Sermon preached by John A. Huffman, Jr.
February 11, 2007
Copyright © 2007, John A. Huffman, Jr.
All rights reserved.
He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease." (Mark 5:34)
Let me tell you a story. It's one of my most favorite Bible stories about Jesus. In fact, it's a story within a story, and both stories, through the years, have told me a lot about myself and others.
Whatever else this story has to say, it has some powerful messages about two kinds of persons: those who serve and those who need to be served. I commend to you that each of us, whether or not we realize it, is in both of these categories.
Let's look at each of the characters in this story.
Character one is Jesus. It's early in His public ministry. He has just returned from the Decapolis, those ten cities east of the Sea of Galilee. There He had healed the demoniac. You've read about that tragic psychopath torn apart by evil spirits. He terrified not only his neighbors but himself. Now Jesus' boat pulled back into the harbor at Capernaum, His headquarters town several miles away on the northwestern shore of Galilee. A great crowd gathered around Him as He disembarked. Jesus ministered to the crowd, healed a paralytic, called Matthew to be His disciple and taught His disciples.
Character two is Jairus. He wasn't the average citizen. He had status in Capernaum, for he was a ruler of the synagogue. This meant prestige in the Jewish community where spiritual and public affairs were so closely intertwined. The Romans allowed some degree of religious and political autonomy for its captive nations, as long as they did two things. They must be faithful in paying their taxes, and they must not revolt but instead maintain the Pax Romana, the Peace of Rome.
Jairus is desperate. His little twelve-year-old daughter is dying. In an act of absolute humility, this public leader frantically runs and throws himself at the feet of Jesus, begging, "'My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live'" (Mark 5:23). I say an act of absolute humility, because Jairus was one of the leaders of the same synagogue who had become increasingly antagonistic toward Jesus' teachings and actions, highly threatening the religious establishment of that day. Read about it in the first three chapters of Mark. Mark 3:6 declares, "The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy Him."
Sometimes our needs are so great they drive us to God, even when our lifestyle up to this point is alien to Him. Jesus, committed to helping all those who come to Him, responds immediately to this desperate father's plea, heading to Jairus' house. The crowd follows, pushing, crowding close, as do those who want to see a celebrity close up. We want to see a miracle. We're all curious about miracles, aren't we?
Character three is the little twelve-year-old daughter who is dying. We don't know much about her except the severity of her illness.
Enter character four. The Bible doesn't reveal her identity. Scholars have speculated as to who she was and whether or not she later turns up as one of Jesus' followers. All we know for certain is that in this huge crowd making its way with Jesus, who was intent on helping a frantic father, is another desperate person. During the entire twelve years that Jairus' daughter has been growing up and bringing great joy to him and his family, this woman has been hemorrhaging, the serious feminine disorder. Medical science had given up.
Her physical illness was somewhat common and very hard to cure. The Talmud gives no fewer than eleven cures for such trouble. Hebrew medicine treated this bleeding with tonics and astringents. Some of the cures were pure superstition, like carrying the ashes of an ostrich egg in a linen rag in summer and a cotton rag in winter. Or carrying a barleycorn, which had been found in the dung of a white she-ass. No doubt this poor woman had tried even these desperate remedies. Nothing had helped her. Doctors were ineffectual. The pain was excruciating. The Bible says that she had suffered under many doctors and had spent all her money but was no better. Rather, she grew worse.
It is impossible for us to fully appreciate her condition. Not only was it medical in nature. It also had religious connotations. The Old Testament law rendered her continuously unclean. Leviticus 15:25-27 declares:
If a woman has a discharge of blood for many days, not at the time of her impurity, or if she has a discharge beyond the time of her impurity, all the days of the discharge she shall continue in uncleanness; as in the days of her impurity, she shall be unclean. Every bed on which she lies during all the days of her discharge shall be treated as the bed of her impurity; and everything on which she sits shall be unclean, as in the uncleanness of her impurity. Whoever touches these things shall be unclean, and shall wash his clothes, and bathe in water, and be unclean until the evening.
That meant that for twelve years this woman was untouchable. Such an idea is totally alien to our contemporary understandings, but it was quite real in the Jewish first-century culture. She was absolutely shut off from worship. She could not fellowship with other men and women. This woman should not even have been in that crowd surrounding Jesus. She was actually infecting them with her uncleanness. You can see why she was so desperate. Imagine living with that physical ailment. Imagine, even more, facing the social and religious isolation which was hers.
All three New Testament writers describe her anonymously pushing her way through the crowd. She had heard reports about Jesus. She came up behind Him, never expecting to command His attention. She didn't even view herself as worthy of it. Instead, she said to herself, "'If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well'" (Mark 5:28).
The crowd continued to jostle as Jesus strolled along with Jairus. She pressed in closer. No one paid her any attention. Suddenly, her trembling fingers touched the fringe of His garment. At each of the corners of a Jewish outer garment was stitched a hyacinth blue tassel. These threads had religious significance. The knots stood for the five books of the Law. The fringe had a twofold purpose. One, it was meant to identify a Jew as a Jew, a member of the chosen people no matter where he was. Two, it was meant to remind a Jew every time he put on and took off his clothes that he belonged to Jehovah.
Character five, the disciples trying to figure out just who this rabbi from Nazareth, their new leader, was and what He was teaching and what He expected from them.
Character six is the crowd, made up of a miscellaneous assortment of people on an average morning on any given day, each with their own individual stories, all crowding to see what's going to happen.
Picture the action as a newsreel. Some of us in this room are much too young to remember newsreels, the way we used to see the news in action prior to television. Some of us can remember going to theaters to see the "News of the Week in Review."
All of us remember that one newsreel, those play-backs from Dallas, November of 1963, that we've seen so often. The young president's motorcade is making its way into the city. The crowds press close for a glimpse, when suddenly the newsreel freezes at one frame, as a passing temporal moment becomes eternal for our nation.
That's what happened for this desperate woman. The action proceeds. The crowd moves on to the house of Jairus, until, suddenly, her fingers touched the fringe of His garment. The action stops. Immediately, her hemorrhaging ceases. She feels in her body an instantaneous healing. And, in that same split second, we see in that frozen picture frame Jesus turning, aware that power had gone forth from Him, saying, "'Who touched me?'"
Chided by His disciples, who couldn't understand His preoccupation with one person's touch when so many were crowding so close, His eyes search out the woman. He knew. She knew. The film begins to move again as she comes in fear and trembling, this woman so used to being considered unclean. She falls down before Him. She tells Him the whole truth. Jesus says to her, "'Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease'" (Mark 5:34).
While Jesus was still speaking to the woman, there comes from the house of Jairus a messenger announcing that the girl is dead. Some murmur, "'Why trouble the teacher any further?'" Jesus insists on continuing. By the time He arrives at the house, the ritualistic weeping had begun. He suggests this death is not final, only to be laughed at by those who considered death final. He takes the little girl by the hand. He tells her, "'Little girl, get up!'" (Mark 5:41). Immediately, she gets up and begins to walk around.
What a story! What a story within a story! What a story of main characters and supportive characters, people like you and me, and within these stories, some profound messages. There are two kinds of people in particular: those of us who serve and those of us who need to be served. Never forget, each of us, whichever our preferred category may be, is called both to serve and to be served.
There are three messages for us who serve.
You and I are not set on this earth to live just for ourselves. We are called to take care of God's creation. Those of us who have repented of sin and put our trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation are called to be servants of Jesus Christ and servants of others. Our lives are to touch the lives of others with the wholeness of Jesus Christ. This story alerts us to three messages about service.
Message One: Service will drain you!
It's the tough cases that will seek you out. Those who can take care of themselves will. It's those whose needs go beyond their own resources who will look to you for help. So don't be surprised when you feel yourself drained.
Nothing comes easy. Work is work. There are great satisfactions which come from a job well done.
A skilled surgeon can feel joy after a heavy day in the operating room. Still, he or she will be emotionally and physically drained.
A mother, a father who is attentive to parental responsibilities will find faithfulness in this area, at times, exhilarating but almost, at the same time, exhausting.
On those days in which I have done my best as a pastor and as a preacher, I feel totally depleted. There are times when I go home so tired that I fall backward onto the bed with my clothes still on, resting long enough to get enough energy to get back up and take off my clothes and change into my pajamas. Do you ever feel that way? You're not alone!
The Bible says that Jesus was ". . . aware that power had gone forth from Him . . . ." You and I have good precedent for our fatigue. Don't be surprised when you find yourself physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted. Only make certain that it's exhaustion that comes from faithful service, not that of frustrated boredom. Give Jesus your best. Make yourself available to others. You can't do everything. You can't serve everyone. But you can be available to those God specifically leads to you. Are you investing yourself in the lives of several persons? Are you feeling that drain which comes from your life touching theirs and their lives touching yours? If not, question whether you're really serving the Lord. The Christian life gives out, not only takes in. Any worthwhile service costs you something and will drain you of your energy.
Message two: Some will misunderstand and laugh at you.
Look at Jesus. Reports of His miracles preceded Him. That's what gathered the crowd. Yet when He asks, "'Who touched me?'" His disciples almost mock Him, declaring, "Everybody's touching you, Jesus. Look at the crowd pressing in. Everybody wants a piece of your action, and you ask 'Who touched me?'" If Jesus was misunderstood even by His closest disciples, don't be surprised when you're misunderstood.
Then when He comes to the house of Jairus and sees the people weeping and wailing, declaring that she is dead, He announces that she's not dead but is "sleeping." And they "laughed at Him." Don't be surprised if, in your service of the Lord, you are misunderstood and even laughed at. After all, you and I, if we are followers of Jesus, march to a different drum beat. We are "counter culture." Success to the follower of Jesus is different than success defined by one's contemporaries.
In July of 2003, sixty of us traveled on a "First Century Voyage" in which we visited the historic sites in Turkey of the churches to which Jesus Christ gave a revelation through the Apostle John according to Revelation 1-3 (Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea). We continued on to the island of Patmos where John received that vision. We also walked through the ancient streets of Corinth, Athens, Philippi, and Troas, major cities visited by the Apostle Paul. As I revisit those sites in my devotional reading, I am amazed at the misunderstanding, controversy, persecution and even martyrdom of these early first-century Christians. Just read about the life of the Apostle Paul. Jesus was misunderstood, laughed at, betrayed, and crucified. Should we expect life without some of the same? His followers through the centuries have been misunderstood and laughed at. Should we expect anything different?
Faith doesn't come easy. People aren't too sure about those who believe. They don't know whether or not they can trust those who offer help. They don't want to be let down. They don't want to be hurt again. Sometimes a jeer or a bit of laughter is the best protection. It makes one invulnerable.
Some of the finest ministry functions only where there is vulnerability. That sneer, that chuckle, that snide remark, embraced with acceptance, provides an opening for the touch of wholeness. Jesus didn't turn and run away from misunderstanding and laughter. He models for us what it is to walk right into the crowd to faithfully minister. He didn't shy away from the cross, knowing that there would be jeers. In silence, He lovingly absorbed them with that self-assurance which knew He was about God's business.
Message Three: There's the privilege of a task within a task.
You and I can have tunnel vision as we serve Jesus Christ. We can stride through life intent on getting to the house of Jairus, insensitive to other persons along the way.
The disciples are agitated with Jesus. How in the world could He stop when simply touched by one person among the many? Jesus was intent on getting to the girl's side. However, He didn't let His "task orientation" get in the way of helping someone else whose need was desperate.
I'm sure it doesn't come as any surprise to you that I am an A-type personality. And I must honestly admit that, if I was in the same situation that confronted Jesus that day, with one of the major religious/political leaders of the community coming and asking for help, it would get my attention, and I would be readily available. I would try to take the most direct route possible to help. My natural inclination would not be to be sensitive to the people hurting en route to my destination.
I must be reminded by the example of the Lord I serve of this privilege of being aware of the "task within a task."
One of my sage old friends, Fred Smith, has observed, "Isn't it amazing how that for 2,000 years we A-type personality Christians have been running around trying to follow a B-type personality God."
Some of your and my greatest service will be "in stride." Jesus doesn't call you and me to be an ambulance chaser. There's nothing more contemptible in the medical or legal professions than one who rushes around looking for business, forcing his services on others. The few times I've taken the initiative to force Jesus upon other persons, the encounter has backfired. Your most effective ministry will come as spin-offs of whatever task God has given to you.
Are you a Sunday School teacher? There's a task within a task. Don't be jealous of the gifted evangelist or prominent lay leader. Faithfully teach your class, remembering it's not just content about the Bible. You are modeling before your students authentic Christianity. Many a young life will be touched for Christ by your witness, and you'll never know it.
I hate committee meetings. That's not a very good malady to afflict a Presbyterian pastor in a denomination that thrives on committee meetings. It was through studying this passage that I realized that committee meetings can actually be wonderful vehicles for our ministry. Perhaps the more important task of a long, drawn-out meeting, which perhaps could have completed its business in one-third the time, is the privilege of being sensitive to that person who talks too much, is argumentative or disagreeable and even threatening to the whole process. What needs does that person have, and what are they revealing about themselves? One can be kind without caving in. One can follow up with graciousness. I've found some of my finest ministry has been done in the process of thinking I was doing something else. The same goes in our areas of so-called secular employment. God has strategically placed you on the payroll of that company, that business, to do a good job, but also to be sensitive to the privileged task within a task.
Some years ago, I listened as the late Dr. David Hubbard, then president of Fuller Theological Seminary, paid tribute to the three most influential people in his life. The one I remember was a junior high school teacher, who one day asked him to stay after class and challenged him in private, "David, are you going to waste the rest of your life reading those science fiction novels? You have a lot more potential than that. Let me make a deal with you. If you read them, I will buy you some first-class books that will really develop your mind." He took her up on the challenge. The friendship grew. And she, recognizing the privilege of a "task within a task," discovered and unleashed the tremendous intellectual gifts of a man who for 30 years provided creative leadership for one of the world's finest theological institutions and made a profound impact on contemporary theology, psychology and world missions.
God only knows how many other Davids, Marys, Richards, Janes, that single junior high teacher, underpaid, faced with classroom discipline problems and papers to grade, touched in as profound ways as this one person whose story we know.
Carry this over into your life. You have your daily routine with all of its excitement combined with boredom and the in-between feelings. You have those jobs to do. May God sensitize you to not only the task, but to the task within a task. Some may not be open to the claims of Jesus Christ. Perhaps all they'll ever know about the Savior is what they see in you. Your faithful, prayerful, loving ministry continues in stride until that moment when one reaches out for help. Are you ready? Are you available? Are you alert to the task within a task? Perhaps you will never know how great a ministry you're having right now until you meet that person and the Savior in heaven.
Not only does this story within a story give insight to those of us who are called to serve, it also has three messages for us who need to be served.
None of us ever gets beyond the need of being served.
Do you ever feel lost in the crowd? Do you ever feel as if life is passing you by? The crowd presses on. Do you feel too small, too insignificant to be important to anyone? Are you overwhelmed by your personal needs? Do they seem to go unnoticed by others? Are you confused why your prayers don't seem to be answered in the way and in the timing you desire?
I urge you to take seriously these three messages that come from this story, this story within a story that shows us how Jesus in His infinite love is prepared to serve you, whatever your circumstances.
Message One: Jesus has time for the highest, lowest and all of us in between.
There is no one who is beyond the love of God in Jesus Christ! I know people who feel called only to serve the down-and-outers in society. They function to the drum beat of social justice and righteousness and tend to be cynical about leaders and those who are powerful who invest themselves in the lives of disadvantaged, the poorest of the poor. It would give the impression that Jesus is only interested in that kind of person. They take a jaundiced look at those who spend time with people in power. There are those who are inclined toward the powerful and the strong. That's where they concentrate their efforts.
I'm so grateful that my God does not exclude anyone from His love and grace. In the person of His Son, He models what it is to treat both the person at the top of the ladder, such as Jairus, and the person at the bottom of the ladder, the hemorrhaging woman, and everybody in between those two extremes, with the same unconditional love and compassion. I find that reassuring when I look at the extremes in my own life of successes and failures and the crazy mix of both in which I live most of my existence. Whatever your circumstances of life, Jesus is interested in you. Open your life to Him and His care.
Message Two: Jesus touches you at your point of need.
I find this tremendously reassuring. Not only does Jesus touch me at the points that I know I have needs. He also knows those needs in my life of which I am unaware. And He is willing to come with His touch of wholeness in both areas.
Jesus knows your physical needs. How many of us in this room struggle with physical illnesses or those of our loved ones. Thank God for His healing touch that comes through the medical profession--and His special touches come in ways, times, even miraculous.
Jesus knows your emotional needs.
I can't help but think of the emotional pain that our missionary Bill Anderson must be experiencing. His wife Lois and daughter Zelda were shot and killed on January 27 by gunmen trying to steal the car they were driving en route to visit some Kenyan friends on the outskirts of Nairobi. How unfair! Why should such veterans of the faith who have given so much in their decades of ministry in Kenya and the Sudan experience such a bloody reality? It is inexplicable. And it is only the healing touch of Jesus that can calm our troubled emotions and bring peace in the face of gross injustice!
The point of need may be your cynicism. He's prepared to reach out and touch that in a way that will restore your confidence in others.
How many of us today are caught up in cynicism? Demoralizing public revelations have stripped our confidence in political leaders, our athletic heroes, some of our friends and even in ourselves. How many have you heard say, "You just don't know who to trust today. You just don't know what's right and what's wrong. What used to be so certain is now uncertain. I guess everybody's doing it. I guess it doesn't make any difference."
Jesus reaches out wanting to heal your cynicism. So far from confirming that everybody does it and gets away with it, the public revelations of misplaced confidence and human failure only illustrate what God's Word has said all along. They only prove that sin is sin and that the unrepentant sinner pays a price, whether it is in this world or in the next.
No, not all politicians are crooks! Not all husbands are unfaithful! Not all students cheat! Not all wives are looking for someone who can provide better economic existence! For God's sake and ours, everybody hasn't succumbed to the breakdown in morality. We are all sinners. We all have failed. But God is still alive. His Word is supreme. There are standards which, with His help, we can keep. There is a better way. God's way. Let's reach out to touch and be touched by the Savior. Let's not be jaded. Your true values need not be shelved. Jesus can heal your cynicism.
He touches your doubt.
One of the most wonderful passages of Scripture describes a man who came to Jesus and declared, "Lord, I believe. Help Thou my unbelief." Jesus commended that person for his faith. The man was actually confessing his doubt. That's the moment when faith begins, when we admit our need.
Jesus touches you when you are suffering. He helps you endure your pain. Sometimes it seems unbearable. Persecution doesn't stop. Physical illness gets worse. Your child dies. Your spouse divorces you. Your business fails. People scoff at you for your faith. You know persecution.
Look into the eyes of Jesus on the cross. He knows your suffering. He's been there. He cares. He is "touched with the feelings of your infirmities!"
Jesus touches you in your handling of people. This may be the most profound area of all in which He wants to give His touch of healing.
How sensitive are you to the people with whom you come into contact? Are you using others instead of serving them?
Several years ago was the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Playboy magazine. Celebration of this anniversary was mentioned on the "Today" show, which talked about some of the memorabilia that was being put on display. This memorabilia included Hugh Hefner's little "Black Books" from the 1950s. Then, in a spontaneous, poignant comment, Matt Lauer turned to Katie Couric and said, "Who in the world would be interested in one of those books now?" And they both responded with a kind of silly, sick laugh, which did nothing but remind us all that at the very core of this Playboy ethic, this so-called "new morality," is the ultimate in treating persons as objects, using them for one's own personal self-gratification and then tossing them away in the garbage heap of disposable trash. Where are those women now? Every one of them had dreams. Every one was a person created in the image of God. No one is a commodity just to be used by others then discarded. That's why the ethic of Jesus Christ is so life transforming. How do we handle people?
Jesus wants to touch us at the point of our need for forgiveness.
You know your sins. The ground is level at the foot of the cross. Even the most notorious of sinners is forgivable.
One of the most insightful statements I have ever read was written by Gregory H. Hemingway in his biography of his father, Ernest Hemingway, titled Papa. Gregory, who died a tragic death in Coconut Grove, Florida, wrote these insightful words back in 1976 discussing his father's various divorces: "He would feel himself beginning to stagnate after he had been married to one wife for a while [but] . . . .The periodic injection of high-octane creative energy left more of a hangover of contrition and remorse each time. . . . It takes something out of you to look back at your wife and your children by the side of the road and see that dazed look on their faces."
Be forgiven. Get a fresh start. Know there's nothing you've ever done that's unforgivable. That's the glory of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Message Three: Jesus heals in His time and way.
This is one of the toughest yet reassuring messages for me. Oh, how I want Jesus to heal me in precisely the time and way I want to be healed. Oh, how I wanted my daughter to have the miracle of physical healing that Jairus' daughter had. Oh, how I want certain kinds of relational and personal success that eludes me. Oh, how I forget the items on my prayer list that Jesus has answered. I remember those prayers that seem unanswered. I concentrate on that little girl who, within hours of the time Jairus came to Jesus, was raised from the dead. And I tend to forget that, for the entire twelve years that little girl was growing up, that woman, who faithfully prayed and did everything she could, yearned. All these touches of wholeness we've discussed, they seemed to elude her; and then, in God's time and in God's way, she was made whole.
I do not think it is a cop-out to pray every prayer that we pray with great specificity and then to add the model of Jesus in Gethsemane, "Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done."
My father, through the years, made that wonderful statement, "God's payday is not always Friday!" Don't forget that. God sees the long range of things. We see the immediate.
When I think of my daughter Suzanne's death, I need to remind myself that she is in Heaven with Jesus Christ. Isn't that the ultimate healing touch? I still feel the loss for our family in this life. But isn't to be with Christ even better? And now with the birth of our little grandson, Owen, Anne and I have, together, come to acknowledge a new joy that has come back into our life. It is not a substitute but a kind of compensatory joy. In God's time, some sixteen years later, we feel a surge of healing--in His time and way!
Let me conclude with a homey little incident that happened with my daughter Janet and me when she was much younger. She was growing up, so she was my little buddy and, on occasion, would go with me to an Angel game. One night, the Angels were being badly beaten. At the bottom of the eighth inning, they were trailing 12-5. At that point, the majority of the spectators rushed from the stadium, trying to get to their cars to beat the traffic. Janet looked at me, and I looked at her, and I said, "Don't you think we should go?" In my cynicism, I thought it was all over. She looked up at me, and she said, "But Daddy, the Angels could yet win!" So we stayed. The Angels retired the team in the top of the ninth inning with no additional runs. Then in the bottom of the ninth inning, the Angels came to bat; and did we witness one of the greatest innings of baseball I've ever seen. Hit after hit after hit. By the time the inning was over, the Angels had won 13-12. I wonder what all those people listening to their radios on the freeways or stuck in their cars in the parking lot were thinking. They'd given up after eight innings and missed the very best.
I've got to learn to trust God's victory already won on the cross to be applied to my life in every area, in His time, in His way.
Thank God for these messages for those of us who serve and need to be served!