Abraham Kuruvilla | Mark 5:21-43

good morning thank you dr york for that introduction it's a delight to be here at southern baptist theological seminaries chapel again the last time i was here was in the was in march of 2020 and the day after i spoke a pandemic hit southern seminary was shut down the world stopped spinning the sun refused to shine and the sky fell on our heads disaster i hope no such disaster overtakes us this time if it does i'm sunk i won't get another invitation to this chapel ever again talking of disasters i would like for us to turn in our bibles to mark chapter five and look at two disasters back to back mark chapter five and as you negotiate your way to that section of scripture let me invoke the presence of god upon our gathering again our father would you send your holy spirit in special measure the same holy spirit who inscripturated this word into our hearts for his illumination so that we may learn how to cope with disasters as we walk in discipleship with your son jesus christ in whose name we pray amen ely weasel nobel peace prize winner whose writings have focused on the jewish holocaust and its atrocities was himself imprisoned by the nazis at the age of 16. he endured unspeakable horrors at auschwitz in buchenwald concentration camps one incident he writes lives forever in his memory two adults and a child maybe 12 years old had been caught holding guns and armaments inside the camp they were sentenced to death the boy had a refined and beautiful face or different from the gaunt disfigured faces of most prisoners the face of a sad angel whistle rights the guards erected three gallows the three victims mounted chairs and nooses were placed around their necks all the other prisoners were forced to line up and watch this gruesome spectacle long live liberty cried the two adults the child said nothing but from the rows of anguished spectators a cry came up where is god the chairs were tipped over and the bodies jerked and then dangled limply from the ropes it was a terrible sight the two adults died in seconds but the child being so light the third rope was twitching for over 30 minutes behind me says weasel i heard the same man asking where is god now i hope you are never ever in the situation of witnessing or experiencing such abominable evil but i bet there have been times in your life where you have asked that same question where is god now maybe there are some of you asking that today life is crumbling around you and there is no help in sight no not even god a skewed ekg a suspicious mammogram an ominous call from the doctor's office you or a loved one afflicted with disaster diseases and death always hovering around us even this community has had its share and i personally have had mine i lost a parent 10 months ago not to mention our entire nation 650 000 deaths within the last two years and when these disasters strike your life and make no mistake if they haven't already they will where will you turn how will you cope with these disasters let's find out how to do so from an inspiring account in mark chapter 5 21 through 43 mark 5 21-43 mark 5 21-43 is actually two stories two disaster stories in sandwich form yes a sandwich mark loves these sandwiches he starts the story cuts it off in midstream starts a second story and finishes it then comes back to the first one and completes that kind of like a burger half a bun patty and then the other half of the bun i prefer that to a sandwich there are six of these burgers at least in the gospel of mark six of them our text is one today you will catch it as we go along but here's a story in brief jairus a synagogue official asks jesus to come to his house to heal his dying daughter jesus sets off with him but on the way a woman with a bleeding problem surreptitiously touches his cloak and is instantly healed jesus stops acknowledges the woman and blesses her faith right then word comes from jairus house that his daughter has died it's too late jesus exhorts jairus to have faith they all arrive at his house jesus takes the little girl by the hand and she comes back to life two amazing stories one within another burger i'll start at verse 21 and when jesus had crossed over again in the boat to the other side a large crowd gathered before him and he was by the sea and one of the synagogue officials named jairus came and seeing him fell at his feet and implored him earnestly saying my little daughter is at the point of death come that you may lay hands on her that she may be healed and live so jairus is a leader in the synagogue he is prominent he's in the upper class he lives in anchorage he's a lifelong kentuckian well-known in the community only one problem his daughter who by the way goes to louisville collegiate is dying he has everything in life but his child is terminal the situation is hopeless disaster and then there's a woman she's been dying a slow death by bleeding likely a gynecological problem 25 mark 525 and a woman having a flow of blood for 12 years and having suffered much under many physicians and having spent all that she had and was not being helped but rather was becoming worse notice the relentless progression of her condition that describes the hopelessness of her state suffered much seen by many doctors spent all much many all only to get worse for 12 years she too is hopeless socially outcast perhaps unable to be a mother rejected ritually unclean living death disaster the terrors of death are ever present all kinds of disasters threaten diseases galore hospitals and doctors currently use a system of about 18 000 codes to describe medical services in bills that we send to insurers so that we can get paid apparently eighteen thousand wasn't enough for administrators recently a new federally mandated version was introduced called icd-10 for international classification of diseases version 10 that expanded the number of disease codes from 18 000 to 140 000 adding codes that precisely describe what the medical condition is was and how it came about there are codes for injuries in opera houses injuries in art galleries injuriation squash coats and even codes for injuries in a chicken coop there are separate codes for being bitten by a turtle and being struck by a turtle oh and if you walk into a lamppost for the first time the code is w22.02xa of course if you are foolish enough to do it again it's w22.02 xd walked into lamppost subsequent encounter and then there's v9107xa4 burns due to water skis on fire but my favorite my favorite is r46.1 for bizarre personal appearance one of these days i'm going to build someone for r46.1 you know someone somewhere is raking up our precious taxpayer dollars to come up with this stuff i don't know but i know this disasters are everywhere all kinds of injuries and diseases potential death looms over us it doesn't take much a drunken driver a lightning strike a riptide could be you a swimming pool without a gate a madman with a gun could be your child and so here's jairus hopeless and there's the woman hopeless disaster what did they do where do they go and when it hits us what do we do where do we go there are two little cameos of unfaith in this sandwich kind of like bits of comic relief in an otherwise serious story of death i like to think of them as pickles in the burger that make you pucker here's the first pickle verse 30. and immediately jesus perceiving in himself that power went out from him when the woman touched him turned in the crowd and said who touched my garments and his disciples said to him you see the crowd pressing on you and you say who touched me dude we've got a thronging crowd in here you want to know who touched you the irony of this account is that though jesus knows who touched him and that the woman knows she touched him and we the readers know that the woman touched him it's only those ingenuous and naive disciples that are ignorant all kinds of people are touching you jesus so what's the stuff about who touched me they don't know jesus do they they don't know of his sensitivity or his compassion they don't know of his love his care his mercy nope they don't they have no faith already in mark's gospel he is still the storm cured at demoniac but the disciples are still faithless stuck in disbelief that's the first comic interlude and later when jesus gets to jairus house he tells the morning crowd that the little girl is not dead only asleep verse 39 and entering he said to them why create a commotion weep the child has not died but sleeps and they began ridiculing him who is this madman who thinks the girl is only sleeping this guy must be crazy no they don't know jesus either do they they don't know his omnipotence they don't recognize that he is god they don't know that he is the one who gives life they are just like the disciples no faith disbelief several years ago a guy called randy reed a 34 year old construction worker was welding on top of a nearly completed water tower outside of chicago reed unhooked a safety gear to reach for some pipes when his metal cage slipped bumped the scaffolding on which he stood scaffolding tipped reed lost his balance fell 110 feet down falling face down on a pile of bricks fellow worker called 911. paramedics arrived they found mr reed conscious moving and miraculously only complaining of a sore back and paramedics carried him on a backboard to the ambulance read had only one request don't drop me don't drop me the guy falls 110 feet down and survives god has solved the eternal problem of sin and this guy is still nervous about three foot heights we are nervous about temporal disasters mark is telling us don't don't don't be like them those disciples all those ignorant faithless bystanders instead it is obvious who mark wants us to emulate faithful gyrus and especially that faith-filled woman jairus had faith he faced three challenges and overcame all of them by faith first he had a dying daughter he knew only jesus could heal her and so he came to him faith second there was a delay on the way caused by a woman who dared to touch jesus can you imagine that it's like being in an ambulance with your daughter on the way to the air in 64 and 71 and 16. they're all shut down the ambulance is stuck it's going nowhere delayed but jairus doesn't give up he stays with jesus faith and in his third challenge jairus gets a phone call well something like a phone call was 35 while he was still speaking they came from the house of the synagogue official saying your daughter has died why still bother the teacher and then what does jairus do verse 36 but jesus overhearing the word that was spoken said to the synagogue official don't be afraid only believe or only have faith and at the urging of jesus jairus goes home with him after hearing that his daughter had expired faith now jairus had faith all right but the woman with the hemorrhage she is the one to watch out for here the paragon of faith and the exemplar of discipleship jesus even uses her as a model for jairus 34 and 35 and he said to her daughter your faith has healed you go in peace and be made whole from your affliction while he was still speaking they came from the house of the synagogue officials saying your daughter has died why still bother the teacher while he was speaking they came saying just as jesus applauds the woman's faith jairus gets the text message that his daughter has died verse 36 but jesus overhearing the word that was spoken said to the synagogue official do not be afraid only believe have faith and those two verses 35 and 36 are placed in such close proximity almost picture in picture that jesus was probably pointing to the woman as he assured jesus jairus don't be afraid did you see what just happened only believe have faith and so these two stories in the sandwich are linked together but there is another stronger link jump down with me to 5 42 5 42 and immediately the little girl got up and began to walk around for she was 12 years old she was 12. guess how many years the woman with the hemorrhage had been suffering verse 25 and a woman having a flow of blood for 12 years one was 12 when she died the other had been dying for 12 years and she just got healed and jesus says jairus you saw that you saw her 12-year long disease healed only believe jairus for your 12 year old only believe have faith and the holy spirit through marx mark tells us to have faith be desperately dependent on jesus in faith when stricken with disaster but i tell you this woman she is something else she is the ultimate model of a faith-filled follower of jesus in this text look at the subtleties of our story verse 27 hearing about jesus coming in the crowd behind touch this garment behind now you might wonder what's so remarkable about that she was coming up to jesus covertly that's why she was behind him yes of course but another word closely related to the greek one is almost always used by mark in his gospel to denote the position of the disciple the follower of jesus the disciple is always behind jesus following him listen to this in mark 1 17 and 20 and jesus said to them follow me it's literally come behind me and i will make you fishers of men they left their father zebedee on the boat and followed which is went behind him and mark 8 34 if anyone wishes to come after it's actually behind me he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me and so with this woman's location coming up behind jesus we have the first hint albeit subtle that this woman is the disciple we must emulate not only is she in the right position she displays praiseworthy faith 5 34 jesus and he said to her daughter your faith has healed you go in peace and be whole from your affliction others are called children by jesus in mark's gospel but only this woman is called daughter no one else in the gospel gets the privilege of being called a daughter or for that matter son by jesus only this one this lady has become part of the family of jesus she has become a daughter to god impurity removed status restored rendered whole and did you notice with that label daughter there are now two daughters in this burger two patties one daughter had a powerful father to work on her behalf to summon jesus to her bedside jairus the leader of the synagogue with lots of servants the other daughter this penniless woman had no one to speak for her she had no champions she was the lowest of the lord no one to fight for her no one to refer her to jesus no one to bring her to him but jesus calls her daughter henceforth he would be her champion he would fight her for her for now she was his daughter she who was at the bottom of the social scale one who intruded upon jesus important mission on behalf of the daughter of someone on the top of the social ladder this lowly woman who dared breach protocol by touching jesus when unclean she had now become the daughter at the center of the story jesus cares even for the simplest and seemingly insignificant of his followers cares enough to stop cares enough to see the disaster cares enough to call her daughter our god the one who loves the god who stops for the unimportant the god who looks upon the stricken and this woman believed in such a god she in faith was utterly dependent on jesus when stricken with disaster and that's why she is the paragon of discipleship i don't know what disaster you have been stricken with this year perhaps you are in between disasters perhaps you haven't had one recently if so it's only a matter of time our frail human situation is fraught with disasters death and disease will soon be upon us it's just a matter of time do you know jesus cares will you be utterly dependent on jesus when it happens will you be his son his daughter demonstrating faith like this woman did of course it starts with placing your faith in jesus christ as your savior from sin but it goes beyond that it's a continuing ongoing living faith in jesus all our lives utterly dependent on him when stricken with disaster like this woman and there's more to this incredible lady 5 26 and having suffered much under many physicians suffered in all of mark's gospel this verb to suffer is only used of two people this woman and jesus here's jesus in 8 31 and he began to teach them that the son of man must suffer many things of no one else in the entire gospel is this word used only of our lady and jesus mark is deliberately portraying her as close to jesus she is the paragon of discipleship because she follows his footsteps behind him she's suffering as she follows him just like her lord and mark isn't finished yet look at 5 29. and immediately her fountain of blood dried up and she knew in her body that she had been healed from her affliction and here's that word again in 34 and he said to her daughter your faith has healed you go in peace and behold from your affliction the greek word for affliction also means to scourge or to flog it's the same greek word for both well here's another con coincidence in all of mark only two people are scourged guess who this woman and jesus here's what jesus said in 10 34 they will mock him and spit on him and scourge him same word as affleck the same verb used of this woman in our sandwich jesus and the woman she is following jesus model she is the paragon of discipleship can i throw in one more coincidence 525 and a woman having a flow of blood for 12 years blood you can guess where this is going can't you yup only two people in mark's gospel ever bleed this woman and 14 24 he jesus said to them this is my blood of the covenant only two people in mark have blood the rest of them are all bloodless zombies only to this woman and jesus linking her to jesus with this unique vocabulary mark and the holy spirit are telling us that this was one special woman a true disciple following jesus and we too must be like her utterly dependent on jesus when stricken with disasters no matter how dire the situation no matter how hopeless the circumstance now the text does not teach us that every instance of death and disease will be overcome well wait a minute there will be one day in another day a day of glory then death will be vanquished and diseases will be banished forever but the cure of disease and the defeat of death may not necessarily happen on this side of eternity the focus of our text is rather upon the faith of the disciple in christ's ability to handle every disastrous contingency of disease and death in life how he will handle it i don't know but handle it he will will you have faith when disaster strikes you or your loved ones will you mark 5 41-42 and grasping the hand of the child he said to her talitha which is translated little girl i say to you rise and immediately the little girl caught up here is another link between those two stories touch jesus touches the girl and the woman touches his garment mark 5 25-27 and a woman having a flow of blood for 12 years and having suffered much under many physicians and having spent all that she had was not being helped but rather was becoming worse hearing about jesus coming in the crowd behind touched his garment i want you to notice how the woman is introduced seven closest participial clauses for you grammarians and that's free no charge for that seven clauses before landing on the main verb touched a cascade of seven items ending in touch let me read the text that way having a flow having suffered having spent not being helped becoming worse hearing coming touch to touch a hemorrhaging woman was deemed unclean to touch a corpse as jesus did later was most certainly unclean in other words uncleanness was contagious you could catch it touching the wrong things but not so with jesus in his case it was the other way around everything that he touched or touched him becomes clean he touches a bleeding woman he doesn't become unclean she becomes healed he touches a corpse he doesn't become unclean she comes back to life things don't work normally then jesus touches when he touches there is one-way traffic from jesus to the things he touched people are healed people are brought back to life so if you are suffering today stricken with a disaster here's what i'd like you to do i want you to feel the touch of christ would you go up to someone you trust who cares for you and ask for a hug i trust you will respect pandemic preferences and maintain social propriety but at least ask for a pat on the back and as you go up to this friend share with them your disaster and let them pray for you i don't come from a hugging culture but over the years i've learned the value of touch as i grew as a christian as i learned about the skin as a dermatologist as i live life alone as a celibate our fellow believers are are our interface with christ they are the skin of christ we touch and so folks if someone comes up to you today and ask for a hug would you let them feel the touch of christ and as you give them the hug the pat or the high five they ask for i want you to tell them may you feel the touch of christ and pray with them about the disaster they have shared because you see the church you and i are the skin of christ incarnating the love of christ and it's through fellow believers that those stricken with disaster will feel the touch of christ so let's dispense the touch of christ to those suffering if you are one of those suffering jesus cares for you daughter son may you feel the touch of christ from your brothers and sisters let's pray our father for these powerful words and this amazing depiction of this unnamed anonymous woman who in mark's gospel says not even a word we give thanks we pray especially for those amongst us who are stricken with disaster may they put their complete and utter trust in you and your son jesus christ may they feel the warmth of the touch of christ through their brothers and sisters and may we give that touch to those in affliction we ask in jesus name amen you

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Length: 34min 39sec (2079 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 07 2021