Sunday, January 22,
2017
In the sermons, we are in the midst of
seeking to see and know more of God. God
is like an ice berg; all we see of God is what is above the surface of the
water. There is immeasurably more of God
that is beyond our vision just as the iceberg is bigger beneath the surface.
So, we have set out on a quest. We’re on a journey into the unknown – the
depths of who God is. We are invited by
God to step onto this path. To step
toward God. God calls us to seek Him and
know Him.
This morning, our quest takes a different
turn. Last week with Job, we pondered
the vastness of God. However, lest we be
overwhelmed, we landed at a spot where we saw that God made each of us with
intention.
We are created
for relationship! We, humans, are
created with a specific purpose. We
exist to be in relationship with God.
There is more to be said about each of us as individuals. We have each our particular tastes and
talents, appetites and aptitudes. We
each have our own stories. But the link
that holds us together no matter who we are, where we are from, or what our
story has been is the ‘why.’ The primary
reason for your existence and for my existence is relationship with God. Everything in our lives eventually comes to
an end except that relationship. Our
eternity is lived out in terms of how we relate to God, either adopted by him
as we received his salvation in this life, or eternally apart from him as we
rejected him as Lord in this life.
Either way, our eternal existence is defined by our relationship or lack
thereof with the Almighty God.
This morning we will try to understand
this God that calls us into relationship.
There are many kinds of relationships and not all are good ones. In the movie Shawshank Redemption, when Andy Dufresne first arrives as an inmate
at Shawshank prison in the state of Maine, Warden Norton welcomes Dufresne and
the other new prisoners. The warden
says, “Your soul belongs to God; your butt belongs to me.” There is a relationship between the warden
and the prisoners. In that relationship,
the warden, through his guards, abuses the prisoners violently. The prisoners cower before the warden. The
warden gives commands. The prisoners
shine the warden’s shoes, clean his office, and do whatever else he
orders. The warden is so all-powerful
that even when evidence comes to light that would exonerate Andy Dufresne, the
warden steps in. Through murder and lies, he keeps an innocent man in prison so
that the innocent man will continue to live as his slave.
God, infinitely more powerful than
Warden Norton, could have that kind of relationship with us. I sometimes hear theologians insist that in
order for God to be God, God must be good.
That’s a fallacy. God could be
God and be cruel. We would have no power
to resist. What signs are there that the
relationship God created us for is a good thing – good for us? How do we know God is good? To get at this, over the next two weeks we
are going to look at Jesus, God in human flesh.
How he relates gives us an indication of the kind of relationship God
created us to be in. By looking at
Jesus, we will see how God relates to us.
The
account we’ll follow is found in Luke 8:40-56.
Luke 8:40-56
40 Now when
Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him, for they were all waiting for
him. 41 Just then there came a man named Jairus, a leader
of the synagogue. He fell at Jesus’ feet and begged him to come to his
house, 42 for he had an only daughter, about twelve years
old, who was dying.
As he went, the crowds
pressed in on him. 43 Now there
was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years; and
though she had spent all she had on physicians,[a] no
one could cure her. 44 She came
up behind him and touched the fringe of his clothes, and immediately her
hemorrhage stopped. 45 Then
Jesus asked, “Who touched me?” When all denied it, Peter[b] said,
“Master, the crowds surround you and press in on you.” 46 But Jesus
said, “Someone touched me; for I noticed that power had gone out from
me.” 47 When the woman saw that she could not remain
hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before him, she declared in the
presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been
immediately healed. 48 He said
to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”
49 While he
was still speaking, someone came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter
is dead; do not trouble the teacher any longer.” 50 When
Jesus heard this, he replied, “Do not fear. Only believe, and she will be
saved.” 51 When he came to the house, he did not allow
anyone to enter with him, except Peter, John, and James, and the child’s father
and mother. 52 They were all weeping and wailing for her; but
he said, “Do not weep; for she is not dead but sleeping.” 53 And they
laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. 54 But he
took her by the hand and called out, “Child, get up!” 55 Her
spirit returned, and she got up at once. Then he directed them to give her
something to eat. 56 Her parents were astounded;
but he ordered them to tell no one what had happened
Assume that Jairus was a very
important man within his community. At
this point in his telling of Jesus’ story, Luke has already shown us a
lot. Jesus had exalted the poor and
downtrodden while casting foreboding clouds of judgment over the horizon of the
rich and powerful. He has clarified for
John the Baptist that he – Jesus – is the one.
The evidence? “The blind receive
their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead
are raised, [and] the poor have good news brought to them” (7:22). Jesus’s next statement is “blessed are anyone
who takes no offense at me.” Then, Luke
proceeds to show how those in power, even with a little power, are offended
when Jesus raises up those who at the very bottom, the absolutely powerless.
This theme never leaves in Luke. Jesus is the one from God and on God’s
side. We know God by watching what Jesus
does and hearing how Jesus speaks. Consistently, Jesus is for the outsider, the
downtrodden, the weak and the defeated.
Jesus opposes the powerful. As a
guest of a Pharisee, he commends the street woman who comes in and washes his
feet with her tears and anoints his head with oil. In doing so, he shames the host who even with
his resources did not show such generosity.
He travels outside of Jewish territory to the
Garasene region where he and the disciples encounter a man who is crazed with
demonic possession. A 1000 demons have
wrecked this poor soul’s life. He is
relegated to a haunted existence, living naked and wild in a graveyard. Jesus approaches this man ritually clean Jews
shun and superstitious gentile fear.
Jesus casts out the demons and gives him new life. In the flow of these events Luke shows us how
Jesus redefines life. He tackles
prejudice and fear by replacing hatred and avoidance with compassion and
hope. The dead need not stay dead. Those in power don’t have real power – not
the power of God. Those on the outside
are loved by God too.
This all leads up to the return from the
country of Garasenes. No sooner does Jesus
get off the boat when the crowd welcomes him, the Pharisees fold their arms and
furrow their brows, and Jairus approaches.
He probably wasn’t a Pharisee or a Sadducee. Luke likely would have described him as such
if he were either of those. What Luke
does tell us is he was a synagogue leader.
Following Luke’s narrative, we know Jesus had frequent tension with
leaders.
Then the surprise. This leader falls to the ground before Jesus
and begs for a miracle. He wants his
dying daughter to be healed and believes Jesus is his only hope. Jesus says nothing. In fact, Luke doesn’t even say much, only the
phrase “as he went.”
As Jesus and his entourage of disciples
follows this distraught man rendered powerless by disease, the gawking crowd
presses in. There was paparazzi before
the invention of the camera.
A desperate woman presses into the crowd. No one sees her because everyone is thrilled
Jesus is here. Everyone is driven to get
a glimpse, maybe a touch. In this case
desperation is more powerful than drive. The woman worms her way through the
crowd and steals a touch, a handful of the fringe of Jesus’ robe.
For her sake, it is good that the crowd
provides anonymity because she’s not really supposed to be in the crowd at
all. She has a blood flow that has not
stopped for 12 years. When it began, she
may have been a woman of means. Luke
says she spent all she had on physicians but none could cure her (v.43). She had money, but it was all gone. So now, she is a bleeding woman, thus
ritually unclean. She is a social
outcast. And she is poor. It’s a miracle she had lasted 12 years. Somehow she’s managed to avoid starvation,
but she’s been reduced to a Hell of an existence. Hated by society, friendless, dirt poor, and
in unending discomfort – that’s Hell. And
she wants to get out of Hell. So, she sneaks
through the crowd and grabs Jesus’ robe. Instantly, the blood stops. She knows it.
She is healed.
Jesus stops in his tracks! “Who touched
me?”
Peter is flabbergasted. “Who touched you? People haven’t stopped touching you since we
stepped off the boat. You couldn’t even
get two steps onto the shore. Back you
leeches! Who touched you? Everyone is touching you! Back!”
“Peter, chill.
This is different. I felt power
go out of me.”
Now, all the while, remember a couple of
things. Jairus, a very important man
whose desperation reduced him to begging is standing there waiting. The crowds have been clawing at Jesus. In the midst of that, Jesus stops for someone
who needs him but is also afraid.
Jesus tells Peter with the ravenous crowd
listening in, “I felt the power go out of me.” It’s like when you’re listening
to a speaker and the speaker into the crowd and says, “You.” You think the speaker is just addressing the
entire crowd, but then he steps toward and you realize, no, he’s talking to me
specifically. You want to turn
invisible. The reason you’re in the
crowd is you don’t want to be on the stage.
You want to stay among the faces.
It’s exposing when that speaker singles you out. There’s nowhere to hide.
The woman comes trembling before Jesus and
explains the whole thing, including her healing. He looks at this rejected, broken, poor,
healed woman and says, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace”
(8:48). Yes, he healed her, but he also
redefined her. She was untouchable. Now, she is daughter – daughter of God. She was alone. She is now in a family – the eternal
family. Her life was misery. He sends her on in peace. And when Jesus says, “Go in peace,” it is more
than just a nicety. He defines her
future. She is one with God and is
blessed.
The God who strode with a very important man
on the way to heal that man’s daughter as a throng pushed in on him stopped for
a woman no one else cared about. That
God made it clear that in that moment, nothing was more important to him than
meeting her need, healing her hurt, restoring her humanity, and elevating her
life so that she left the encounter knowing she was God’s precious child. That is what Jesus shows us about God.
Luke drives this home a few chapters late when
in 15 he compares the Father to a shepherd who leaves 99 sheep in safety to
venture into the perilous wastelands to find the one lost sheep. That God that seeks to save the lost is
seeking you. That God that stops in the
midst of an important mission in order to help one forgotten and to declare her
a daughter of God knows your pain. That
God sees you and stops for you, whatever you might be struggling with
today.
Some I talked with this week recommended that
I add in a bit about the importance of the fact that the woman risked
everything to force her way into the crowd in order to touch Jesus. What she did is commendable and on blog this
past week, I posted a couple of messages I had given in years ago about that
woman who made her way to Jesus. But
this morning, our focus is on God. We’re
doing what she did. We’re forcing our way,
reaching, trying to touch God’s robe that he might bless us.
Do we want to see more of God and know God
more deeply? Know this. The God we seek sees us – sees you. The God we long for loves us, stops for us,
and declares us, in our brokenness healed.
And in our healing he looks and calls us “Daughter; son.” He sends us with his peace. That’s God.
Of course there is more, but that is enough for today.
But what about that important man, the
synagogue leader? He’s numb,
panic-stricken, desperate, hoping against hope that Jesus can heal his little
girl. He’s just standing there waiting
while Jesus stops. What about him? We’ll get to him next week.
AMEN
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