Preached on Sunday, October 25, 2015
Scripture readings: Hebrews 11:1-7, 29-40; Mark 5:21-43
I have been wanting us to learn to tell the good news
in a new way. “Gospel” is a famous Bible word and Christian word, and it is so famous
that we take it for granted and forget what it means. Gospel means good news.
I have wanted us to learn to tell the good news of
Jesus, not just from the old stories of the Bible, but in the story of our
lives. I want us to learn to help others understand the Lordship of Jesus, and
the cross, and the resurrection from the way in which that Lordship, and that
cross, and that resurrection take shape in our lives now. How does all of that
make us new people now?
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| Near Desert Aire/Mattawa WA: September & October 2015 |
Another part of the good news is the way we receive
it; the way it comes into our lives. The good news comes by means of grace,
repentance, and faith.
The good news is one single story as big as heaven
and earth; but even in such a big story, everything works together as one.
Grace, repentance, and faith are not separate things, but interlocking pieces
of the story.
Grace means that we receive the good news as a gift.
It comes to us as a new life that we have not earned.
Repentance comes from grace. Repentance is a life
lived in a new direction; and that new direction is possible only because of
God’s grace. In Jesus, God has given us a new heart and mind that can live in
that new direction. Our new heart and our new mind can lead us in that new
direction because Jesus lives in them. It is their nature to carry us that new
direction.
Today we come to faith. Faith is another great word
that we take for granted or misunderstand. The great catchphrase, in the New
Testament, is “repent and believe.” Jesus put the two words right, tight
together. He said, “The kingdom
of God
Jesus was there, telling everyone who would listen to
him that God was taking charge of the world in a new way. It was Jesus,
himself, who was making this happen. Jesus was the king of the kingdom; and he
was there where they could see him, and they could hear his voice.
When Jesus confronts you, when Jesus speaks to you;
that is when wonderful things can happen (life-changing things). Grace is
there. The beginning of a new heart and mind are there.
Life in a new direction is there: grace and
repentance. What else could you want? Repent and believe. You want faith. You
need faith.
I think, from the example of Jesus, that it’s pretty
clear what faith needs to be. When Jesus confronts you in order to take charge,
and when Jesus calls you to something, faith means sticking to Jesus and
following through.
Faith and believing have other parts to them, but the
English language is not very good at helping us understand faith and believing.
Faith and believing include the fact that, when you have faith and believe, you
know something to be true. But the truth is that you can know a lot of things
that don’t make a difference in your life.
Faith and believing mean consenting to what you know.
You are not against the kingdom
of God
A deeper word for faith and believing is trust. Trust
takes you further. Any trust that is worthy of the name requires you to take a
real stand. When you believe and trust that someone or something is right, then
you stand up for them. And you stand up against those who don’t.
In the gospel story, in Mark, the president of the
synagogue (his name was Jairus) decided to trust Jesus, even though a lot of
his colleagues hated Jesus. A lot of his colleagues saw Jesus as dangerous.
Mark doesn’t give us a picture of the mind of Jairus
about Jesus. No one really knew who Jesus was, or what he was about, except
that Jesus claimed to represent what the kingdom of God
Jairus bowed at Jesus’ feet. He took sides. Jesus
could claim the faith of Jairus, and tell him not to fear, even when the heart
of Jairus’ desire seemed to be lost. Jairus, when all of his motivation for
seeking Jesus seemed crushed, stuck to Jesus.
This is faith. This is what it means to believe. You
cannot live in a new direction without the grace of a new heart and mind. You
cannot live in a new direction without faith.
But see the truth here. Faith is not an item that is
in you. Faith is not one of your working spiritual parts. Faith is a living connection
with Jesus and with everything that Jesus stands for.
Jairus’ family was going to carry a dark mark on them
for the rest of their lives, because they would always be a sign of the truth
of Jesus as the king of the kingdom
of God
The woman who tried to hide in the crowd also had to
stick to Jesus. She tried to be healed by simply touching the hem of his
clothing, but Jesus wouldn’t let her get away with that. She had to come out
into the open. She had to face her fear of her neighbors. She had to tell everything.
The woman who tried to hide in the crowd had a
chronic hemorrhage. She had an unstoppable flow of blood. This made her what
her people called “unclean”.
Blood was considered holy when it was part of the
sacrifice of an animal on the altar in the Temple
But, out of context, blood was too holy and it made
you unclean. People who touched blood (especially when it was the blood of
other people) were not supposed to touch other people. If someone who was
bleeding touched you, then you were unclean and you had to isolate yourself,
and wash, and bathe, and wait. It was complicated.
The woman who came to Jesus made half the town
unclean that day. When she told Jesus everything, everyone knew this. Everyone
was mad at her. They were mad at the inconvenience she had caused them. It was
rude, insensitive, and inconsiderate. They would hold it against her.
The language of the Gospel of Mark tells us (in the
Greek) that, when the woman touched Jesus, she was cured. When she came out
into the open and told Jesus everything, then (in the language of the Gospel),
Jesus declared that she was healed. There was a difference between being cured
and being healed.
In fact, in the story of the bloody woman and the dying girl, both of them were more
than cured and revived. They were given something that was saving. It was more
than being saved from long sickness. It was more than being saved from death.
The kingdom of God
Jairus and his family, and the woman and whatever
family she had, received something because they had stuck to Jesus through
their risk-taking and through their facing of their fears.
Faith isn’t something that gets you what you want;
because the father wanted his daughter not to die, and the bleeding woman
wanted to be healed without getting caught. Jesus had something else in mind
for them, and for us. Jesus wants us to have a new heart and a new mind that
will stick with him in spite of shame, and anger, and reproach, and fear, and
danger, and despair.
Sticking to Jesus was never easy, and it isn’t easy
now. The disciples who followed Jesus on the road (as the big twelve) were
always aware of the danger from the authorities. And they were mobbed by the
crowds. And they were swamped in the storm. And they were given seemingly
impossible tasks by Jesus.
After Jesus died on the cross, and rose from the
dead, and ascended into heaven, the people of Jesus could only live out the kingdom of God
The Letter to the Hebrews and all the other writings
of the New Testament tell us the same message. What the new life and the new
heart need are to stick to Jesus.
Our reading from Hebrews says, “Now faith is being
sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1, New
International Version) I believe the King James Version is better. “Now faith
is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Sureness and certainty are things that we feel.
Substance and evidence are things that are objective. They exist, whether we
feel them or not. Faith is not a feeling. Faith is sticking to what Jesus has
given you for substance and evidence, in spite of its mysterious invisibility.
The reference to the creation tells us that what God
gives us in Jesus has substance and reality. It tells us that our new life in
Jesus has the same reality as the world we live in, even though our new life
comes to us every day from God’s invisible work. God continues to make you his
new creation.
The hope that your faith holds onto is the coming of
the kingdom of God
The world around us may not see the power of the
cross and the resurrection of Jesus. The world may not see how the cross and
the resurrection will bring a new heaven and a new earth. But you are different.
You know this without seeing it. The substance of that future lives in you now.
God first began to call me to the ministry when I was
twelve. The Holy Spirit spoke through the stories we were studying in Sunday
school. In those stories God called people like Moses and Jeremiah to serve him
and they had objections to being called. They had good reasons for why they
should not be called. They tried to worm out of it.
I prayed that God would help me understand what he
wanted me to do in such a way that I would be certain of it. I thought that if
I was certain that I not try to worm out of it.
God answered my prayer for certainty, but I tried to
worm out of it anyway. God gave me a vision. I saw a storm and darkness coming
over the world. I saw people in fear, and anger, and confusion, and doubt, and
despair. I was told to speak to them for God.
What I saw was very difficult and terrifying, and I
haven’t forgotten it. But I stick to Jesus, even when it is difficult and
terrifying. I finally surrendered to that when I was nineteen. But I couldn’t
do anything else. And, from then on, my life changed. The people who knew me
best knew that something had changed in me.
In that vision there was light beyond the storm, and
there was the voice of God speaking. In you (in your new heart and your new
mind) God has planted the substance of your hope: the evidence of things not
seen. There ahead of you, hope is able to grasp what no one else can see. Your
hope is able to grasp and stick to the kingdom that is ruled by the cross of
Jesus and by his resurrection.
Think about how that part of the gospel story became
part of your story. Think how Jairus and the bloody woman had to come out to
Jesus and take that risk. Think of the fear and the despair that went through
them. Think of how your own life has changed by sticking to Jesus through it
all.
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