Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
As they get older, some people sometimes make the somewhat humorous observation that, instead of talking so much about their engaging work and growing families, they talk more about their own declining health and medical appointments. Of course, no one’s long-term suffering from a debilitating disease or dying at any age is funny in and of itself, though aspects of others’ or our own experiences can be amusing. In today’s Gospel Reading’s report of Jesus’s saving two women, that the Divinely-inspired St. Mark says that the one had suffered much under many physicians, spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse may be “funny” only because someone we know or we ourselves might have said or could say virtually the same things today, thanks to such things as the frequent lack of coordination in care, astronomical medical bills, and the ineffectiveness and side-effects of even modern drugs and treatments.
To be sure, today’s Gospel Reading, with its two historically interwoven similar yet also dissimilar accounts, one of Jesus’s bringing back to life Jairus’s twelve-year-old daughter and the other of Jesus’s healing the woman who had a bleeding disorder for twelve years—the Gospel Reading is not meant to be funny but to give us a glimpse of the difference that Jesus makes in people’s lives, including our own lives, ultimately for eternity. The mourners at Jairus’s house may have laughed at Jesus scornfully when He described the twelve-year-old girl as “not dead but sleeping”, but, as easily as one person might wake another person from a nap, so easily Jesus woke her from death, and so Jesus will do the same for us on the Last Day.
Perhaps the reason why she was afraid to be discovered, the woman with the discharge of blood was ceremonially unclean, and yet Jesus permitted her to touch His garment; He permitted His power to go out from Him; and He permitted her to be healed of her disease. Jairus’s daughter, once she was past the point of death, also was ceremonially unclean, and yet Jesus Himself took her by the hand and commanded her to arise. Their ceremonial uncleanness, whether from disease or death, and their sinfulness, which in general caused their disease and death, were not problems for Jesus. But, their sinfulness and diseases and death were problems for them, just as our sinfulness, and our diseases and death that our sinfulness in general causes, are problems for us. Our sinful nature causes us to commit countless and sometimes unspeakable sins: our thinking, saying, and doing things that we should not think, say, and do, and our failing to think, say, and do things that we should think, say, and do. For any one of such sins, we deserve both temporal death and eternal punishment.
The woman with the discharge of blood sought out Jesus for herself, believing that even through her touching His garments He could make her well, at least for then, if not also for eternity. Despite his position as a ruler of a synagogue, Jarius sought out Jesus for his daughter, believing, despite the fact that she had died, that Jesus could make her well, at least for then, if not also for eternity. Likewise also we, enabled by God, seek out Jesus for ourselves, believing that Jesus can make us well, if not now, certainly for eternity. Like the woman’s and Jairus’s faith, our faith in this life is at times still mixed with fear, but, by God’s grace, He gives and uses our faith in order to forgive us. So, we both turn in sorrow from our sin and trust God to forgive our sin for Jesus’s sake. In the Hymn of the Day (Lutheran Service Book 755), we put it this way:
In the very midst of life / Snares of death surround us; …
We mourn that we have greatly erred, / That our sins Thy wrath have stirred. …
Thy precious blood was shed to win / Full atonement for our sin. …
Lord, preserve and keep us / In the peace that faith can give. / Have mercy, O Lord!
And, the Lord hears our plea and does have mercy! Even in the midst of the horrors of the people of Israel’s exile in Babylon, the prophet Jeremiah in today’s Old Testament Reading was inspired to say that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, that His mercies never come to an end but are new every morning, so great is His faithfulness (Lamentations 3:22‑33; confer Schmitt, CPR 28:3, p.28)! God loved the world by sending His Son to share our mortal life and to end the reign of death (LSB 552:1). God in human flesh, Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the whole world, including your sins and mine; there on the cross He conquered sin, disease, and death for us. When Divine power flowed through His human nature, both to heal the woman with the discharge of blood and to bring back to life Jairus’s daughter, Jesus not only showed Himself to be God in human flesh, but He also showed the victory over sin, disease, and death that is everyone’s who believe in Him. When we repent of our sin and believe in Him, then God forgives us our countless and even unspeakable sins; God forgives all our sin, whatever our sins might be. Obscured by the English Standard Version of the Gospel Reading that was read, is the “salvation” that Jairus asked for, that the woman with the discharge of blood silently prayed for, and that Jesus told her that she had received by faith. We also are saved through faith, and we receive that salvation in the same ways that that faith is created, by God’s working through His Word and Sacraments.
The woman with the discharge of blood had heard about Jesus, perhaps heard even that all who had diseases had pressed around Jesus to touch Him (Mark 3:10; Voelz, ad loc Mark 5:28, p.364), and surely Jairus also had heard about Jesus, so that Jairus came and saw Jesus, once Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. We also hear about Jesus and come to Him, and He powerfully touches us: saving us through the water of Holy Baptism (1 Peter 3:21; Titus 3:5-6), dismissing us in peace by our pastor’s hand in Holy Absolution, and giving us His Body to eat with bread and His Blood to drink with wine in Holy Communion.
Like the two daughters in the Gospel Reading, we go from being unclean and cut off to being forgiven and included in the family of the Church. Like Jairus and the woman who had the discharge of blood, we fall down before our Lord, worshipping Him by confessing our sin and receiving His forgiveness. Like the Corinthians in today’s Epistle Reading, we excel not only in faith but also in giving of what God has entrusted to us for the work of His Church (2 Corinthians 8:1-9, 13-15). Hearing God through Jeremiah in the Old Testament Reading, we know that God does not take joy in sending or permitting our afflictions but uses our afflictions to discipline us and through them shows us compassion. When we pray for relief from our afflictions, we are not troubling our Lord, as those from Jairus’s house thought he was doing, for the Lord both commands us to pray and promises to hear and answer our prayers at the times and in the ways that He knows to be best. We may pray for physical healing and even pray for deliverance from death, but we recognize that even the healed daughters of the Gospel Reading died again and that they with us are looking forward to the most important healing that the forgiveness of sins brings, namely, the healing of the resurrection and glorification of the body on the Last Day.
No, the Gospel Reading’s dramatic narrative of the two women’s salvation is not meant to be funny but to give us a glimpse of the difference that Jesus makes in people’s lives, including our own lives, ultimately for eternity. The narrative of God’s powerfully touching and saving us through His Word such as the Gospel Reading is no less dramatic than their narrative. And, nevertheless, in the end, in the words of the Old Testament, their and our mouths are filled with laughter and their and our lips and tongues are filled with shouts of joy (Job 8:32; Psalm 126:2).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +