Altared: Life and Death

Introduction

Altared life: everyday ordinary, walking around, going to work, life and give it to God.

Today we close this series with Jesus miracles with two individuals from the book of Matthew. Jesus heals the bleeding woman and then Jesus raises a young girl from the dead.

Matthew 9:18–26 NIV

While he was saying this, a synagogue leader came and knelt before him and said, “My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live.” Jesus got up and went with him, and so did his disciples. Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.” Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment. When Jesus entered the synagogue leader’s house and saw the noisy crowd and people playing pipes, he said, “Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him. After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up. News of this spread through all that region.

Matthew 9:

Pray.

Funeral recently.

Our text today is also one that is probably familiar to many. Though familiar this is an opportunity to not become apathetic to something we have read many times and lean into it once more. What a scene we have, opening with a ruler, he is named in the other synotptic gospels as Jairus, comes and finds Jesus in desperation as his daughter is dead. He says , “come and put your hand on her, and she will live.”

On the way to this young girl who has passed a way, another woman who is still alive but by many accounts is dead to the world. What I mean is her bleeding would have her ostracized and forgotten. If she had been married, she would have been left when she couldnt provide a child for husband. Unable to worship in the Temple because her ailment would make her ritually unclean. As a matter of fact if anyone touched her at all....like if you touched the hem of her jacket, you were ritually unclean for a time period.

Aunt Patsy...

So life would have been so tough for her. In desperation she finds a way to Jesus. Desperation and some weird magical hope that to touch his cloak, just maybe it would help. She touches and he stops and turns and sees her. Proclaims healing. With a word heals the woman.

And then just like that Jesus is back to the leader’s house. As he approaches there is a noisy crowd. People playing pipes, or flutes and wailing. This is probably a funeral custom of the time.

The Mishnah lays it down that “Even the poorest in Israel should hire not less than two flutes and one wailing woman” (Ketub. 4:4); for the daughter of a ruler there would be much more than that. Matthew is referring to professional mourners who were on the job very promptly (cf. ). But relatives and friends would join in with their loud wailing (the noisy crowd).

 Morris, L. (1992). The Gospel according to Matthew (p. 231). Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press.

So when Jesus shows up and tells the professional mourners, she is not dead…it is like telling the funeral director that who he has had in a casket for a couple days still has life to live. They laugh at him.

Jesus’ ridicule is our promise

Let me just pause here for a second. The altared life is one that looks different than the others. If I take a car and alter the engine, it will run differently than the ones that have not been altared.

So in our stories in this whole series:

Zac the tax collector, “Why is he eating with sinners?!”

Bartimaues: the disciples rebuke him for yelling at Jesus, we got places to be!

Nic has to come at night for fear of what his colleagues would say

There is laughter, not just judgement but laughter when Jesus says he can heal this girl.

Stop trying so hard to fit in. We are weird, we believe in a God that is not subject to our “conventional wisdom.” Conventional wisdom says that Zacchaeus is too far gone, that the bleeding woman is beyond the church’s help, that the ruler’s daughter is too dead. Conventional wisdom says that your marriage is over, or your addiction has you forever, or that relationship can never be repaired. The altared life is anything but conventional when we worship a God who is creator, who is life.

So back to our story, Jesus kicks everyone out and goes into the room. He grabbed death in his hand and he brought her life. She got up. Hallelujah!

Tranferring life

There are many themes in this passage and section of Matthew. There is a theme of desperate faith that leads to God-break-thrus. The faith of the woman and the ruler are not perfect, but it is enough.

The theme I want to talk about for our time and where we go from here is this theme of death. There is something so taboo for Jewish culture going on here. I have hinted at it already but what Jesus is doing by touching and being touched by these individuals is crazy. It would have all of the religious peeps uncomfortable and maybe even insulted.

This thread I am about to give you has a great video on Bible Project on “Holiness.”

You see very early on God was trying to teach his people about His Holiness. About how powerful it can be. For example, Moses is in the wilderness and he sees a great fire, he decides to inspect....

Exodus 3:4–6 NIV

When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

A great analogy of the holiness of God, is the sun. You do not have to be on the sun to get cooked, right, summer in houston in august. If you are even close to the sun you are done. The glory, the holiness of God cannot be approached. His holiness is such, that to be in his presence and impure is a no-no!

Later in the history of Israel God dwells with his people in the Tabernacle. The holy of hollies as it is called is the smallest part of the temple that only the high priest could go in. that is a hotspot for God’s presence. And the high priest must be ritually and morally pure to go before the ark in the holy of hollies. In the Bible there are two focuses for the Israelites to understand and submit to, one is ritual purity and moral purity.

And they are to be ritually pure: which the Bible talks about a lot as well. This is a state where you separate yourself from anything related to death. diseased skin, dead bodies, blood, etc. Becoming ritually impure was not sinful, what was wrong was to come before God in a state of impurity.

Isaiah finds life

Isaiah, the prophet, finds himself in the throne room, in the holy of hollies in this bodily vision that takes place. He sees the creatures singing to the Lord and God is sitting on the throne of the arc of the covenant. He immediately thinks he is going to die.

Isaiah 6:5 NIV

“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

Then something remarkable happens. Rather than the holiness of God, destroying Isaiah because of his impurity. The holiness of God comes forward and touches him.

Isaiah 6:6

Isaiah 6:6–7 NIV

Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

Normally if you touch something impure, it transfers its impurity to you, but now here is this new idea, this holy coal touches Isaiah and transfers life to him.

Jesus is the coal

Jesus, God in the flesh, is the one who has come to take away the sins of the world. Think about it. , In the beginning was the word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God....

John 1:14 NIV

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Tabernacled with us. Jesus becomes the Temple. the presence of God here. Holiness made manifest. And then he walks around touching death and transferring life.

So when the bleeding woman touches his cloak, it is this ritual impurity taking place. Going into the house where a dead body is, taking death into his hands literally would be something that was so wrong....but it is the declaration that he is the Temple. That he is the coal, that he is the holiness of God and He has come to bring life.

Listen, it does not matter how you came in here today. Jesus the giver of life desires to transfer life to you. If you have been overwhelmed by your imperfections, shortcomings, etc. He sees you. I love that we have a savior that is not overwhelmed with the death in our lives and hearts.

Altared lives

Now, what does this have to do with altared lives? Friends, not only is it Jesus that brings this life into the world. He sends us to do it as well. Jesus models it then sends the disciples. He heals these two, then a blind and a mute person, then he says you go out and do the same. Look at it...

Matthew 9:

Matthew 9:37 NIV

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.

Matthew 10:1 NIV

Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.

Here is the thing, altared lives go towards death, not away from it. For those that have been so altared by Christ they face death around them. And listen not because of your own confidence in yourself but in the one who has given you authority.

This should critique your comfort zone. Our inability to do what is uncomfortable. Our constant persistence on staying safe.

Dr. Kim in Asbury.

There is death all around us. It looks like depression, it looks like addiction, and we are to proclaim life.