Sermon Tone Analysis

Irritate by interruptions… only to realize that my offense was the same as their impulse to interrupt… I’m more important… I want to be heard… When I realized that, I took it to the Lord and you know what… I still get irritated when people interrupt or talk over others… but what I have found is that He helps me to listen harder when I notice the interruption.

We find ourselves in

Ch 8: Three stories showing the authority of Jesus…

Power over nature in calming the storm.

Power over spiritual realm in casting out demons.

Power over life and death in healing and raising.

This comes at after a longer look at the significance of faith, where it is and where it’s not.

But these were just part of Luke showing us what faith looks like.

When it comes to faith, so far we have seen...

A Faithful Reminder:

Luke 4:14-30 = It wasn’t in Galilee

Faith is more than a church experience.

Luke 5:17-26 = the 4 friends had it

Faith is more than a matter of belief.

Luke 7:1-10 = The Centurion had it,

Luke 7:36-50 = the prostitute had it,

Luke 8:1-21 = the good soil had it.

Faith is an action, or it isn’t.

Luke 8:22-25 = In the boat the disciples lost it, but

Luke 8:26-39 = the wild man in the tombs had it

Faith is the key to freedom and forgiveness.

That brings us to today’s two stories of healing.

Just left the Garesines… where only a wild man met them but the whole town ran them off… and here a large crowd gathers to receive him… but everyone isn’t the same

The synagogue where Jesus had healed the man already… Jairus knew the power Jesus had.

This wasn’t a time to worry about how others would think… this was about how he could save his daughter.

Coincidence that this lady’s problem is as old as the little girl?

I don’t.

These stories are connected… they are telling one story.

But the difference was that while Jairus came right up.. this lady tries to play it cool to not draw attention to herself.

Just to touch the tassels Jesus wore… Jewish men would wear them as a reminder of the law… around their neck, on their shoulders...

But that doesn’t work.

On their way and Jesus is interrupted… at least that’s how Jairus saw it… he wanted lights and sirens, not let’s stop and chat.

But Jesus did things his own way.

You think Jesus knew who touched him?

I do.

So what is Jesus doing here?

Luke points us towards it.

Mark’s gospel tells us that this lady had spent all she had with doctors and potion mixers to find healing… nothing worked.

She had resolved to living in the shadows… hoping that people wouldn’t know she was sick, not drawing attention to herself.

I’m not well educated on gynecological issues, but apparently this was a hemorrhage that couldn't be healed.

According to Jewish law, she was unclean because of her illness.

Anyone she touched or who touched her was made unclean.

12 years she had been in isolation… an untouchable.

Now healed… let’s come back to this.

But we don’t get to celebrate with her because someone else interrupts the moment.

You can imagine Jairus… overcome with grief - wishing they had been there a few minutes earlier.

Jesus’s words to not be afraid are hollow encouragement against this news.

It’s not that he doesn’t believe Jesus, it’s just that the news of his daughters death is too much.

We’ve all been there right.

When the bad news seems to override our faith in Jesus.

It’s not that we doubt, but just fail to have believe in the moment.

We are overwhelmed.

Jesus didn’t let him get stuck in the moment of hopelessness though, they continued.

Now it’s said that these may have been paid mourners.

That was a thing back then, especially upon the death of influential people as Jairus’s family.

Think what you want, but Jesus had work to do.

This is a story of true healing.

True Healing

Real healing… but not Truely healed… but not permanent.... not thorough.

What do I mean?

I mean that where this woman had suffered for 12 years she was now healed of this disease.

Where this little girls was dead, she was not alive… yet both of them would one day die.

this was a healing of their immediate crisis, but it wasn’t thorough… but not permanent.

Hiding a secret… secret of unclean… 12 years of a condition that no one had to know.. but she knew… she was burdened… no one knows… it’s not really a problem unless people know...

Other Gospels record that she had spent all she had and suffered all she could on doctors to find healing.... had tried everything else… might as well try Jesus… not because she had a remarkable faith… but enough to go to Jesus.

We see it in her desperation for something she could find no where else

Then there’s Jairus and his daughter… we know very little about her, but Jairus we know a little.

He too had been hiding something - his faith in Jesus.

Maybe we could say he was living with a casual faith in Jesus.

Secret of casual faith in Jesus - Jairus had seen Jesus heal before… the spirit declared Jesus as the Holy One of God right in the synagogue he taught in every week.

He had seen it with his own eyes, heard it with his own ears, he was amazed, but his amazement had never become the sort of faith that drove him… until his daughter was ill.

He knew Jesus could heal, but until this moment, he hadn’t been able to make the break with his life as synagogue leader.

What would the pharisee’s say?

What would the other leaders say about him following Jesus?

What would his members think when they saw him go to Jesus?

Would anyone listen to anything he had to say after this?

None of those questions mattered now that his daughter was sick.

There was only one person to go to and in that moment, he and the woman found more than they were looking for.

They were looking for real healing and what they found was a true healer.

The same person who came upon a Samaritan woman at a well one day.

John chapter 4 tells a story of a woman who was an outcast in her community, yet what she found in Jesus was acceptance and forgiveness.

Jesus didn’t pretend there wasn’t a problem, he walked right in.

But what he didn’t bring was judgement… at least not the way we tend to judge one another.

That’s what is so special about today’s text.

The people were facing circumstances that brought everything they thought they had hidden right out into the open.

One her condition that made her unclean… another his secret faith.

They feared judgement, but what hey found was grace and healing.

This made an impression on Jesus’s disciples, especially those who went into the room with Jesus and the little girl’s parents.

John would later write:

This is the source of true healing.

Letting our weaknesses become known to God… not because he doesn’t know already, but it’s a matter of surrendering where we miss the mark to him.

That’s what sin is really, it’s the places we fail to measure up.

It’s the places we start out with excitement only to fade out.

But when we stop pretending, stop hiding, stop keeping the truth a secret… that’s really not a secret anyway… there we find freedom, and true healing.

But, but, how can I do that?

How can I just admit I have problems?

No one wants to hear my problems.

You are probably right there - except God.. he wants us to bring our problems to him, our struggles to him.

Where did we ever get the idea that followers of Jesus are perfect people.

Probably where in the Bible it calls us to be holy.