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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
With all due respect and apologies to the medical professionals in our midst, hearing today’s Gospel Reading and not thinking of our modern situation is very difficult! By Divine inspiration, St. Mark tells us that the woman who had had a discharge of blood “suffered much under many physicians, … had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse”. Whether ourselves, our loved ones, other people we know, or people of whom we have heard, the woman’s experience with the healthcare system of her day can make us think of experiences with the healthcare system of our day—its doctors, its insurance (even after Thursday’s significant U.S. Supreme Court ruling regarding subsidies on the insurance exchanges), and its drug and treatment side effects. The commonalities between healthcare then and now may be our most obvious point of contact with today’s Gospel Reading, but there are also other points of contact, such as those mentioned in the title I have given to this sermon: “Fear, Faith, and Salvation”.
Today is our only official opportunity in our three‑year cycle of Readings to hear these lengthy, uniquely‑intertwined narratives—narratives of Jesus’s healing one “daughter”, who had been suffering for twelve years, and narratives of Jesus’s raising from the dead—like Elijah and Elisha before Him (1 Kings 17:17-24; 2 Kings 4:8, 17-37)—another daughter, who was twelve years old. And, although the narratives are essentially also found in the Gospel accounts of St. Matthew and St. Luke, we hear the narrative from St. Mark’s Gospel account, as he reproduces apparently St. Peter’s eyewitness details—details such as Jesus’s powerful words spoken to the little girl in Aramaic.
In his own way, St. Mark’s account uniquely reports the “Fear, Faith, and Salvation” common to the narrative of the healing of the woman who had had a discharge of blood, common to the narrative of the raising of Jairus’s daughter, and also common to our “narrative”. The woman who had had a discharge of blood came before Jesus in fear and trembling knowing she had touched Jesus’s garment and been healed—precisely why knowing that made her fear and tremble, commentators can only speculate. Jairus apparently began to fear after some from his house reported that his daughter was dead—no doubt at least tempting him to think that Jesus could do nothing at that point. And, we can imagine all sorts things that cause us to be afraid—some things perhaps more validly causing us fear than other things.
To be perfectly honest with you, right now Friday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling regarding so‑called “gay marriage” has me a little afraid. Not until recently in all of recorded history has any society done what five Supreme Court justices have now made our entire country do: go so far in its toleration of the abomination of homosexuality as to call it “marriage”, acting against both natural and revealed law that “marriage” is the union of one man and one woman for eternal life. Of course, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against God’s revealed law before, such as more than 40 years ago when legalizing abortion, which has resulted in the murders of some 55‑million unborn children so far. Still, the more‑recent ruling is more likely to result in the loss of the religious freedom that led to the founding of this country and so also is more likely to result in the overt persecution of those of us who are Christians. I do not fear the persecution per se, as much as I fear for our nation, its society and culture. God rained down sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24), and as far as we know those cities and the others in the same valley were not as bad then as our country is now. Yet, to the extent that we are all sinful by nature and so all sin, we all deserve such death and destruction. Sickness and death are only in the world because of sin, and we are all dead in our trespasses and sin until God’s Word calls us to fear Him rightly and have faith in Him for salvation.
In the Gospel Reading, Jairus fell at Jesus’s feet, and the woman who had had a discharge of blood similarly fell before Him. Today’s Old Testament Reading (Lamentations 3:22-33) rightly reminds us that our putting our mouths in the dust, as it were, is also good for us. As one of my former professors rightly preached at the seminary in Canada in 2006 after that country legalized so‑called “gay marriage”, we all ought to be wearing sackcloth and ashes, reciting the penitential psalms on our knees, and imploring the mercy of God. Yet, we need to do so not only because of where our society is—as bad as that is!—but also and primarily because of our own sin and because of the judgment we each deserve as individuals. The fear of God’s judgment in repentance is a healthy fear when combined with faith. For, when we turn in sorrow from our sin, trust God to forgive our sin, and want to do better, then God forgives our sin. God forgives all our sin, whatever our sin might be, for the sake of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ was more than the teacher whom those from Jairus’s house thought He was. Not only true man, Jesus Christ was also true God, with Divine power that He graciously willed go out of Him to heal the woman who had a discharge of blood, and with Divine knowledge that knew who had touched Him, even if He apparently rhetorically asked and looked around to see who had done it. As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (2 Corinthians 8:1-9, 13-15), Jesus Christ was rich, yet for our sake became poor, so that, by His poverty, we might become rich. Out of His great love for us, Jesus Christ did not always or fully use His divine powers so that He could suffer on the cross and rise from the grave in order to save us from our sins and the death we deserve. Because Jesus Christ rose from the dead, we, too, will rise from the dead—not like Jairus’s daughter, who was revivified only to die again later, but, like Jesus Christ—we, who repent and trust in Him, will rise to live and never die again. The woman who had a discharge of blood and Jairus had such fear and faith and so received salvation—not because of their faith but through their faith that received salvation in the powerful and gracious ways God offered that salvation.
St. Mark tells us that at least the woman who had a discharge of blood had heard about Jesus, although we do not know what she heard about Jesus or from whom she heard about Him, but so also apparently had Jairus heard about Jesus, as he came to Jesus seeking salvation and life for his daughter. In them, God by His Word had created appropriate fear and faith in Jesus, Who granted salvation through His compassionate human touch and was concerned about and provided for their ongoing well‑being. For us, “Fear, Faith, and Salvation” likewise come through God’s Word in all its forms, whether read from the lectern or preached from the pulpit, spoken to those, who privately confess their sins, in individual Holy Absolution, combined with water at the Baptismal Font, or combined with bread and wine on this Altar and at its Rail. Especially on the Altar and at its Rail, that bread and wine that are Christ’s body and blood are the food that nourish our bodies and souls and enable us, forgiven and with eternal life, to depart in peace.
So forgiven and already now possessing eternal life, we tell others about Jesus, both about His condemnation of all sin, including those things our country might wrongly think are legal, and about His forgiveness for all sin. Those whom we tell might laugh at us, as the mourners at Jairus’s house laughed at Jesus, but we tell them anyway. And, we do not fear any suffering, even death, that might result from our telling them. We have been freed from the bondage of death and know that God helps us and that, when the time is right for us (as it was right for the woman who had a discharge of blood and for Jairus’s daughter) God will grant us the full realization of the eternal life that by His mercy and grace is ours already now.
We should not fault even the healthcare system of our day too much, for it is fighting a losing battle. The only cure for the terminal disease of our sin is the “Fear, Faith, and Salvation” that God graciously offers in His Word and Sacraments. In these ways, in the words of our Introit (Psalm 121:5-8; antiphon Psalm 121:1-2), the Lord keeps our going out and our coming in from this time forth and even forevermore.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +