Our scripture for this morning's message:
Mark 5:21-43 When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around Him while He was by the lake. Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came and when he saw Jesus, he fell at His feet. He pleaded earnestly with Him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put Your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” So Jesus went with him.
A large crowd followed and pressed around Him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind Him in the crowd and touched His cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch His clothes I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from Him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched My clothes?”
“You see the people crowding against You,” His disciples answered, “and yet You can ask, ‘Who touched Me?’” But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at His feet and, trembling with fear, told Him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher anymore?” Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”
He did not let anyone follow Him except Peter, James, and John the brother of James. When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at Him.
After He put them all out, He took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with Him and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (Which means ‘Little girl, I say to you, get up!’). Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this and told them to give her something to eat.
The Word of God, for the people of God
THANKS BE TO GOD!
Good morning, everyone, I am Pastor Russ.
A boy came late to Sunday school. Knowing that this boy was usually very prompt his teacher asked him, “Johnny, is there anything wrong?” “No ma’am, not really,” he said. “I was going to go fishing, but my dad told me that I needed to go to church, instead.”
The teacher was very impressed and asked Johnny if his father explained to him why it was more important to go to church than go fishing. “Yes, ma’am, he did.” Johnny said. “My dad told me that he didn’t have enough bait for both of us.”
While our message this morning is called How to Eat an Elephant, it could be titled, His Eye is on the Sparrow and also on You! That pretty well sums up what we should understand about God from this morning’s story. Either title will help us to remember that we must keep our faith strong, even in times of great pain and suffering.
The Bible tells us that God watches over the safety of the sparrow and provides all that the sparrow needs to survive. Yet, we humans are the most beloved of all things God ever made. We are made in God’s image, male and female. If God watches that closely over the sparrow, how much closer does God watch over us? How much closer we must be to God’s heart, especially when our faith becomes genuine; a true faith in God, our Father in heaven? That is what Jesus meant when he told Jairus, “Do not fear, only believe.”
We could break down today’s reading into two stories. We could even have multiple messages from this reading. But this is how life happens and it gives us an opportunity to explore them in a special way.
One story is about a woman who has been afflicted with bleeding or hemorrhaging for a long time. Twelve years! She has been in so much pain and suffering for so long and no one is able to help her at all. First, she went to doctors who took her money but were not able to do anything to stop the bleeding. She tried everything she knew of, and nothing helped. Then she heard of this miracle man; someone who is healing people that doctors were not able to help. This woman is an outcast, and unclean. She must stay away from others and call out so they can avoid her. But she is desperate to find help.
This is so like us today. We do not turn to Jesus until we are desperate for help; until we feel there is nothing more we can do. That is when we finally give it all up to the One who can make a difference, a big difference in our lives. Jesus is there all along, waiting for us, waiting for the moment we finally turn to Him.
The second story, intertwined with this first one, is about a young girl who is deathly ill. Although we will see that the real lesson from this story is the amazing faith of her father. Both of these stories speak of great faith, amazing faith. The sort of faith that God hopes to find in each of us.
That second story begins with a father, so desperate, that he goes against the leaders of his faith and calls upon Jesus for help. He is a leader of the synagogue, and as such, he is part of the group that opposes Jesus. He has a great amount of responsibility in the synagogue and risks their wrath. He is responsible for making sure the services are held exactly as they are supposed to be held, following Jewish tradition.
Jairus is also very respected by others in the community. If he follows Jesus and seeks Jesus out in his times of trouble what sort of message is this sending to the other Jews that rely on him for guidance? The leaders will condemn him, and the other Jews will become even more confused as to whether they should follow Jesus or condemn him. Jairus is in a lose-lose situation with his daughter’s life at stake if he doesn’t approach Jesus.
He puts aside the troubles he might face and does what a father must do. He seeks out Jesus and begs Him to cure his dying daughter. He has seen the things Jesus has done. He knows in his heart that Jesus can heal his daughter. He knows Jesus is someone very special.
Jairus not only seeks out Jesus and asks, begs Him for help; he does it in broad daylight in front of many other people. Jairus doesn’t care what others might be thinking. He is seeking help from the very one they have been condemning. Jairus just wants his daughter to get well and he falls at Jesus’ feet, grovels, begs Jesus to heal his daughter.
Touched by Jairus’ faith Jesus agrees to go help her. During this journey the story takes a twist. There is this woman who also needs Jesus’ help. She, too, has heard about His miracles and that is precisely what she needs – a miracle.
As Jesus and Jairus are walking along the road to Jairus’ house, a crowd has gathered around them to see what Jesus is doing. They walk by where the woman had been standing. How often do we see this happen! God puts just the right person in our path at just the right time. And here it is happening for this woman.
A large crowd of people are around Jesus, seeking His help. They want and need the same thing that Jairus and this woman need, a miracle. They want an instant cure for whatever is wrong in their lives. Scholars estimate there are more than 100 people around Jesus, calling out to Him, begging, reaching out to get His attention.
There are so many that this woman is able to become part of the faceless crowd and approach Jesus. She gets as close as she can and at the right moment she is barely able to touch His robe. But she knows; that is enough, ‘if only I can touch His cloak I will be healed!’ Her faith is different than most of the others there that day. They are pleading and begging and hoping Jesus can do something. This woman, she knows Jesus can heal her! She doesn’t need to talk to Him. He doesn’t even need to see her or look at her or give her a blessing of any kind. All she needs to do is touch His clothing and He will heal her.
Her belief, her faith, comes from Jewish tradition. In the Book of Numbers, God speaks to Moses and tells him to tell the Israelites to ‘make tassels on the corners of their garments, with a blue cord on each tassel.’ The garment is called a tallit (tall EAT), and the tassels are called Tzitzit (ZEET zeet). The four corners of the garment are known as the wings.
Jesus, being obedient to His Jewish faith, would have worn such a garment with the tassels on the wings. During the time of Jesus, those who believed He was the Messiah, believed that those tassels held healing powers. This belief comes from the prophet Malachi, who, in Malachi 4:2 wrote that the Messiah is coming with healing in His wings. Because of this, the woman knew if she could just touch one of those tassels, one of Jesus’ wings, she would be healed. There is a difference between your faith being one of hope and one of truly knowing.
This reminds me of a story about a severe drought in Texas. It was back in the 1920’s or 30’s. The area had been without rain for a long time and they had tried everything they could think of to cause it to rain. They even tried seeding the clouds, hoping to generate enough moisture that it would rain. None of these things worked. As a last resort, they decided to have a community prayer night and pray for rain.
They invited a man to come and lead the worship and prayer service in the town square. The man watched as they gathered in the square. As the crowd gathered there was a lot of murmuring as they discussed just what they thought this man might do. They hoped that as he led them in prayer he could make it rain. When it was finally time to begin the worship and prayer service the man raised his hand and the crowd grew silent.
After a long pause, while they waited for his words of wisdom, the man slowly shook his head and said to them, “The only way your prayers are going to work for you is for you to truly believe that they will work. And, my friends, it is painfully obvious that your faith is not there. Your faith must be so strong and so deep within you that there is no doubt in your mind that it will rain. But as I look out at you I see that none of you even brought an umbrella!”
Those people in Texas were like most of the people that were around Jesus. They only He could do something for them. If the woman in our story this morning had been in Texas, she would have brought an umbrella!
When the woman touched His wing, Jesus felt power go out of Himself. He asked who touched Me because He wanted to know who it was who had such faith. He stopped His journey to Jairus’ house because of it. He wanted to know who touched Him.
The disciples laughed when Jesus asked the question. They saw the hundred-plus people around Jesus. They knew any one of them might be the one. Actually, they were sure that it was many more than just one that touched Him. But Jesus knew her touch was different. Jesus was so impressed by her faith that when she admitted that she touched Him, He said, “Daughter, your faith has made you well.” Daughter. Jesus recognized her as a child of God!
Now that her healing was complete, Jesus returned to the issue of Jairus’ daughter. At this point the message is given to Jairus that he is too late, and he shouldn’t bother Jesus any longer, his daughter had died. Jesus tells Jairus to continue to stay strong in his faith. He says, “do not fear, only believe.” How difficult that must have been for Jairus. He had hoped Jesus would get there in time, but he has been told his daughter has died. Jesus might have made it, but this woman delayed Jesus from getting to his daughter in time.
The rest of the journey to Jairus’ house must have been so difficult for Jairus. The other Jewish leaders have condemned Jesus as being a false Messiah. How hard it must have been to have the sort of faith Jesus is telling him to have.
When they arrive, they are informed that the girl is upstairs, and that she is dead. Jesus says she is not dead but merely sleeping. They go up to the room and Jesus touches her and tells her to get up. She gets up out of bed and is perfectly normal!
I share both of these stories together because that is how life happens. This is more than two feel-good stories. We had a great leader of the Jewish faith needing Jesus’ help, but it was interrupted by someone who is a complete outcast. It doesn’t matter to Jesus. Jesus came for all people, for you and me, and even world leaders. If you have faith, if you invite the Holy Spirit into your heart, you will not be forsaken. Jesus truly knows what is in your heart.
I shared this story at the first church I pastored. I was working full-time at a local bank and was a parttime pastor. I was helping a woman whose husband was divorcing her after 40 years. He was making the process as difficult as possible for her. She told me that she felt so overwhelmed by it all that she was ready to give up.
I asked her if she knew how to eat an elephant. She looked at me like I was crazy. I then explained that it is simple, it is just one bite at a time. I then shared this story from Mark and told her that was how Jesus lived His life. He had so many interruptions throughout His day that He did what had to be done at that moment and then continued on His way.
After a few weeks had passed she came in and thanked me, as she was eating the elephant one bite at a time and was slowing making progress in getting everything done that had to be done. That Sunday, when I shared this message at my first church a friend of mine who was a pastor, was on vacation and surprised me by coming to my church.
He sat with his soon-to-be wife, listening to my story about eating an elephant. Both of them have had so many health issues since that day. And he has often told me that the way they get through the problems is remembering that message. Not only has it allowed them to get through the problems they face, but it moved them even closer to God as they look to God for help in taking this life, one bite at a time.
This painting is from Julianna, Bob’s wife. She painted it while they going through some of their issues. It has made the move to every office I have had since my first church. It reminds me that we all need to know how to eat that elephant. It helps me to keep my focus on Jesus, my Savior, no matter what life throws at me.
Let us pray: