Faith of our Fathers
Notes
Transcript
35 While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler’s house some who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?”
36 But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.”
37 And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John the brother of James.
38 They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.
39 And when he had entered, he said to them, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.”
40 And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was.
41 Taking her by the hand he said to her, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.”
42 And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement.
43 And he strictly charged them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.
Introduction
Big Main Idea: Our faith in Jesus must replace our fear of everything else.
Big Main Idea: Our faith in Jesus must replace our fear of everything else.
Question: Does fear hold back your faith?
Faith Appears in Hopelessness
Faith Appears in Hopelessness
I want us to take a step back and get back to where we are right now. This series of events begin back in verse 21.
21 And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him, and he was beside the sea.
22 Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet
23 and implored him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.”
24 And he went with him. And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him.
This ruler of the synagogue, Jairus, has a daughter that is extremely sick. So he goes to Jesus and asks Jesus to come and to heal her. And Jesus sets out with this man to his house so that he can heal his daughter.
But then, something happens. They get caught up in this large crowd that has surrounded Jesus. And now, it is slowing them down. But it eventually stops them in their tracks when a sick woman grabs the garment of Jesus. That was our sermon last week.
If you were not here for it, I will summarize that passage for us.
Jesus was on his way to the house of Jairus to heal his daughter. On the way, the crowd began to push into him. In the crowd, there was a woman who had a blood issue for 12 years. She believed that if she could only touch the clothes of Jesus, then she would be healed from this disease. So she did, and she was.
But the big take away from that passage in scripture was not that if we have enough faith, that Jesus would heal us. But was that our faith brings eternal healing for us spiritually.
So now, that leads us to the passage that we are in today. We pick up the story of Jairus and his sick daughter. And in these first few verses, we see that Faith does not trouble God.
35 While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler’s house some who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?”
Jesus is still talking to the woman who had been healed. And someone came from Jairus’s house to inform him that they were too late. She was dead.
But Jesus was not bothered by this. In fact, he spoke to Jairus and tells him not to be worried.
36 But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.”
This man had just been informed that his daughter was dead. 12 years old. And not only was she dead, but he was not able to be there in her last moments because he was out looking for Jesus to come and save her. As a father, I cannot imagine the emotions that he would have been feeling.
mourning her death
angry at Jesus
wishing he could have done more
angry at himself for leaving
These are all legitimate emotions that he would have been feeling. But we must not forget the faith that he had to go to Jesus in the first place. He knew what Jesus was capable of. So when Jesus tell him to not fear and to only believe, that should be enough to calm him. And we don’t have evidence in our passage that says otherwise of the father. The words of Jesus here take this man from fear to faith.
Let’s not forget the words of the person who came to inform him of her death though. It was not words of faith in Jesus, but it was words of fear. Fear of permanence. Fear of failure. Fear that Jesus truly could not heal her. The person that came said, “why trouble the TEACHER any further”. This was a subtle little jab at Jesus. Basically saying to him that Jesus was only a teacher. The girl had died and we shouldn’t worry about bringing Jesus anymore. What is he going to do, teach her back to life?
There are these two elements here. Fear and Faith. These two do not coexist. You either have fear and do not have faith or you have faith and do not fear. Our faith in Jesus, that he truly is God incarnate, that God is sovereign over all things, that God is not caught off guard by what happens to us, that God is going to sustain us as his beloved children, is what drives out fear. And Jesus looks this man dead in the eye, maybe he is snapping this man out of the emotions of the moment, and telling him, “Trust me”.
The difference between this person and Jairus was their view of Jesus. Jairus believed that Jesus was his daughters only hope while the other person believed that Jesus had a good message. The person said that if they continued with their pursuit of Jesus as the answer, that it would only have troubled Jesus more. But the opposite is true. Jesus is not troubled by us. In fact, he is so committed to us that he went to the cross to die for the sins of those who would put their faith and trust in him. That is the gospel.
Maybe you are here today and you feel like you have no hope. You feel that, just like this little girl, you are too far gone. That Jesus was a good teacher but there is no way for him to help you because you are dead. If you feel like this, you are in the right place today because there is hope. And hope is only found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. (Gospel presentation).
Just like we have been brought from death to a new life in Christ, this young girl is going to experience being brought from death to life.
37 And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John the brother of James.
There was seriousness to what is going on for this family. Jesus tells everyone to stay back except Peter, James, and John. And they head on their way.
I like to speculate what may be going on in the minds of the disciples in scripture oftentimes. I mean, they have seen so many things that Jesus had done. He had calmed storms, exorcized demons, healed crippled people, and make sick people well. These are all mighty and awesome displays of power. But, on the way to Jairus’s house, were they expecting him to bring this girl back to life?
What we do know, for those who have unbelief, death seems to be the end. But for those who have placed their faith in Jesus, there is faith in the midst of hopelessness.
Faith Protects our Hearts
Faith Protects our Hearts
38 They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.
The friends and family of Jairus were there. The young girl had passed away. It was tragic. They were mourning. Any death there is can bring mourning to those close to the person. I have lost all 4 of my grandparents, 3 of which I got to enjoy many of my adult years with. But these family and friends had just lost this young girl who was only 12 years old. I know that some of you here today have lost children even. I had went through the experience of losing a child due to miscarriage but this does not compare to a loss like they were experiencing. I did not get to change diapers, I did not get to wake up in the middle of the night to a screaming child, I did not get to drop them off at their first day of school. But some of you may have went through those things and then experienced losing your child.
You may hear me tell nice quippy stories sometimes to break the tension. But this is something very heavy and very real for us to think about.
I want to tell you the story of Magdalena Luther. She was the third child of Martin Luther (Lutheran Denomination). She had an older brother that was still living at the time of her birth but Martin and Katharina had already experienced tragedy by the time she was born because they had lost their first daughter a year earlier at only 7 months old. Magdalena survived infancy, something that seemed to be a feat in the 1500’s. She went through her childhood years and made it to 13 years old when she died of an illness, most likely the plague. She was a year older than this young girl in our passage today. As she was dying, someone accounted that, “Brokenhearted he knelt beside her bed and begged God to release her from the pain. When she had died and the carpenters were nailing the lid of her coffin, Luther screamed out, ‘Hammer away! On doomsday she’ll rise again’.”
Faith protects our hearts. Faith protected the heart of Martin Luther. Faith protects the heart of Jairus.
39 And when he had entered, he said to them, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.”
They were making a commotion because they believed that death was it. There is no hope in death. Their faith was not in Jesus because their fear was in death. Remember that faith and fear do not coexist. Could you imagine the reaction from these people when Jesus told them, “what is wrong with you all. She isn’t dead, she is only asleep”.
This is not some play on words that Jesus is doing here. See, there is a difference in going to sleep and dying. Jesus was not trying to make light of the situation or to comfort them in some weird way. He is telling them, “you have it wrong, she will wake up”. When someone goes to sleep, it will always result in them getting up. He is saying that she is going to wake up from this. At the same time is is subtly saying that there is going to be a resurrection.
Just like many other times in scripture, they take Jesus to be a fool. If you read back a couple of chapters, Jesus’ family had a similar reaction to some of the things that were going on. They thought he was crazy. Now, these mourners, who witnessed a young girl take what seemed to be her last breath, think that Jesus is off his rockers. They laugh at him.
40 And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was.
They laugh at him but he told them they needed to go outside. And now, there were only 6 people in the room with this girl who had died. Her father and mother, the 3 disciples, and Jesus. These 6 people, at some level, had faith that Jesus was the only way for this little girl to live again. The ones who questioned Jesus, they were out of the room now. They would not have the opportunity to witness what Jesus was about to do.
Any of the 5 people besides Jesus in that room could have easily been put outside with the rest. The difference that gave them access to what Jesus was going to do was faith. They could have been outside, hurt and mourning with the rest of the people. But their hearts were protected from this because of their faith.
Faith Leads to Resurrection (41-43)
Faith Leads to Resurrection (41-43)
Now, we come to the climax of our passage. Jesus and the girls parents and the disciples are in the room with this corpse. The girl was dead, she was lifeless, there was no breath in her lungs. She was a corpse.
41 Taking her by the hand he said to her, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.”
Jesus did not utter some sort of spell over this girl. This was not magic or witchcraft. This saying makes it clear that Jesus spoke plainly to this girl.
Dads with daughters in the room, I know that you understand what Jesus is saying here. Just imagine that you were in your nice recliner in the living room, watching your favorite program on the TV and it goes to commercial. Maybe you have been enjoyed a nice, cold glass of root beer. And you take the opportunity that the commercial gives you to go and fill it up. Well you come back in the living room, and low and behold, your daughter took the opportunity to be a comedian and climbed in the recliner. Your reaction would be, “Talitha cumi,” which means, get up little girl.
That is what Jesus is saying. Hey, little girl, get up. This was not some magic trick, this was real. There is a guy, who would be called a faith healer, by the name of Todd White. If you have never seen anything with him, he has a very outgoing personality that would be quite attractive to many people in public. He did a couple of documentaries where he would go out to people in the street. He would ask them if there was anything bothering them. There were a couple of them that would say that their leg or their arm was bothering them. So he would take either both legs or both arms and hold them out. It would always work out that one was longer than the other. He would begin this loud boisterous prayer and he would slowly start to move their arms or legs. He would push one and pull the other to where, over the next couple of minutes, they were even again. It was all parlor tricks that any of us could do to anyone else. This is not what Jesus was doing.
It was with the words of Jesus that this young girl came back to life.
42 And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement.
She got up and walked. Just moments before, they were looking at her lifeless corpse. And now, to their amazement, she was alive and walking.
We have two stories of twelve years in this chapter. One is of a woman who had this ailment for 12 years. The other of this little girl who had lived a good life for twelve years. Twelve years of death that resulted in life on the part of the woman who touched the garment of Jesus. Twelve years of life that resulted in death of this little girl, that is until Jesus touched her. And spoke the words, “get up little girl”.
There are some differences in these stories of healing. For the woman who had the blood disorder for twelve years, when she was healed, people would have to take her word for it. The crowd would not have known the full extent of her medical history. They were not going to make her prove in front of the crowd that she was healed. But for this young girl who was healed, it was a different story.
See, they were already having a funeral outside for this girl basically. But now, this was interrupted by this girl, who they thought was dead, walking around. This would have caused questions and confusion. But see, Jesus knew what he needed to say to them.
He did not tell the mourners that he was going to raise her from the dead. In fact, he told them that they were wrong, she was only sleeping. So, when she would have been seen walking around just moments later, he would have just said, “see, she is awake now”.
He did this because it was not yet time for him to display to the public his power over death. That day would come, just not yet. To the ones who did witness the miracle, he told them not to say anything/
43 And he strictly charged them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.
We can read this today on the other side of the resurrection. We can read this today, with hope in our own resurrection because of the resurrection of Jesus.
Conclusion
Just like this girl, each and every one of us were dead. Dead in our sins and trespasses.
What can a dead person do?