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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. (Amen.)
If you are a man, woman, or child, Jesus cares for you. Today’s Gospel Reading makes clear that universal care of Jesus: as Jesus goes with a man whose daughter is at the point of death, as Jesus saves a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and as Jesus raises a twelve-year-old child from the dead. Jesus cared for them, and Jesus cares for you and for me. What Jesus told that man, one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, so Jesus tells us: “Do not fear, only believe”.
Like the parallel accounts of St. Matthew and St. Luke (Matthew 9:18-26; Luke 8:41-56), the Divinely-inspired St. Mark’s accounts of Jesus’s raising Jairus’s daughter and saving the woman with the discharge of blood are intertwined. In the case of Jairus’s daughter, we do well to note that the 12-year-old girl was just at the age where she might at least be betrothed in marriage; her whole life should have been in front of her, but she was at the point of death. Instead of having the first, her father more-literally says that she was having the last. Especially parents who have had seriously ill children probably can appreciate how her father might have been willing to go against his extended family and even his religion in seeking out Jesus, an itinerant teacher and miracle‑worker that everyone must have been talking about. (Sermons.com.) Then Jairus saw first‑hand how Jesus dealt with the woman with the discharge of blood, just before some people came from his house saying that his daughter was dead, and Jesus told him, “Do not fear, only believe”.
Any one of us who has had issues with our modern healthcare system might easily relate to the woman with the discharge of blood, whom St. Mark says had suffered much under many physicians, had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. (Interestingly enough, in his account, St. Luke the physician reports that, though the woman had spent all her living on physicians, she was not healthy enough to be healed by anyone [Colossians 4:14; Luke 8:43].) With no employee health insurance, Medicare, or Affordable Care Act internet marketplaces as we know them today, the woman is usually thought to have been quite wealthy in order to have been able to afford many physicians. Still, she may have wondered why she was suffering as she was, as we may wonder why we suffer as we do. If she was religiously Jewish, she may have even known the passage from today’s Old Testament Reading that says that God does not afflict from His heart or grieve the children of men (Lamentations 3:22-33).
Rather, we suffer sickness and death in the world because of sin in the world. The first man and woman plunged themselves and all of their descendants, including us, into sin, sickness, and death. We are sinful by nature, and so we sin against God and against our neighbors. We think, say, and do things that we should not think, say, and do, and we do not think, say, and do things that we should think, say, and do. As we confessed earlier, we justly deserve God’s present and eternal punishment. But, as we heard in the Old Testament Reading, though the Lord in some sense causes grief, He will have compassion according to the abundance of His steadfast love. So, in the words of the Old Testament Reading, we put our mouth in the dust, for there is yet hope. As God enables us, we turn in sorrow from our sin, trust God to forgive our sin, and want to stop sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives us. God forgives our sinful nature and all of our actual sin, whatever our actual sin might be. God forgives us for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord. As Jesus Himself says elsewhere, He came to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance, for those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick (Matthew 9:12; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:31).
Under the Old Testament law, both the woman with the discharge of blood and Jairus’s dead daughter were ceremonially unclean and so made Jesus ceremonially unclean when there was physical contact between the two. Jesus was willing to bear that ceremonial uncleanness in order to care for them, and, far more than that, Jesus was willing to bear our sinful nature and all of our sin to the cross in order to care for us (Masaki, CPR 34:3, p.31). Jesus is true God in human flesh, with His Divine nature’s communicating its attributes to His human nature, so that the woman’s touching even Jesus’s garments and Jesus’s taking Jairus’s daughter by the hand could save and resurrect them. The miracles prove Who Jesus is, but, more importantly, Jesus did not use His Divine power for us. As St. Paul describes in today’s Epistle Reading, though He was rich, yet for our sake He became poor, so that we, by His poverty, might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:1-9, 13-15). At the time of the miracle, Jesus did not want Jairus’s family to tell other people about it, apparently so that Jesus could finish His ministry in His time and way. And, then, when the time was right, other Jewish leaders opposed to Jesus handed Him over to the Romans, and Jesus was crucified. Jesus was crucified for us, in our place, as our substitute. And, then, as Jesus had raised Jairus’s daughter from the dead, Jesus Himself rose from the dead. As the woman with the discharge of blood was saved by God’s grace through faith, so we are saved by God’s grace for Jesus’s sake through faith.
The woman with the discharge of blood had heard the reports about Jesus, and presumably Jairus had, too, and the desired miracles both happened by touch (confer Mark 3:10). So also for us: God’s Word and touch save us—God’s Word and the touch of water in Holy Baptism, God’s Word and the touch of a pastor’s hand in Holy Absolution, and God’s Word and the “touch” of bread that is the Body of Christ and wine that is the Blood of Christ in the Holy Supper. Notably, today’s Gospel Reading is the only passage in St. Mark’s Gospel account that records Jesus’s sending someone away in peace, as we are sent away in peace after Baptism, Absolution, and the Supper (confer Lutheran Service Book 271, 293, and, for example, 181).
In today’s Gospel Rading, Jairus told Jesus that his daughter was, as I mentioned earlier, at her last. We might think about how we are at our last. Maybe we are at our wit’s end after the presidential debate last Thursday night. Maybe we are at our last when it comes to the weather, even before we know if Hurricane Beryl is headed our way. Maybe changes at work have us wondering about our purpose and future. Maybe we are stressed out from problems in our family or our own personal health issues. As we heard in today’s Old Testament Reading, spoken to God’s people when they were in the midst of the horrors of exile (Schmitt, CPR 28:3, p.28), we can be sure that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, that His mercies never come to an end, but they are new every morning, so great is His faithfulness. Like the Macedonian Christians mentioned in today’s Epistle Reading, in a severe test of affliction our abundance of joy and extreme poverty can overflow in a wealth of generosity on our part, as we give according to our means and even beyond our means, in order to support the work of God’s Kingdom in this and every place. In this life, we may or may not receive temporary physical healing and revivification as the women—the daughters!—in today’s Gospel Reading, but, as we, with daily repentance and faith, live in God’s forgiveness of sins, we can be sure that on the Last Day we, if necessary, will be raised, and we certainly will be glorified, and so freed from the suffering and afflictions that we have now, in order to live with God for all eternity.
Jesus told Jairus and tells us “Do not fear, only believe”, and Jesus frees us from anxiety for faith. By that faith, our sins are forgiven and so we have life and salvation. God moves us from to the sorrow of repentance to the joy of faith. As we sang in today’s Psalm (Psalm 30:1‑12; antiphon: v.10), God has turned our mourning into dancing; He has loosed our sackcloth and clothed us with gladness, so that our glory may sing His praise and not be silent; let us give thanks to Him forever!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +