Trinity 24 2024

This morning we are reflecting on Jesus as a person setting the curse of Adam and Eve in reverse.

What happens in Eden gains a curse. The Law that God gave to Moses 1500 years before Jesus was the way God’s people could live with minimal effect from the curse. But the law was a guard rail not a solution

The Law taught us the character of God in as far as it let us know what things made us unable to be in God’s presense. The Gospel, which has in it the arrival of Jesus Christ, actually does what the law does not do…it transformers. It does not draw a boundary around the curses of Deuteronomy, it reverses them.

What we see in Jesus this morning, mainly the spread of God’s Holyness is not only important, helping us see how Jesus operates, it is a ministry we continue as people who are now in his image.

So our text…

So the text starts with the wrapping up of something before it…Jesus is wrapping up a teaching.

He is actually wrapping a teaching about the fasting of the Law and how the Gospel will be a new wince skin

A leader comes to Jesus (going to be a social problem here). The daughter is dead. Remember that death is a result of the curses of Eden. And Jesus is going to show a new wine skin.

The woman touches Jesus (How ritual purity works in Lev. This is the exact opposite

The feminism of the Bible…

How in Matthews Gospel the girl starts out dead, no rush, but other gospels…

Jesus will not be rushed, God’s timing will not be thwarted

The paid lament.

Other accounts he takes 3 Disciples and the parents.

He touches death…will it happen twice in a row? It does the curse that has these rules for ritual purity and brings with it death is reverse

New Wine skins

Jesus is removing the curse, he is doing a new thing. And we are his messengers, we are his practitioners. St. Teresa of Calcutta saw this in Jesus. And so she went to the homeless of India who were dying and did what no one else would do. She reached out and touched them. She would bring them into spaces where they could die with dignity, as opposed to expiring on the streets, an untouchable think to be voided.

We are expected to also be the new wineskins that bring Gospel life to places where it was absent. There are certain untouchables among us that need the healing of Jesus.

Not bragging about the nursing home…it is a clear view.

But we also have social untouchables. Addicts, criminals, the differently able.

The Gospel is a new wine skin for these image-bearers among us.

If you need inspiration remember that you were once an untouchable. Before the waters of baptism brought on you the Holy Spirit, or the Holy Spirit came and reinvigorated you, you were the Old Wineskin, not able to come into the presence of the Holy God. You were like death, awaiting an eternity of death. You did not touch God’s cloak, but he put his Spirit in the water and when that touched you the curse was reversed in your body. And now that you are a vessel of God’s holiness touching the untouchable spaces of our land, you like Jesus are reversing the curse. And you may now be In God’s presence to eat the food that leads to eternal life.

Know this came a tremendous cost. Your separation from God means that you are the object of the curse for eternity, and eternity cursed is hell. But Christ became the curse and suffered all outfits effects, and in th economy of blessings and curses he place in these new wine skins the blessings of Deut. so that like the woman with the bleed we are no longer unclean. Like the little girl we are no longer dead. Come to the table eat the food that is medicine to your souls. The cost has been taken by Christ, its effects are everlasting life.