Hope and Healing for the Hurting Family – Luke 8:40-56
Gladstone Baptist Church – 29/8/04
There was once a man driving along the road and he was involved in an accident with another car towing a horse float. A few months later he tried to claim damages for his injuries, but the insurance company lawyer questioned his claim. "How can you now claim to have all these injuries?" he was asked "According to the police report, at the time you said you were not hurt."
"Well It’s like this," said the man. "I was lying in the road in a lot of pain, and I heard someone say the horse had a broken leg. The next thing I know the police officer pulled out his gun and shot the horse. Then someone came and asked me, "Are you okay?"”
There are a lot of people floating around this world who say they are okay, but underneath the smiles, the laughter and the “I’m doing just fine” is a huge amount of hurt.
You only have to pick up the paper to read of people who are hurting. But it is not just outside this church that people are hurting. There are families and individuals that are desperately hurting who are sitting in this building today and trying to cover it up with a brave face. Some have old wounds that just won’t heal. Others have fresh wounds that are still raw.
• We have Single moms trying to make it work
• We have Marriages that are going through some rough waters. Some have fallen apart
• There are parents trying hard to blend 2 families or wondering when that wandering child will come home
• We have kids trying to survive, living in one home most of the time and another, every other weekend.
• There are families who have lost a child, a father or a mother and are trying to keep their heads above water.
• We have family members trying to escape the hurt by losing themselves in alcohol, drugs, gambling or even shopping binges and just creating even more problems.
BOY – there’s a lot of hurt floating around …
• Some of us, are still stinging from - harsh or cruel words that pierced our hearts
• Some are hurting because it seems that in this life they never measure up and always fall short of someone’s expectations.
• Others are desperately trying to have a baby and can’t understand why it happens for others, but not for us.
• Others are tired of always being alone, wondering why the one they loved walked out on them.
• Others are trying to find love and affection in their family, but not finding.
• AND – still others are battling a physical sickness.
Boy there is a lot of hurt floating around …
You know as well as I do, that LIFE hurts often. And if you are not hurting now, it is just time before something comes your way to cause hurt. It is not IF, but WHEN. “Life Hurts” - that is the Bad News.
But the Good news is that “God HEALS”. Life Hurts but God Heals
I want you to know that God is interested in your pain. I know this, because
1) This was not how God PLANNED it. God created a garden of Eden as a paradise. It was without needless pain, hurt and suffering. I say needless, because God created us with nerves. If Adam, God bless him, dropped a rock on his toe – it would hurt. Some pain is healthy and beneficial – like the burning sensation when you put your hand on the stove top. But God didn’t create a world where there was needless pain, where there was death, where there was disease or the need for labour. And let me tell you that heaven will be just like Eden again.
Rev 21:3-5 "Look, the home of God is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will remove all of their sorrows, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. For the old world and its evils are gone forever." And the one sitting on the throne said, "Look, I am making all things new!" And then he said to me, "Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true."
Yes we have pain and suffering now, but it is only for a time. Now that is hope, but doesn’t necessarily help deal with your pain now.
2) I also know that God is interested in your pain because the Bible says that God CARES again and again and again …
Ex 3:7-8 “The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey”
Is 49:14-16 “Yet they say, “My Lord deserted us; he has forgotten us.”
15 “Never! Can a mother forget her little child and not have love for her own son? Yet even if that should be, I will not forget you. 16 See, I have tattooed your name upon my palm, and ever before me is a picture of Jerusalem’s walls in ruins.
3) I also know that God is interested in your pain because JESUS was concerned about people’s pain and suffering. That is why he came. He came to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, to bring give sight back to the blind, to release the oppressed. Again and again, we see Jesus ministering to people who were down trodden, exploited, rejected, lonely, desperate and hurting. Some had emotional pain. Others had physical pain. But Jesus was concerned about them.
This morning, I want us to look at a passage in Luke 8 which shows that Jesus is concerned about the hurt we feel as individuals and families. Open up your bibles to Luke 8:40. If someone beside you hasn’t got a bible share with them or loan them one. I’ll be referring back to the passage often, because there are a lot of things here that can encourage those of us who are hurting.
In our passage today, we read about 2 people who are hurting. In actual fact the hurt would have extended to their whole family as you’ll see soon.
The account opens with Jesus returning to the town of Capernaum and he is met by a crowd of people who were eagerly waiting for Him. One man in the crowd was a man called Jairus. We are told in vs 41, that Jairus was a ruler of the synagogue. Jairus was a man who held an important position in the local church. He was a respected man, a religious man. Many people would have looked up to him. But he was hurting.
Hurt and pain does not respect position. Rich people hurt, poor people hurt. Respectable people hurt and so do those you or I would look down upon. Jairus and his whole family where hurting because their daughter was sick and dying. Mark’s account of this event tells us that the daughter was their only daughter. She was aged just 12, almost old enough to be married in that culture.
Some of you have been in this situation before? Others of us could only imagine. How hard would it be to sit beside one who was dying and you couldn’t do anything for to change the situation. It is hard. This is why Jairus doesn’t give a second thought to throwing himself at Jesus’ feet and begging him to come and heal his daughter. If you were with us a couple of weeks ago when we talked about when Jesus healed the paralytic man in the same town, you’d remember that the Jewish religious leaders had sought to test Jesus’ teaching and they were horrified to learn that Jesus believed he was God. From that day, Jesus would have been black banned in the Jewish synagogue, but now, when faced with a such hurt, the RULER of the Jewish synagogue was coming to ask Jesus to help him. He wasn’t embarrassed to beg at the feet of Jesus. He didn’t care what his friends, family, work mates would say, because in the end of the day, Jesus was probably his last hope.
I wonder how many of you have ever been EMBARRASSED to come to Jesus to ask him something. It may be because your friends or family don’t believe in God and you don’t want to look “religious”. It may be because you are too proud and think that you can handle it on your own. Jesus is interested in helping us. We don’t need to feel embarrassed or scared to ask him.
Jesus agreed to help despite probably being a bit weary from his trip across the lake. He started to make his way through the narrow streets to Jairus’ house. The crowd were still milling around – wanting to see yet another miracle. There was jostling and bumping. The progress, I’m sure wasn’t as quick as Jairus would have liked, but then Jesus stopped.
Why? What was wrong? There isn’t time for this Jesus, a young girl is dying.
Jesus asks a strange question vs 45 – “Who touched me.” The answer was simple, probably a 100 people in the last hour bumped into Jesus in the thronging crowd. But Jesus persisted – there was Someone who deliberately touched him “I know that power has gone out from me” said Jesus.
Jesus was right, Luke fills in the gaps. In that crowd, along with Jairus, was another person who was hurting and needed hope and healing. There was a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. This likely would have been constant menstral bleeding. Now you guys are going to find this tough to relate to, but the ladies here could well imagine the difficult situations this would cause. Embarrassment, limitations, annoyance – it was all there. But it was even worse in that culture in that day. When a woman was bleeding in their menstral cycle, they were considered unclean. They were not permitted to participate in temple rituals and were not permitted to have sexual intercourse with their husbands. This woman had been bleeding for 12 years and Mark’s gospel says she had spent all her money on doctors to try to get the problem fixed, but it had just got worse. But things get worse than this. Because she was considered unclean, if anyone even touched her, they too would be considered unclean and be forced to go through cleansing rituals before being allowed to worship again. So not only did this woman have to put up with bleeding for 12 years, she was also socially isolated from others in society including her husband, she was as good as barren because she was not permitted to have sex, spiritually she was cut off from the temple. She was embarrassed, rejected, isolated, ostracised and at the end of her tether. She was hurting bad.
The contrast between Jairus and this woman is interesting. One was prominent, the other anonymous. One was deeply religious, the other’s condition kept her from worship. Jairus’ need was public, her need was deeply private. But Jesus was there for both and was willing to heal their hurts.
This woman approached Jesus in the safety and relative anonymity of the crowd and (vs44) reached out and touched the hem of his outer cloak. This would not be a hem as we know it, but a tassel. Jews wore cloaks with tassels on their four corners. The tassels had a blue cord woven into it which reminded them of God’s law and their duty to keep the law. Often they would tie four knots in the tassel representing the 5 books of the law. Very pious Jews who wanted to show off, made their tassels really long. The tassels often were superstitiously thought to be sacred objects and it is this tassel which the woman reached out to touch. And instantly she was healed.
She thought no one was aware of the episode and definitely didn’t want to hold up Jesus from dealing with a far more important emergency than hers. But Jesus did know and stopped.
Many of us approach God in the same way that this woman did. We don’t think He’d be interested in our MINOR hurts. We don’t think that we are important enough to bother God with our problems. We think that God is too busy sorting out Mrs Problematic down the road with her cancer to even be willing to give our planter warts a second look. But this story shows that God is concerned about all of our concerns even our minor hurts. It doesn’t matter how big we think they are. They are a concern to us and that makes them a concern to Jesus.
1 Pet 5:7 - Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
Jesus stopped to help a nameless woman with an embarrassing problem which definitely wasn’t life threatening. He will stop to help you also.
So Jesus stopped and asked who touched him. The woman, realising that she had been noticed, came forward – trembling. What was Jesus going to say. Would he reprimand her? Would he reverse the healing? No Jesus speaks with compassion and love. He calls her “daughter”. But why did Jesus expose her? I’m sure he knew what had happened. Why did he have to make it public?
1) He wanted to establish a RELATIONSHIP, not just perform a nameless act. Jesus doesn’t just want to heal you, he wants to be your friend. What is more important for us also is that we get to know Jesus as our friend. It is even more important than healing.
2) He wanted her faith to be in a PERSON, not his robe. Her action in reaching out for the tassels was a bit of a superstitious act. Jesus wanted her to know that He healed her, not his robe. Jesus wants us to know that rosary beads or holy water, or a handkerchief prayed over by a minister , or anything else we care to use doesn’t have power. It is Jesus alone that has power to heal.
3) He wanted everyone to know that she had been physically healed. Why? So that she could be COMPLETELY healed. So that she could enter social life again. So that everyone could celebrate with her. Jesus wants us also to be completely healed – healed from the physical, the emotional and the spiritual hurts we are carrying..
And so the woman went away healed from her hurt. Which just left Jairus’s daughter. Just then, Luke records, a servant of Jairus comes to them and reports that Jairus’ daughter has died and not to trouble the teacher. What a crushing blow. Jairus’ must have felt gutted. If only Jesus hadn’t stopped. If only Jesus had returned to Capernaum one day earlier. Now it was too late for anyone to do anything.
How often do we give up on God? Often I would suggest. We think that our situation is too desperate, too far gone for even God to do anything about. But this is rubbish.
Jesus turned to Jairus and in vs 30 said “Don’t be afraid, just believe me, and she will be healed.” Just TRUST Me.
Jesus continues to Jairus’ house and leaving the prying eyes of the crowd outside, he goes up and brings that child back to life. Some people think that the girl wasn’t dead and that Jesus’ words “She’s not dead, but asleep” prove this. But Luke’s description of her spirit returning to her in vs 35 shows she was dead. Rather these words indicate that what seems like death to us, is just sleep to Jesus. What seems like an insurmountable mountain to us, is no problem at all to God. When we are inclined to give up, that is when Jesus’ power really becomes evident. We must never give up on God, no matter how bad the situation seems. We need to keep trusting Jesus even through the disaster. Though Jairus’ situation got temporarily worse, Jesus made good come from it because Jairus trusted Him. When we are in tough times, we need to trust Jesus. Things may not get better immediately, but stick with God – Never Give up. and He’ll see you through the dark tunnel and out the other side.
And Jesus raised this child and immediately ordered some food for her. Jesus is so concerned about her practical needs, that he kept the crowd away so she wouldn’t be frightened and he made plans to satisfy her hunger. Jesus likewise is interested in the everyday, ordinary needs that you and I have. Nothing is too big or too small for Jesus to be worried about
When we read these accounts, we should not think that if we simply trust, no one close to us will ever die, or get sick. That is not the point of these accounts. Jairus’ daughter did die eventually. The woman he healed, probably got sick again. Until Jesus comes again, death, pain, suffering on this earth will continue and unfortunately, our Bible says it will get worse and worse the closer we get to Jesus’ coming. What these accounts do show us is that Jesus does care for us and is interested in helping us in situations that hurt us. Sometimes we will see miracles happen and good things come from suffering. But other times, we will not see anything that we think is good, but that doesn’t mean God is not there helping us through it. God can and does bring good out of horrible situations – that is present hope.
We have a future hope also. There will be one day coming, when Jesus will create a new earth and all pain and suffering will end and we will literally be in heaven. Until that time, however, there are some things we can take away from these accounts which will help us deal with our hurts here and now …
1) Jesus is concerned about your pain and your hurt. It is not the way he meant it and He wants to bring healing.
2) Don’t let others dissuade you from approaching Jesus for help. Don’t be embarrassed. Jairus wasn’t scared of what friends, family or work mates thought of him. He knew that Jesus could help so came to him. Jesus can help you too – so come to him – don’t be embarrassed or afraid.
3) Jesus is concerned about minor hurts just as much as major hurts. We don’t have to feel guilty about taking all our cares to God.
4) Jesus wants a relationship with us. This brings spiritual healing, not just physical healing.
5) The power for healing lies in Jesus alone, not in sacred objects or ritualistic prayers.
6) Jesus offers us complete healing. Too often we seek physical healing, but forget emotional and spiritual healing. Jesus wants to offer complete healing
7) Never Give up on God – Just Trust Him. When we think it is too late to act, God can still work miracles and bring some good from terrible situations.
8) Our ultimate hope is heaven where He will remove all of their sorrows, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain.
Are you hurting today? Is your family hurting? I pray that you would bring these things to Jesus and cast them on him. The burdens that many of us carry are way to heavy for us to carry alone. We need to give them to Jesus, for Him to carry. Because he truly does understand.
