“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.
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