesus’ ability.
No sacrifice is too great to this father whose love for his little girl knew no bounds. We sense an intense anxiety in his pleading voice, “please come and lay your hands on her, so she will get well and live!” Note his considerable faith, “and she shall live!” And the Bible tells us that Jesus responded to that faith, beginning to go with him.
But in the interim, a woman with an issue of blood touches Jesus’ garment in the crowd, and Jesus stops to minister to her. We pick the story back up in verse 35. We see the gloom and doom boys come, and with the tact of a steamroller, crush the hopes of the believing Jairus. “She’s dead,” they intone, “why bother now?”
Faith, though, is not sidetracked by naysayers and doubters. Rather, faith is often rewarded even when all hopes seems to be lost.
In Genesis 22, we read that Abraham had a knife to his son’s chest, in obedience to God, soon to plunge it into his body, with no concrete assurance that God would tell him not to. But you know how that story of extreme faith ends: God had provided a lamb to take the place of the child for the sacrifice, foreshadowing that day when a Lamb would become the sacrifice for the sins of the world.
Exodus 14 records how Moses, in the face of the advancing armies of Egypt, with his back to the sea and no explanation of how God was going to get them out of this jam, stood strong in faith. The situation sure seemed hopeless, but the Bible says that, “Moses said to the people, ‘Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever. The LORD will fight while you keep silent.’” He wasn’t sure how the Lord was going to pull it off, and the situation looked desperate, but God rewarded the faith and obedience of Moses.
David faced down a monster who had defied the armies of God. Talk about a hopeless looking situation: if ever there was one, this was it. But David courageously stood up to the giant in faith and through him, God won the victory.
And Jesus looks at this religious leader and says, in effect, “the final chapter of this story hasn’t been written yet. Just believe!”
Naysayers forty years ago were relegating Christianity and the church to the margins of world society, irrelevant relics of a time gone by. Now, I do have concern about the impact that we are having on society—or rather the lack of it—but today the church around the world is stronger than ever—even if it is weaker here in many respects. Christian faith is the world’s fastest growing faith, and there are strong efforts underway to demonstrate both the validity of our faith and also its relevance to the world around us.
The Bible counsels us that, in the last days, “evil men and seducers will continue to grow worse, deceiving and being deceived.” Crime, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, AIDS, homelessness, poor education, terrorism, the advance of the radical homosexual agenda, the waning respect for life—the list goes on and on. What do we as believers do? Throw up our hands and begin to doubt that God is in control of things, that ultimately everything that takes place will bring him glory? Or do we trust Him, place our hope in Him, regardless of appearances and circumstances? Keep believing!
Getting back to our story, Jesus takes His inner circle, Peter, James, and John, along. As they approached the house, the Bible says that they “saw a commotion”. It was certainly that, all right! The awful sound of mourning filled the air. There was no quiet organ music playing peacefully in the background; you need to understand the Jewish custom of the day.
1. There was only a short time between death and the burial of the body; mourning would begin soon.
2. The mourners would tear their garments in grief.
3. “Professional mourners” would often be hired, usually women who would loudly wail the name of the deceased.
4. Every once in awhile, above the awful din of the mourners, the noise of flutists playing a dirge would be heard.
5. These were loud, disconcerting sounds, signaling emotional discord and deep grief and pain.
6. Since Jairus was an important official, we’d expect that many mourners had been secured and the flautists to have been raising quite a ruckus.
Jesus, his three disciples, and Jairus all enter Jairus’ home, and His response to the mourners is “why?” Notice the contrasts:
Jesus, for Whom death was a mere technicality; they, for whom it represented much more finality.
Jesus, thinking on the eternal; they, not considering anything beyond the gray finality of the now.
Jesus, with power over a raging sea, a raving maniac, as he would demonstrate, over ravaging death; they with no power at all.
He, with a heart of sincere compassion; they, insincere in their mourning, mercenaries with little real concern.
I wonder what Jairus’ wife thought. She had to be overcome by grief, but at the same time, having the knowledge that the miracle worker was there, speaking words of reassurance and compassion. And yet His words, on their face, seemed preposterous. “She’s only sleeping, don’t worry! What are you mourning for?”
Who was this sick joker, this heartless buffoon who would deny the obvious and make sport at a time like this? Just who did he think he was? And the people began laughing. Now, while Jesus’ words must have struck them as funny, this was no time for laughter. These people’s grief was insincere; their compassion was faux compassion; their faith in Jesus was non-existent. That didn’t stop Jesus; He just tossed them out and went about responding to the one who had faith: Jairus.
Tenderly, He takes the little girl by the hand, and His words were, “Talitha kum”, meaning, “get up, little girl!” Had she heard her mother utter those words a thousand times, awakening her in the morning? Jesus uses those words to summon her from the cold sting of death.
And the Bible says that at the simple word of Jesus, she gets up and begins walking around—just like that, as though nothing had happened. She was well—from cold corpse to full of life at the command of Jesus!
Showing further compassion, Jesus playfully suggests, “you’d better get that little girl something to eat; she’s probably famished!” In their exuberance and love, they might forget the fact that death might well have created quite an appetite in this young lady!
What a miracle—from utter hopelessness to hope fulfilled at the word of Jesus. Now switch gears with me and consider the topic of hopelessness in a different light—Ephesians 2:1-10 will guide our thinking for the remainder of our time.
Hopeless? The word “dead” does describe that from a human point of view; “where there’s life, there’s hope” is the saying…but the implication is that, where there isn’t life, there isn’t hope!
I remember the first time as a child I really thought about death up close. A little girl, probably a year or two younger than myself, named Lois, died of Reyes Syndrome. I must have been eight. Though I really only knew her in passing, I remember that her death really hit me. The truth is, though, that we encounter death every day, and often don’t even consider it. But this is how the Bible describes us—dead in trespasses and sins. Dead equals hopeless, apart from something which brings us to life again.
Before we move on, note also that we are hopeless because we “walk according the course of this world”. That’s odd; we are literally, as Paul puts it, “dead men walking!” We walk in disobedience toward God, in lust as regards the appetites of our flesh, and the result is that we are under the wrath of God. Summing up, we are
Disobedient
Dead
Destined to experience God’s wrath
That’s just about the definition of hopelessness, is it not? It even exceeds the hopelessness that characterized Jairus’ daughter. She was gone, but was there the knowledge of God’s wrath and judgment? But in our case, we are dead and headed on the path of experiencing the righteous wrath of a holy God. That is just about as hopeless as it gets!
Verse 4 says, “but God!” The situation for Jairus looked bleak, but Jesus! God changes everything, and here in Ephesians 2, Paul explains what it is God does to change everything from hopelessness to peace. God
Is rich in mercy. That is what I need if I’m going to have a chance; I don’t need what I deserve, nor do you; I need mercy!
Loves us with a great love. This is getting better all the time! Someone who truly loves me has my best interests at heart.
He has made us alive, even though, Paul reminds us again, we were dead! He does this “with Christ”; just as Christ rose from the dead, so we too, in the likeness of Jesus, have been resurrected to new life! And thus Paul says God has
Raised us up with Christ.
He has seated us in heavenly places with Jesus.
He’s putting us on display as trophies of His grace (not as monuments to our goodness). We are dead, remember, naturally, but God is so thrilled with His own grace—and we should be too—that He continues to shower us with that grace in Jesus.
And that is how we are saved, Paul says, “by grace” and “through faith”. It’s not something we do ourselves; rather, salvation comes as a gift given by God to us; the gift of life eternal is a resurrection from deadness freely given to us by God on account of His grace and in response to our faith.
Then note what He is up to—He is up to the work of creating new works of grace who will then do those things that please God—good works (:10)!
So how do you deal with a hopeless situation? You recognize that God is a God of hope in the bleakest of circumstances, and you turn yourself, your life, your plans, your future, and all of its outcomes over to Him. Jairus did, and I hope you will too! You want to sell “hopeless”? Go somewhere else, because Jesus doesn’t do “hopeless”.
