The Gospel of Mark: on the road with Jesus (20)

“The Kingdom of God?”
Mark 1:15

1. I want to talk about something today that is one of the most important things “to get” in the Bible. In fact, if we don’t “get” this, I don’t think we’ll “get” the Bible or Jesus or the gospel or the church like God intends us to.

2. “getting” what I’m going to talk about today will also help us “get” how we are to relate to culture & politics & war & peace & even the environment.

3. what I want us to “get” is what Jesus talked about all the time. Well over 100 times in the gospels. In fact, Jesus talked about what I want us “to get” more than he talked about anything else.

4. and what I want us “to get” & what Jesus wants us “to get” is something that most of us, I believe, don’t “get.” I’m not even sure if I “get” it.

5. what I want us to “get” is the kingdom of God. Or better yet, that’s what I want “to get” us.

6. now that I’ve got you totally confused, let’s jump into Mark’s gospel.

how Jesus starts
1. Jesus has been baptized by his cousin John. His Father has affirmed him before he’s even entered the work/ministry force – You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased. He’s spends 40 days in the desert, sent by the Holy Spirit but tempted by Satan. He’s receives word that his cousin John has been locked up in prison.

2. and then the carpenter Jesus breaks 30 yrs of silence with these words (Have you ever thought about that? 30 years of quiet. How did Jesus keep from teaching? Healing?), “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news.” Jesus’ short 3 years of ministry is both launched & framed by these words.

the time has come
1. Jesus spoke Aramaic. Mark wrote down the words of Jesus in Greek as the Holy Spirit guided him. The Greek language has 2 words for time – chronos & karios. Chronos means chronological time, time in a line, the time by which we date things. On November 24 th 2006 the Beavers beat the Ducks 30-28. Mark didn’t use chronos.

2. he used kairos. Kairos time is a critical juncture of time. It’s not about the timeline; it’s about what happened on the timeline. Kairos in the Bible is when God does something significant.

3. Jesus says the time has come. This is a moment in time that will forever change time. Jesus says, God is now going to act in a new & decisive way. God has been silent for 400 years, since the time of the prophet Malachi. Hold on to your seats, says Jesus, that is about to change.

the kingdom of God is near
1. this kingdom is a God thing NOT a human thing. This kingdom comes NOT from Israel or the Romans or the Greeks. BUT from God.

2. this kingdom drawing near in Jesus is absolutely & unmistakably God’s.

3. he’s the Sovereign King. He rules. He reigns.

the kingdom of God is near
1. kingdom is an Old Testament word. God’s kingdom starts in Genesis. What God was up to with Abraham Isaac & Jacob; with Samuel, David & Solomon; with Isaiah, Jeremiah & Hosea, God is now up to again in Jesus.

2. in Jesus his Son God is invading human history & setting up his kingdom. What he promises in the Old Testament he now fulfills in Jesus.

3. the kingdom of God can be tricky to explain & understand. Basically, it is the reign & rule of God in the world IN CONTRAST to the reign of earthly powers – Jewish, Roman & Greek or American, North Korean & Iraqi.

4. don’t think of a spatial or geographical kingdom at this time (that’s eventually to come). Think dynamic reality. The Sovereign God intervenes in human affairs to achieve his unfading purposes.

5. there are 2 aspects as to the timing of this kingdom:
§ the kingdom of God has already come in Jesus & in his followers = there is a partial fulfillment within history
§ the kingdom of God has not yet fully come in Jesus & his followers = consummation at the end of the age

6. as followers of Jesus we live in tension. Jesus has already come & inaugurated his kingdom. The kingdom shows up as love, salvation, healing, deliverance, compassion, a new ethic, a concern for the poor & downtrodden, etc. But this kingdom has not yet fully come. The world is still turned against God & we have to work out our salvation in this world.

repent
1. how were Jesus’ followers to enter the kingdom of God? How are we?

2. the operative word is repent. Here’s how Brian McLaren explains repentance in his book, The Secret Message of Jesus:

The first move is to hear from the heart & to think deeply about what you hear. It means rethinking everything in light of (Jesus’ message). It means that you begin looking at every facet of your life again in this new light – from the way you think about God to the way you treat your spouse, from your political affiliations to your spending habits, from what makes you angry to what makes you happy. It involves a deep sense that you may be wrong, wrong about so much, along with the sincere desire to realign around what is good & true.

3. to repent is to realign ourselves with God & his kingdom as seen & experienced in the person & work of Jesus. Repent is a word full of hope & new beginnings.

4. in the early days of Imago Dei (church in Portland) when the church was a small group of people, Rick McKinley (pastor) called the church to start meeting every Wednesday night to pray for Portland & repent. Writes Rick in his book, Beautiful Mess:

Things got honest real fast – I hate my neighbor; I don’t think I love you, God; I want to care but don’t; I’m afraid to follow you completely. Week after week we prayed for Portland & told God the truth about our own hearts. For 6 months we prayed. Gradually, something happened. Something in us was turning. For the first time we were experiencing an authentic “want to.” With God’s help, we were beginning to embark on a new way of being & of seeing the world. A new way like socks & cigarettes, for example. Christian & Joy and others in our group started passing out socks & cigarettes to the street youth of Portland. 100s of kids living on the street were confronted with the kingdom through socks & cigarettes. The socks & cigarettes met needs, spoke their language, announced that someone cared, and showed them that in the kingdom of God, no one is a throwaway.

5. what’s the Canby version of socks & cigarettes? I wonder what would happen if we began to meet once a week to pray for our community & repent & to ask God to show us how to bring his kingdom to bear upon Canby?

believe
1. repenting is followed by believing. Saying “yes” to Jesus & his kingdom & his teaching & his call upon our lives. Even a “Yes, I believe; help me in my unbelief” will do.

2. repent & believe are 2 sides of the same coin. They go together. You can’t truly believe until you repent. Repentance opens you up to belief.

3. both repent & believe are commands. There’s urgency to kingdom matters. It’s life or death.

4. Jesus didn’t come suggesting that people consider the kingdom of his Father. He didn’t throw it out as a good idea. He came strongly urging you & me & all of us to repent & believe. The stakes are high BUT we often treat them like they are low or non-existent.

5. one morning this past week I was listened to Colin Cowherd (host of a talk radio show on ESPN) interview Pete Carroll (USC football coach). Cowherd asked Carroll what he was like in during the season, how hard he worked, how much sleep he got, etc. Pete Carroll went into a rave about his commitment to coaching USC football. He multi-tasks. He works hard. He’s sleep deprived. Early mornings. Late nights. He’s got one thing on his mind – football.

6. and I thought of the kingdom of God & Jesus’ words – repent & believe. According to Jesus, the kingdom should have our full attention, devotion & commitment. What if we matched Pete Carroll’s obsession with football with our devotion to the kingdom of God? This church, this community, this state, parts of this world would never be the same again.

7. when Jesus says repent & believe, he means to say, lay it all out on the line!

the good news
1. repent & believe lead us on a trail to the good news – the gospel. What is the good news?
§ Creation – God has created our world & pronounced it good
§ Fall – sin in the form of self-centeredness & rebellion against God has entered our world & broken our relationship with God
§ Redemption – God has entered our world in the person of his Son to redeem us, save us, take care of the “sin” problem by dying on the cross in our place
§ Restoration – in Jesus & his present & eternal kingdom the whole creation is going to be restored to its original purity, beauty & innocence.

2. the good news of salvation includes not just souls but bodies & the whole created universe! As evangelicals we’ve got the soul part down, sometimes get the body part, but seldom the whole created universe part. We have made salvation too individualistic at the expense of community & creation (but that is another sermon).

church and kingdom: how do they relate to each other?
1. the kingdom of God transcends the church. The kingdom of God was here before the church & will still be here after the church is gone.

2. you can have the kingdom w/out the church BUT you can’t have the church w/out the kingdom.

3. the church is not an end in itself. It’s a means to an end. The end is the kingdom of God.

4. I find help in the way Brian McLaren talks about the church & the kingdom in his book A New Kind of Christian. The church exists to be a catalyst for the kingdom. It exists for the benefit of the kingdom. The church is to grow numerically & spiritually but that growth matters so the church can become more & more catalytic for the kingdom of God, for the good of the world. The church grows so the world can receive & enter God’s kingdom.

5. Jesus founded the church as an instrument of his kingdom in the world. The church exists to advance the kingdom more & more into the world. That’s why all church work should be kingdom work.

the Gospel of Mark: on the road with Jesus (19)

“Then”
Mark 6:30-46

1. St. Teresa of Avila lived from 1515-1582. She was a Carmelite nun, monastic reformer, mystic & writer. She wrote - Christ has no body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which He looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

2. as we read through these gospel stories, as we live our lives, lets keep this before us – we are the personification of Jesus to our world.

the apostles gathered around Jesus (6:30)
1. the 12 report back to Jesus from their 1st mission – this is what we did; this is what we taught, here’s how it went. People repented, others were healed & some were freed from demons.

2. Jesus & the 12 are debriefing. Enjoying some down time together.

then (6:31)
1. then, Mark writes, then. Before they can sit back & enjoy what’s happened. Before they can rest. Before they can grab some dinner. Then. They are faced with something else.

2. many people crowding around them. Needy people wanting to hear their words & experience their power. Desperate people looking for help. Curious onlookers.

3. the 12 didn’t have any time to themselves. No time to rest or eat after an exhilarating & demanding mission. No time to pay attention to what their souls were trying to say to them. To what their bodies needed.

4. we have these then moments in our lives:
we sit down to relax, then the phone rings with a call for help
we haven’t even unpacked from vacation & then a neighbor knocks on our door with bad news
we just get our teenage son through 1 crisis & then we’re suddenly thrust into the next one
we just pay off our credit card & then the washer & dryer
both go out on the same day

quiet place (6:31-32)
1. (Jesus) said to them, Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place & get some rest. Jesus is watching after his boys.

2. what they need is solitude. Getting away to be alone with God. Soul rest.

3. Jesus is good at this because it’s a pattern in his own life:
§ 1:12-13 = spent 40 days in wilderness
§ 1:35 = solitary place to pray
§ 3:7 = withdrew to lake
§ 3:13 = went up on a mountainside
§ Luke 5:16 = often withdrew to lonely places to pray
§ 6:12 = mountainside to pray & spent the night praying to God

4. solitude is soul rest. My soul finds rest in God alone (Psalm 62:1). Solitude is creating a space in your life where God can engage you.

5. what does the practice of solitude look like in your life?
6. the crowds foil Jesus’ retreat plans. When their boat landed at the designated solitary place it was run over with people. A large crowd met them.

7. happens to us, too. We make plans for a few hours of much-needed solitude and….someone or something foils our plans. How are we going to respond?

he had compassion on them (6:34)
1. Jesus is flexible. He’s thinking solitude, rest, quiet time for his boys. But he finds a large crowd.

2. he sees them not as an interruption BUT as real people with real lives, real needs & real fears. He sees a bunch of lost & needy sheep wandering around the lake shore without any shepherd to lead them.

3. he had compassion on them. Compassion is the Greek word for intestines. It came to mean feeling something very, very deep within you. Sometimes people use the phrase – it ripped my guts out. This is the idea here. Jesus’ compassion for these people was no shallow, superficial thing. His insides ached for them.

4. I wonder how many of us truly feel compassion these days. Compassion fatigue has crept into our lives. Living in the global world, internet-CNN news world that we do, we are hit with an endless barrage of tragic & terrible situations. There are days where we are unable to care any longer.

5. and that is tragic & terrible. Because compassion is a Christ-like characteristic.

6. some of you listen to the music of Steven Curtis Chapman. He & his wife have adopted 3 orphan babies from China. When they traveled to China to adopt their 1st orphan they were overwhelmed by beds of full of orphaned babies. In a book he co-wrote with Scotty Smith he writes, one bed at a time…that’s how we’ve got to think about the daunting challenge of caring for so many orphans. One bed at a time. Jesus is not expecting any of us to put our arms around the whole orphan crisis. But we can fill our arms & empty an orphanage, one bed at a time, one bed at a time. In our family that has led to 2 more empty beds in China.

7. 1 crowd at a time
1 well at a time
1 Food Pantry Saturday at a time
1 Habitat for Humanity house at a time
1 Dental Clinic in West Africa at a time
1 Aids victim at a time
1 starving family at a time
1 needy friend at a time
1 hurting neighbor at a time
1 written out check at a time
1 First Friday hour of prayer at a time
1 smile at a time
1 hug at a time
1 kind word at a time
1 mixed-up kid at a time
1 word or deed of witness at a time

8. do you have a “1 empty bed at a time” cause or passion or mission that God is calling you to? And are you going away with Jesus to drink in his compassion?

so he began teaching them many things (6:34)
1. compassion is followed by – (Jesus) began teaching them many things. We don’t often think of compassion fleshed out in teaching.

2. Jesus was a teacher. Truth mattered to Jesus. What people believed & thought & based their lives upon mattered supremely to Jesus.
3. Jesus’ main message was the Kingdom of God – The time has come. The Kingdom of God is near. Repent & believe the good news (1:15) – I think it’s safe to assume that he taught them about the Kingdom of God – the present in-breaking reign & rule of God personified in his life & in people like the 12.

you give them something to eat (6:35-36)
1. its getting late in the day. The 12 ask Jesus to send the crowd away so they can go eat.

2. and Jesus replies, You give them something to eat. Sometimes Jesus forces us to face our limitations, to do more than we think we can. The 12 didn’t have 8 months worth of wages between them to go buy over 5000 people dinner.

3. we can easily feel daunted by the great needs of our families, our church, our community, our world. In the face of need has Jesus ever said to you, You give them something to eat!
You teach that class
You take on that troubled kid
You become an elder
You start that ministry
You be an advocate for the homeless
You start The Canby Center

4. how many loaves do you have? Jesus asked them. What do you guys have to eat? They pooled together 5 loaves of bread & 2 fish for over 5000 people.

5. all Jesus expects of us is to take what we have, no matter how small, and ask God to bless our efforts & resources. Jesus says, give me what you’ve got & let me bless it.

6. we bring to God the 5 loaves & 2 fish of our lives – of our
leadership abilities
teaching skills
wavering love for our spouse
used-up love for our kids
trust in him for our dreams
strength to finish a work project
courage to confront a paralyzing problem

7. Healthy spiritual development includes a Christian imagination that believes God that all things are possible (Spiritual Formation Bible).

Bret Lott stories
1. Bret Lott is editor of the Southern Review & a professor of English at Louisiana State University. He writes novels, like Jewel, which was featured in Oprah’s Book Club. He’s a follower of Christ.

2. he went on a church missions trip to Moldova in eastern Europe with his wife & 2 teenage sons to run a bible camp. He was the camp activities director. They were planned for 140 children & brought supplies for 160. During the week they had upwards of 170 kids show up. They had more kids than what they had supplies for.

3. relay race. One day they ran a relay race. Each kid ran to a paper bag, put on a pair of garden gloves, reached into the bag to pull out a pack of gum, pulled a piece of gum from the pack with gloves on & ran back to tag the next person on his team.

4. as they got to the end of the relay race his son yelled to him, Dad, we’re going to run out of gum! Bret Lott hollered back, Pray! And then prayed himself that there would be enough gum for each kid. AND THERE WAS ENOUGH. God performed a miracle – he multiplied the gum.

5. T-shirts. On the last day there they tie-dyed T-shirts. They only had 140 shirts. They knew there were over 170 kids. The whole team prayed over the shirts AND stepped boldly into their tie-dyeing event. At the end of the day they had precisely enough T-shirts, 1 for each of the over 170 children.

6. Bret Lott’s concluding comments, Do I really believe that God reached out his hand to us and, as those 5000 people who’d gathered on the shore of the Sea of Galilee were given food from 5 loaves & 2 fish, gave us some extra gum & a big wad of T-shirts? Yes, I do. Count on it.

7. now as then, Jesus is where we look to find answers for our physical & spiritual needs.

8. what needs are staring you in the face today? What 5 loaves & 2 fish do you hold? Step out in faith & ask Jesus to bless your efforts & resources.

9. Christ has no body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which He looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

the Gospel of Mark: on the road with Jesus (18)

“The Scandalous Jesus”

Mark 6:1-13

1. I love the gospel of Mark because he tells it like it is. He doesn’t sugar-coat the Jesus story. He tells us things that, if we stop to think about them, are shocking.

2. case-in-point: what do you make of Jesus? His audience response is all over the charts. A high degree of people had serious questions about Jesus & his ministry:
§ 1st disciples: 4:41 – who is this? Even the wind & waves obey him?
§ 2nd family: 3:21 – he is out of his mind
§ 3rd Pharisees & Herodians: 3:6 – they began to plot how they might kill Jesus
§ 4th Scribes/teachers of the law: 2:7 – he’s blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? 3:22 – he is possessed by Beelzebub. By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.
§ 5th home town crowd: 6:3 – where did this man get these things? Carpenter? Mary’s son? They took offense at him.

3. on the other hand, the forces of evil “get” Jesus; they are the only ones who confess Jesus to be God’s Son:
§ 1:24: I know who you are, the Holy One of God
§ 1:34: they knew who he was
§ 3:11: You are the Son of God
§ 5:7: Jesus, Son of the Most High God
The evil spirits believe that Jesus the man is Jesus the God.

4. this is not what you would expect to find. And it causes me to wonder – is it possible that we might not see Jesus as clearly as we think?

the home town crowd
1. when the Sabbath rolls around Jesus is in his home town of Nazareth teaching in the synagogue. Some were amazed & others had questions.

2. where did this man get these things? He went to our schools, attended our synagogue, lived in our neighborhood.

3. what’s this wisdom that has been given to him, that he even does miracles? He didn’t have this wisdom & power when we knew him!

4. isn’t this the carpenter? He worked with wood. He built yokes & door frames & cattle stalls. “Jesus built the bookshelves in my parent’s home. He didn’t go to college. He never managed a big business.”

5. there’s such irony here. This carpenter who built the bookshelves is the carpenter who built the universe! Think about that. He constructed the lives of his critics. He fashioned them with the minds they used to erect a case against him & the mouths they used to criticize him. They exist because he is. The carpenter is the Creator.

6. isn’t this Mary’s son? Jesus lived in a patriarchal society. Your lineage was traced through your father, not your mother. They remembered the questions surrounding his birth – Mary got pregnant as a teenager BUT Joseph said he wasn’t the father. Jesus is illegitimate!

7. and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas & Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us? We know his family. We watched him grow up.

offense & faith
1. and they took offense at him. The word here is the word scandalize. They were outraged & horrified by this local boy.
2. Jesus made their blood pressure rise. They wanted to put him in his place. They thought he was a fake. They were scandalized by him.

3. he was amazed at their lack of faith. As a result he only healed a few people. Why? He wasn’t going to cast pearls before swine.

4. His homecoming flopped. Jesus was met with skepticism & unbelief.

Jesus sends out the 12
1. Jesus sends the 12 disciples out on their 1st mission. They go out 2 by 2. They take something of Jesus with them – the authority to cast out demons.

2. no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Not an extra tunic.. Jesus wants them to depend upon the hospitality of the people they want to reach. Go live with them. Meet them on their terms. Walk in their shoes. Depend up on them.

3. this is a picture of the incarnation – God entered the world in Jesus & lived fully in it. He didn’t partially come to earth. He came all the way to earth. Jesus didn’t retreat every evening @ 5pm to a gated palace outside the city. He had no home & no place to lay his head except the places of the people he loved. And he told the disciples to do the same!

4. how did the church get from the lifestyle of Jesus & these instructions to the 12 TO pastors today who live in luxury, fly around the country in their own private planes & drive the latest Mercedes? I wonder what Jesus thinks!

5. shake the dust off your feet. Just as Jesus offended people, so his disciples doing their Jesus stuff would offend people. Shake the dust off your feet means that they are not responsible for the response of those who reject Jesus. Those who have heard are now responsible.

6. Jesus sent them out to preach repentance, free people from darkness & anoint the sick with oil & heal them. Like Jesus, like the 12.

What do you make of Jesus?
1. this passage illustrates what is true so far in Mark’s gospel – Jesus is a mixture of attraction & offense. He draws a crowd wherever he goes. After he teaches, heals & delivers, people are amazed (attraction) & bothered (offense). He entertains some & scandalizes others.

2. who is this Jesus? At this point in Mark’s story I can’t point you to Jesus family – he is out of his mind. I can’t point you to his disciples – who is this? Even the wind & waves obey him. I can’t point you to his hometown people – they took offense at him. I can’t point you to the church officials of his day – they began to plot how they might kill him.

3. all I can do is point you to some evil spirits, demons. They get it. They confess that Jesus is the Holy One of God & the Son of God. They believe he is Divine. And they are terrified of him!

4. some were amazed, some were offended & some were terrified.

5. what do you make of this Jesus?
§ if he is the Holy One of God
§ if he is the Son of God
§ if he has power over evil spirits
§ if he can calm the waves & the wind
§ if he can heal the sick
§ if he can save the lost
§ if he can call people to leave their nets & follow him & they do
§ if he died for our sins
§ if he rose from the dead
§ if he lives today
§ if he is the matchless Cosmic King of the universe

6. what are you going to do with this Jesus?

Jesus, be the Center
1. each of our lives is centered on something. What’s at the center of your life?

2. or, what’s the main thing in your life? What’s 1st in priority? What’s at the top of your list?

3. or, what are you most passionate about? What do you love to talk about, think about?

4. or, what defines you? Your career? A relationship? Your family? Cause? Political affiliation? Hobby? Talent? House? Business?

5. is it Jesus?

6. I wish all of you could go to West Africa – Guinea & Sierra Leone. I wish all of you could meet Gessim (rejected by his family & cut out of the family finances because of his love for Jesus). I wish all of you could meet Fode (shunned by his mother who refused to talk to him after she realized he loved Jesus & not Allah). I wish all of you could meet Cisse (beaten in his hometown village by his own family because of his love for Jesus).

7. I wish you could meet Sam Sesay (who left a comfortable job with the British High Commission; who then left a comfortable pastorate at the Wilberforce Baptist Church; who became a missionary to the Susu people in his mid-40s with 6 children because of his love for Jesus).

8. I wish you could meet Paulo Rehm (who left a secure, high-paying job with a company in Brazil – he was set for life – to become a missionary to the Susu people in one of the poorest countries in the world because of his love for Jesus).

9. Jesus is the center of Gessim, Fode, Cisse, Sam & Paulo’s lives. He’s their passion. Jesus defines them. Jesus is more important to them than money, security, country, family & safety.

10. I wish I could fly our whole church to Africa to meet these people & others just like them. But I can’t.

11. but here’s what I can do. I can take you to Jesus. You don’t have to fly to Africa to meet Jesus. You can meet Jesus right here, right now.

12. you can be one of the crowd & be amazed by his miracle-working powers. Or you can be one of his hometown friends & be offended, scandalized by him. Or you can be like the evil spirits & be terrified of his authority & power. Or you can be like the 12 who, misdirected as they sometimes were, made him the center of their lives & loved him till they died…for their love for him.

13. what is Jesus asking of you today?

14. this is what I think he’s asking –
§ make me more important than money in your life
§ make me more important than security in your life
§ make me more important than country in your life
§ make me more important than family in your life
§ make me more important than safety in your life

the Gospel of Mark: on the road with Jesus (17)

“Desperation Met With Life-giving Power”

Mark 5:21-24, 35-43

1. when Rob Bell was 28 years old he started Mars Hill church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. 2 years later 10,000 people were attending the church. One Sunday morning between the 9 & 11am services Rob Bell sat in a storage closet off the platform.

2. he thought to himself…
§ I can’t do it anymore
§ I’m not even sure I’m a Christian anymore
§ I’m exhausted, burned out, full of doubt
§ I have nothing more to say

3. he writes in his book Velvet Elvis, It was in that abyss that I broke & got help….because its only when you hit bottom & are desperate enough that things start to get better. When we get desperate & realize we cannot keep living this way, then we have to change.

4. today’s Jesus story from Mark 5 is about desperation & the life-giving power of Jesus.

Putting ourselves in the story
1. the purpose of these stories is to tell us who Jesus was & is. And the reason we read & study them is so we can learn to live the way of Jesus.

2. what would it have been like to have actually been there? Close enough to touch him or be touched by him? To have actually smelled him?

3. what was it about him that caused some to give up everything to follow him, like Peter James & John in today’s story.

4. let yourself into this story today about a 12 year old girl who died.

5:21 – lake & crowd
1. this story takes place on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, which is no sea at all. It’s a fresh water lake 13 miles long & 8 miles across. Jesus is the hottest ticket in town – he draws a crowd.

5:22-23 – dying daughter
1. a synagogue ruler by the name of Jairus broke into the crowd. Jairus was a lay person who supervised the use of the synagogue for worship. He was a man of rank & privilege.

2. and Jairus was desperate. His 12 year old daughter was dying. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet. He begged Jesus to come home with him. He pleaded with him to lay hands on his daughter. To heal her & give her new life. Jesus was his only hope to beat the death that was stalking his daughter.

3. there’s nothing like death to make us cry out to God. But physical death is not all that can make us desperate for God. What about the death of –
§ a job or a career?
§ a marriage?
§ a vision or dream?
§ a friendship?
§ health?
§ one’s invincibility?

4. Martin Luther once remarked that his insight into God’s grace came to him while he was “on the toilet.” This was a commonly used phrase in Luther’s time for being in a state of utter helplessness & dependence upon God.

5. last week Steve Fowler challenged us with the notion of living by the couch or the cross. Couch = life of comfort & control. Cross = life of following Christ, dying to self & giving up control.

6. the cross reeks of Jesus’ death, his denial of his self, his willingness to give up his life in order to give us life. Out of his death comes our life.

7. we need Communion to regularly bring us back to the cross. This symbol of death which calls out to become a reality in our lives. We say “no” to self & sin as we say “yes” to Jesus.

5:24 – Jesus went with him
1. busy Jesus, over-run with crowds Jesus had time for Jairus. He took time for hurting people. He left the crowds & followed Jairus home. When have you done the same?

5:35 – dead daughter
1. before Jairus could get Jesus home, bad news arrived. Your daughter is dead. Some of you have heard these words. “Your daughter is dead. Your son has died. Your father just fell over dead of a heart attack. Your sister was just killed in a car accident.” You never forget these words.

2. I called my parents last April 5 to see how my brother Tom was doing. I knew he was close to death but I wasn’t ready for what I heard. My mom answered the phone & tearfully said, “He’s gone, Tom just died a few minutes ago.”

3. at this point in the story all hope is gone. Desperation reigns. Why bother the teacher any more? Jairus’ friends believed his dead child was beyond Jesus’ reach.
4. your daughter is dead may sound different to you in your desperation:
§ the reports came back & its cancer
§ your father filed for divorce today
§ I’m sorry but your job has been eliminated
§ your daughter has been arrested for possession of

5:36 – fear & belief
1. when death of any kind stalks us Jesus is who we need, a word, a touch from the Life-giver.

2. to Jairus Jesus says, don’t be afraid; just believe.“ Jairus, don’t live your life in fear, especially now; keep living by the belief that brought you to me for healing in the first place.”

3. desperate times call for desperate faith in Jesus alone to make a difference.

5:37 – Peter James John
1. Jesus ditched everyone except Jairus & Peter James John. 3 rough-around-the-edges fisherman who received special mentoring from Jesus. This is an example of how Jesus trained his disciples. He gave them on-the-job training.

2. “here, come with me, I’m going to show you how to raise the dead!”

5:38-40a – wailing crowd
1. the word was already out. Jairus’ daughter was dead. Family, friends, neighbors gathered. Cries of grief & tears filled the air. What a tragic, unspeakable thing – Jairus’ 12 year old daughter, dead!

2. Jesus speaks, why all this commotion & wailing? The child is not dead but asleep. This is the very word we all want to hear when someone we love dies. But if you’ve been around death you know that what looks like sleep is really death.

3. the wailing crowd goes from crying to laughing at Jesus in a split second. And in the next split second he kicks them out of the house.

5:40b – entering the room
1. Jesus led Jairus, his wife & the 3 disciples into the dead girl’s room.

2. some of you have entered a room like this, a rooim holding your dead child or parents or friend or spouse. I’ve been in rooms like this.

3. rooms drenched with tears, grief, loss, emptiness. I wonder if the girl’s mom held her face in her hands. Maybe Jairus knelt on his knees at the bedside & held his dead child’s hand. There’s the child, life-less, wax-like in death.

5:41-42 – life-giving power
1. He took her by the hand & said in Aramaic, Little girl, I say to you, get up. Frederick Buechner comments, how far down into darkness did Jesus have to reach to bring this girl back to life?

2. immediately, Mark writes, immediately, desperation was met with life-giving power.

3. the girl stood up & walked around her bedroom. Can you see it? After being squeezed & hugged by her parents I wonder if she grabbed her hair brush or reached for her cell phone to call her friends?

4. she had her life back. Jairus & his wife had their lives back as well! The worst day of their lives had just been changed into the very best day of their lives.
5. Communion reminds us not just of the death of Christ but of his resurrection as well. Paul instructs us to celebrate communion until he comes. Christ can’t come if Christ hasn’t been raised from the dead. Which he has! From the death of the cross comes the life of the resurrection.

5:42 – get up
1. some of us need to get up. We need to crawl off the bed we’ve been lying on. The bed of:
§ making our lives all about comfort control convenience
§ self-pity
§ disobedience
§ laziness
§ playing the victim
§ settling into the status quo – church, pursuing God
§ hiding our addictions to drugs alcohol sex pornography food spending
§ critical attitude or spirit
§ pride & arrogance

2. “Get up, Jesus says to all of you – all of you! – and the power that is in him is the power to give life not just to the dead like the girl, but to those who are only partly alive, which is to say to people like you and me who much of the time live with our lives closed to the wild beauty and miracle of things, including the wild beauty & miracle of every day we live & even of ourselves” Frederick Buechner

3. in our desperation Jesus can meet us with life-giving power. The power of new life, new hope, new being. The power to get up even when getting up isn’t all that easy for us.

5:43 – keep quiet & eat
1. how do you keep something like this a secret? Jesus didn’t want it advertised because he didn’t want people to think of him only as a miracle-worker. The Kingdom of God is far more than just miracles.
2. I love the way this story ends – give her something to eat. Grab her a bagel or a bowl of cereal. This shows the sensitivity & tender compassion of Jesus.

3. and in response to this Jesus story I want to give you the chance to get something to eat. To return to the Communion table. To take seconds. To bring your death & desperation issues to Jesus. To seek his life-giving power. To ask him for whatever it will take to get up. To be about following him. To be about living his way of life.