B, Pentecost 5 Proper 8 – Mark 5:21-43 Steadfast Touch

Download WORD doc here
Download or Listen to MP3 Audio here

At the Capernaum Synagogue Jesus heals a person from an unclean spirit. He heals Simon's mother in law. A leper is cleansed and a paralytic is healed after being let down through the roof on a mat. On the Sabbath a withered hand is restores back to health. On Lake Galilee Jesus calms a storm and on arriving in the country of the Gerasenes, he sends a legion of demons into a heard of pigs.

In his interaction with both clean and unclean, amongst the Galilean Jews and the Gentiles of the Decapolis, the word about Jesus is definitely out. Now back across the lake on Galilean soil at Capernaum, Jairus, seeks out Jesus. He is the local leader of the synagogue, where Jesus had exposed and delivered the man from an unclean spirit. Jairus knows what Jesus can do, and now that death is knocking on the door of his twelve year old daughter, Jairus' desperation brings him to Jesus.

But not only is Jairus there. Jesus and the disciples are swamped by the waves of people swelling around ready to witness the wonder of what Jesus can do. But what is it he is doing? He is healing the sick, casting out demons, straightening broken bodies back to health, and making the unclean ritually clean. Yes! He is doing this, but he's also doing a whole lot more.

As they push their way through the mob to Jairus' house, a woman takes her opportunity hidden amongst the mob. She like Jairus, knows of Jesus, she's heard how he heals, and now she believes that reaching out for just one touch of him will heal her while hidden in the crowd; will heal her hidden illness that makes her hide in shame.

You see everything this woman touches becomes ritually unclean. Little does the crowd know of her ailment, she is not physically maimed, she has no visual disorder that keeps her at a distance. But she knows the law has separated her from others and from God's holy presence by her twelve year old illness! And yet here she is amongst the crowd rubbing shoulders with them. If only they knew she had been secretly bleeding in her uterus, they would have cast her out like a leper for making all she touched unclean with her uncleanness. (For laws on bodily discharges and ritual uncleanness see Leviticus 15.)

Yet in her suffering, in her desperation, in her spiritual and mental anguish, in her shame, and in her guilt, she presses towards the centre of the crowd and when the time was right, with an outstretched hand, all the suffering and bleeding, all the hiddenness of twelve years of shame reaches out in hope to be healed.

And with that touch she instantly knew something had happened. It had worked! Jesus had done what no other could do. In secret she was healed; her sickness was gone for good! But where had it gone, what had happened, who could tell her what had occurred? She could not draw attention to herself, lest others realise she had also defiled them while pressing through the throng. Her touching of others was as good as a touch of death for them, a sentence of hopelessness for them, which she knew all too well.

But Jesus stops! Calm in the storm once again, so it seems! He asks, "Who touched my garments?" And his disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, 'Who touched me?'" (Mark 5:30b-31 ESV) However, what she had kept hidden from everyone else was not hidden from the Son of God. At the moment she touched him, she knew she had been healed and so too did Jesus. He felt power drain from him; this was the power that healed her after twelve years of menstrual bleeding.

However, the physical healing was only part of the problem. When Jesus queries the crowd as to who it was who touched him, twelve years of shame, and suffering, and guilt and hiddenness was suddenly brought out into the open and she came in fear and trembling face to face with her Saviour.

Do you realise how momentous this event is? Twelve years of shame, not being able to save face because she bled, and now she stands face to face with he who had every right to humiliate her and cast her out but who rather gives her honour and blessing so she might be held steadfast in the sight of God, and be remembered by us today as one who was made rich even though she was so poor in spirit, socially and spiritually.

You see it doesn't matter that we are talking about a topic that even today is still a cause of embarrassment. Every woman would be mortified to have her private hygiene spoken of in public, yet here we speak of one who was healed after a twelve year period. But this is not what we remember her for. This is not what she exemplifies, for women or for men, or for all who bear all sorts of shame today. Rather she is one in whom we can all see what becomes of shame when reaching out and touching Jesus, seeking his touch.

All the guilt, all the shame, all that stuff we lump around with us every day of our lives. The things we keep hidden deep down in the darkness of our hiddenness. All the things that cause you and me so much pain, suffering and embarrassment, guilt and shame! Stuff we seek to bury, stuff the sinful self holds in secret so well, but which the devil uses to keep us hidden, uses to harangue us, and continues to cause us to despair and lose face.

But no! This is not how we remember this lady. Rather she is the one who touched in faith, the corner of Jesus cloak and was healed of the hell she endured for twelve years.

And it's no accident the girl to which Jesus is going to see is the same age as that of the woman's haemorrhage. Jairus' daughter was twelve. Here was a girl who should have been in the fullness of her life, on the ebb of being a child bearing woman, but rather as Jesus travels to Jairus' house she dies.

It is her blood too. The problem is it has stopped flowing, not from her body, but within her veins. Like the woman who touched Jesus, the girl's lifeblood was not doing what it was meant to be doing and now she had died, the ritual law meant this place of death was unclean too. (For laws on coming in contact with the death and ritual uncleanness see Numbers 19.)

On overhearing the news of the girl's death Jesus says to Jairus, "Do not fear, only believe." (Mark 5:36 ESV) He was calling him to continue on in faith. This is the same faith which first led him to Jesus where he 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." (Mark 5:23 ESV)

Now Jesus calls him to continue looking to him rather then turn in despair and grief in honour of death. Jesus was now earnestly imploring Jairus to trust him over death, to reach out in hope like the woman who had touched Jesus and was healed, to reach out in faith and let Jesus touch not just his daughter but all who witnessed the healing of this twelve year old girl.

Like the woman who was healed we might ask, "What happened to this girl; the cause of her lifeblood to stop flowing, was now where? There was physical healing but Jesus was doing so much more. The true miracle of these healings was not just the life restored through the transmission of the touch but rather eternal death is defeated by Jesus' almighty powerful touch.

His touch is one of empowerment. In fact when we touch there is always a transmission of power. In all their innocence children rely on touch to receive the power of assurance from those who care for them. Unfortunately though, because of sin the touch of empowerment can be turned into something inappropriate when touch is used in power over others to control or suppress. This began with the first touch of the fruit on the tree of knowledge of good and evil and continued to be propagated when Cain gave Abel a deadly touch up in the field.

But Jesus' touch reverses all this and puts right those whom he touches and those who trust him enough to forsake all to reach out and touch him. Your suffering exists! But not because you don't have enough faith! But rather so you might exercise Christ's steadfast touch of love given at the cross. You have come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. (Hebrews 12:24 ESV)

You see the transmission of touch goes both ways. Regardless of whether Jesus does the touching or we who have been touched by his word reach out and touch him, he transmits to you and me the power of his love. But that's not all, the faith that made the woman well, the call for Jairus to continue on in faith, and God's call for you to carry on in faithfulness till death is one that allows Jesus to stand fast in you, so in exchange your guilt and shame might stand fast in the blood of Christ on the cross.

When Jesus said to the woman, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease." (Mark 5:34 ESV) And when taking the girl by the hand he said to her, "Talitha cumi," which means, "Little girl, I say to you, arise." (Mark 5:41 ESV) He was taking their sin, the shame of sins committed against them, and their guilt and blame on himself and have his blood spilt on the cross in payment for sin.

Touch Jesus! Be touched by Jesus! Let him touch your life with his power of forgiveness and peace enabling you to stand fast in him. You can do it because he stood fast on the cross to bear all your sin.

May you continue to live in the steadfast love of Jesus, so he can continue to grace you with a steadfast spirit! Do not fear, only believe. With you he's done a whole lot more than just restoring your flow of blood. You are being touched by the steadfast eternal healing blood of Jesus' death and resurrection. Amen.

B, Lent 4 – Numbers 21:4-9 & John 3:14-21 “Too Good Not To Be True”

All they had to do was look at the bronze serpent and live. It sounds like a hoax. The venom of a deadly desert snake kills a person in minutes. A snake's neurotoxin floods the body's lymphatic system causing bodily organs to fail. A pressure bandage and medical attention needs to come quickly to stop the deadly effects from the snake's bite.

Therefore, look at a bronze snake and live! Sound fair enough? I don't think so! How can looking at bronze pole stop the lymphatic system from pumping the venom around the body? It sounds too good to be true!

After the resurrection Jesus said to the eleven Apostles…

"Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover." (Mark 16:15–18 ESV)

Therefore, we should go out looking for tiger snakes, brown snakes, cobras, and vipers to see if we're made of the right stuff? Ah no! Not a good idea! God may call for this to happen but only when he desires it, when it serves him to his ends, and when he calls an individual or a group of people into this situation to glorify him alone!

Nevertheless, he did call the Israelites in the Sinai wilderness to look and live. They were being bitten and many were dying. So they came to Moses and pleaded he pray to God to take away the snakes. So Moses prayed on behalf of the people, and God didn't take the snakes away. Instead, he commanded Moses to add a bronze snake to the equation.

All they had to do was believe, and healing they would receive. It was no different to the food and the water God had been supplying. If they trusted him, looked to him, he would continue to sustain them. But despite God being with them they saw their situation as being in greater peril of perishing than when they were slaves in Egypt.

Jesus names this event when he speaks to Nicodemus, who had come to him at night. He introduces Nicodemus to the idea of being born again through water and the Spirit, and ties it to his being lifted up just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.

In the same way Jesus connects baptism and belief, unbelief and condemnation in the hearing of the disciples after the resurrection, as he had done so here with Nicodemus too.

John 3:16 are Jesus' words to Nicodemus, but we do well to hold the text of Moses and the bronze serpent with this well know verse, so we might get the full volume of what Jesus is saying here. If we don't then we're in danger of turning John 3:16 or for that matter the gospel, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for us, into a cheesy feel good cliché.

Yes it should make us feel good, but in a way that leads us to glorify God for the eternal salvation he gives to us through his Son. In the next verse, verse seventeen Jesus says…

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:17 ESV)

And lets couple this verse with what we have heard from Numbers twenty-one…

Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live." (Numbers 21:6–8 ESV)

What did God want with the Israelites in the wilderness; to starve them, to have them die of thirst, or to poison them with snakes? No! Why then would he have bothered to save them in the first place! Rather he sought to save them because he loved them and wanted to take them from the land of slavery and oppression into the land of milk and honey.

Similarly we are called to see Jesus lifted up alone on the cross, as the one who exposes and lifts up our sin. We first have to believe we are bitten with sin, to believe the being of sin is within, in order for us to look to him on the cross in faith to have our sin forgiven so we may not eternally perish.

If we choose to shun the seriousness of our sin, we become like one in the wilderness bitten by a fiery serpent; thinking it's only a scratch, it's not that bad, refusing to stop, look and live. Sin is serious and like the bronze serpent, Jesus lifted up on the cross is too good not to be true.

When someone makes the fatal mistake of thinking it's too good to be true the person fulfils what Jesus tells Nicodemus in verse eighteen…

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (John 3:18 ESV)

If the Israelites didn't believe they were bitten, if they didn't believe the brass serpent to have any power, they too were condemned to death even before their death inevitably came.

So how does one believe, and what does believing do? Surely we first must be brought to an understanding of our need. This is not a mental or cognitive understanding; rather it's the deeper yearning of our inner being for what life was originally created to be, before the fall.

Jesus tells Nicodemus what believing does in John 3:21…

But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God." (John 3:21 ESV)

Those who do what is true allow themselves to be brought into the light so they might have sin exposed and expunged, to have sin revealed and its power removed! Therefore, it is clearly seen that a person's works have been carried out in God. This means, that everything that's done is shown as being done by God himself. But how does he do it?

We find this answer in Ephesians 2:8…

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God. (Ephesians 2:8 ESV)

It is faith that enables a person to believe, and this faith is not of us it is the gift of God. Unfortunately, many today are deceived into a faith that is of themselves and not a gift of God at all. But for those being saved Christ dwells within, because having heard his word, we stop, look and live.

So to keep it concise, I pray we might continue to stop, look, and live. Let the light shine on us to expose and extinguish sin. To let the light shine on us disempowering sin and empowering the Holy Spirit who works through hearing the word, to give us the ability to believe and receive, Jesus' death and resurrection for you, for me, for all who stop, look, and live.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:14–16 ESV)

Surely this is too good not to be true! Amen.

B, Lent 4 - Numbers 21:4-9 "God Sent Snakes"

From Mount Hor the Israelites set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food." Then the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the From Mount Hor the Israelites set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food." Then the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live." So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. (Numbers 21:4-9)

Are we there yet? Are we there yet? This is so boring. I don't want to go. I wish I had stayed home! I wish I had different parents! [Hissing whispers, huffs and puffs, with plenty of sighs and attitude from the back seat of the car.]

I hate this food. I don't like peas! I don't like broccoli! Why do we have to always have vegetables? This food is so boring!

You've probably heard this type of reckoning and rhetoric before! Perhaps these words have even come from your mouth, at the table, or from the back seat.

Then there's the "so-called" advice from the back seat, or the left seat...

Why are you going this way? You'd get there a whole lot quicker if you went the other way!

When enough is enough, the situation is rectified by a sudden stopping of the car with the summons to get out and walk; or the invitation for the left hand driver to take the wheel on the right.

In the same manner, the food that seems so detestable is taken from the table and presented to the hound outside the house while the protestors are put to bed hungry.

No matter how much we might love our parents, they've all been the worst people in the world, at one time or another. Once it was thought being a kid was the worst thing in the world. Remember mum and dad rattling off the regular rant, "When you're an adult you can do whatever you please; you don't know how good you've really got it, and while you're under our roof you'll list to what we say and do it!"

But now being a parent pushed to the brink of frustration and beyond, one might find themselves saying the same things as did their mum and dad, realising how well we really did have it!

Experience has now taught me there's something much worse than being a frustrated child - being a frustrated parent of frustrated children!

When Moses prayed before the Lord, every parent can resinate with the frustration he must have felt as he led the children of God on the way from misery to happiness on the road from slavery to milk and honey freedom. We don't know what he said when he prayed to God, but I imagine he growled and muttered about their rudeness, being so impatient, and their faithlessness. After all God had brought them out of slavery and promised to deliver them into a life so much better than what they had.

In the same vein, it's not hard to imagine how God must get frustrated with us. Not all of us are parents, but we've all been children of parents and of those entrusted to lead us on behalf of parents. Some of us have long left the years of childhood; however, we're still the children of God.

We can cast aside the rose-coloured childhood view we like to have of ourselves and see that, like the Israelites, we as children were guilty of grumbling we knew a better way than the way lovingly laid out for us by our fathers and mothers.

It's no different with our Heavenly Father. In fact our age has little to do with Christian maturity. No matter how young or old we are we're all tempted to look at ourselves with rose-coloured glasses, guilty of exchanging Christ's way for our own way, believing we can do better, or adding just a bit to our Heavenly Father's way.

So God and Moses had packed up their Israelite family and were on a road trip. But not long into the trip the kids, the children of God, began to whinge and whine about the direction God was going and the food he handed out along the way.

Let's be clear here! Things weren't easy! They struggled in a harsh place, rocky wilderness and sandy soil was everywhere. It was tough! But they failed to trust God was with them, leading them, and loving them; hidden in the cloud, hidden the fire, and his hand hidden in the provisions of quail, manner, and water. They lived by sight and not by faith and so hardship in the desert made them snaky and they became impatient with Moses.

We might expect God to make things better; after all - God is a God of love. However, God works in ways we least expect, contrary to the way we think or like. He's God who comes in the midst of struggles and suffering looking for faith and trust. God is found hidden in the wilderness of fallen creation, and is not immediately obvious in the everyday hustle and bustle of life. In fact he uses all things, and even allows evil to continue in the short term, so we're taught to look to him for comfort and strength rather than the fallen world in which we like to hide and love to trust.

The Israelites' experience was uncomfortable, but so focused on the short-term superficialities of life, they wished for slavery in Egypt over against trusting God to deliver them into a land of milk and honey as he had promised. Their addiction to feel good, even for just a moment, led them to think they knew what was better for them.

But nothing could be further from the truth. And to use the well known verse from John 3:16... God so loved the Israelites that he sent snakes.

Now that's completely opposite to how we think; especially in this day and age! The Israelites took their eyes off God and craved deadly oppression under the old snake Pharaoh. And so God gave them a taste of death and sent snakes that bit them and they started to die.

This quickly turned them back to God when they realised they had received what they had wished for, with dire consequences to themselves and their quest for satisfaction. God knew if they got what they wanted; it would be no good for them in the long term. To return to Egypt, darkness, slavey, and oppression would not give them the feel good fix they were so desperately seeking.

So the choice became very simple: Uncontrollable death and carnage in Egypt without God, or God walking with them through the wilderness, giving them what they needed for the journey so they might be delivered into something much better.

Therefore, God didn't take the snakes away when Moses prayed to God. The harsh reality of the wilderness remained, but God gave the people a way out through trusting in him. God commanded Moses to mount a snake on a staff so that healing came to those who were bitten. And so God added to their wilderness hardship, but it made the Israelites realise just how merciful he is, and how much he wants to care for his people.

When we struggle with the sting of life and are tempted to growl at God. We do well to remember that God is a merciful God. Instead of abandoning us in the wilderness of our ways, he comes to us and calls us into his forgiveness.

Instead of desiring the darkness, allow God to shine the light of Christ into your place of darkness, so that as we struggle and stumble in the wilderness, we learn more and more to trust and walk in Christ through every valley darkened by the shadow of death.

So we hear in John chapter three...

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God. (John 3:19-21)

Amen.

A, Lent 2 - John 3:13-15 "Wilderness Woes"

Text John 3:13-15

13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

Sermon

Human life always seems to follow the same pattern. We struggle along for a time and then things take a turn for the better. But no matter how good the future might seem to be getting, it never gets as good as we imagine. Once we get there the mirage of good fortune seems to fizzle away, if not completely disappear.

Things seemed to be getting better for the Israelites as they marched out of Egypt and slavery. But after Moses led them in the wilderness for thirty eight years, their mirage of hope seemed to be disappearing into the sand hills of Sinai.

During these years they had grumbled about many things. But now so close to their destination after thirty eight years, Moses turns south to lead the people around the nation of Edom, and their grumbling became all the more fierce against God and Moses. They protested, ‘Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the desert?’ (Numbers 21:5) We too might ask the same question when our earthly expectations don’t go the way we want.

As we walk in remembrance with Jesus towards the cross, we walk with him on his wilderness way. And it was surely a road through the desert. After his baptism he wandered and was tempted in the wilderness for forty days and as he neared Jerusalem for the last time, his environment became sparse of supporters as they all deserted him.

In fact his incarnation—his birth and life on earth—was a walk in the wilderness of loneliness. After all, Christ like Abram, left his dwelling because of his Heavenly Father’s will. He was called to put aside the holiness of his eternal heavenly home and be born into the failing flesh of humanity.

Jesus walks in the wilderness with humanity, just as Moses walked with the Israelites for forty years. And in the Gospel reading today Jesus teaches Nicodemus about just who he is by drawing on the rich imagery of the Israelite’s desert life and grumblings.

From Numbers 21 we are told, ‘The Israelites travelled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!” Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.’ (Numbers 21:4-9)

Jesus refers to this passage while he was speaking to Nicodemus about eternal life and rebirth. Confused about being reborn Nicodemus asks, ‘How can this be?’ To which Jesus responds with the picture of Moses and the Israelites in the wilderness, saying, ‘Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.’ (John 3:14-15)

It’s surprising the Old Testament reports that God sent the snakes. Any hint of suffering or death sits uncomfortably with us today, and horrible is the thought that God should allow it to happen. But the reality is our holy God is gracious towards all people. He sent Jesus to reveal our sin, so he might forgive and give eternal life, even in the midst of our sinning, where humanity’s unholiness deserves nothing but God’s deadly wrath.

We all suffer from sin’s short-sightedness, impatience, and the like. But into this sinful reality Jesus was born, so he could bring us his saving word, which also teaches us and builds us up in him. Just as he did with Nicodemus!

Our reality is one where the wilderness snakes still bite us in so many ways; God hasn’t taken them away. Their bites inflict wounds, septic with sin. But its only in being bitten that we quickly learn we need his antivenin. And as we are driven back to him, over and over again, he shows us he has been faithfully walking with us in our lost wilderness the whole time anyway.

Jesus Christ was not just lifted high on the cross—he is still lifted high—but now as king in glory. In fact, on some crucifixes stands the figure of the Risen King, rather than the broken Son of Man on Good Friday. It is to this King we look, who bore the scandal of the cross, but through it was crowned master over sin and its fatal bite. The people in Moses’ day looked to the precious bronze snake for earthly healing and found it, but our healing is much greater, it is eternal, as we look to Christ the King crowned in glory.

We still live in a troubling wilderness; the snakes are still here. They still bite and inflict death! But because Christ was lifted up, bitten and afflicted by death, we too will be lifted up in eternal life after death. Amen.