The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra was a Hall of Famer, three-time American League Most Valuable Player of the Year, and ten-time World Series champion. He had a brilliant mind for baseball, while at the same time was known for his odd sayings. They were called Yogi-isms. For example: “Baseball is 90% mental, and the other half is physical.” Or: “We’re lost, but we’re making great time.” Yogi was an inspirational player. He actually inspired the character Yogi Bear. And after he had finished and retired in 1963, he was immediately named the manager of the New York Yankees. But he was fired after just one year. The rumor was that his fellow Yankee baseball players, like Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford, couldn’t respect their old-time teammate as their new boss. And so it didn’t go well for him, because the home team didn’t like him very much as a manager. They remembered the boy that he was, not the man that he had become. Berra fell prey to an old axiom: familiarity breeds contempt. Despite Jesus’ many miracles and His credentials, the people who had known Him as He grew up in Nazareth couldn’t see Jesus as anything more than the hometown boy who became a carpenter for a while, Mary’s son, who played with their kids when they were all grown up. And He too fell prey to the old axiom: familiarity breeds contempt. As for Yogi Berra, he took his considerable baseball wisdom and skills across town to the New York Mets, and later led them to a World Series. As for Jesus, once He was rejected by His hometown, as the prophets foretold, from there He came and He settled in the land of Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali. That is, He moved on. He went someplace else. And there He began to teach and preach and perform miracles. And it was from there that He called His twelve apostles together. Jesus and the twelve, they went out and took the saving message to the world, where some received Jesus as their Savior and followed Him, and others did not.
This morning’s Gospel lesson began when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. There a great crowd gathered about Him, and He preached and taught there at the seashore. Then one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, seeing Jesus, fell at His feet 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.” And He went with him. And a great crowd followed Him and thronged about Him. Now, a couple of things you need to know about the Gospel of Mark. In the Gospel of Mark’s larger context, Jesus is proclaiming an entirely new relationship that now will exist between Him, the promised Messiah, the second person of the Holy Trinity, and His church. He was setting in place a new testament, which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The old way was passing away, and the new had come. Any claim now to Israel, a special relationship with Israel — that is, the church under the Law — was now an old voice, a voice now made null and void by the coming of the promised Messiah. The Messiah had arrived in the flesh, and now it was time for the New Testament to begin. In the New Testament relationship, we first see and hear this in the confession of the Roman centurion soldier at the foot of the cross on Good Friday, Mark 15:39. When the centurion, who was standing right in front of Jesus, saw He died in this way, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God.” The old understanding of the Law was given voice, however, continually by the scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees and priests and chief priests and Levites of the day. The religious leaders could not see that Jesus was, in fact, fully human, fully divine, the promised Messiah, who would go to the cross as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. They couldn’t shake the belief that they were indeed the righteous men of the covenant, and that they were saved by outward observance of the Law and oral traditions, that they were saved by their good disposition toward God and human beings alike. They believed they were righteous men, and that they were the men who kept the Law and the traditions. The same belief is found today in modern Zionism, in doctrines like two-covenant theology, and false eschatology of many preachers who maintain that Jews are saved apart from faith in Jesus Christ, and that Israel is still the church of the Old Testament, still fully valid and powerful — preachers who preach that Jews are saved by bloodlines and obedience to the Law, and not by faith, while Christians are saved by faith in Christ. The first group clearly believes that they’re saved by bloodline and works-righteousness. The second know that they are saved by salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, for Christ’s sake alone. There’s no shortage these days. While Israel has a right to exist, in that their citizens are citizens as much as anybody else, and entitled to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, they are not the church of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
The new relationship upon which faith is carried, and the church is established, is demonstrated in Mark’s call to the twelve — to the twelve, I didn’t misstate that — first to the twelve, as in the twelve apostles, and then all the other twelves that appear in the Gospel lessons and in some of the Epistles. The twelve tribes of Israel now become the twelve tribes of the apostles. This new relationship and New Testament was expressed in the story of Jairus and the suffering woman. Jairus and the woman. Remember, this is on the heels of Jesus being rejected in His own hometown. And now He’s in Capernaum, in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, that is, on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, a Gentile area. And there Jesus, the founder of the church, the one who ushers in the New Testament of the Lord God, now begins His work. And we begin to see the difference between what happened in His hometown and what happens amongst these Jews and Gentiles in this new land. He encounters first Jairus, and then the woman. And they come to Him to receive His doctrine, His power, His kindness, His mercy, His salvation. But they didn’t come in their own piety, like His hometown crowd, or like the scribes and Pharisees, sages in the light. That’s why they came begging Jesus for grace and mercy, instead of demanding action based upon their own good deeds and virtue. Right? Goes back to Job: Why is this happening to me? I’m basically a good person. Why has God chosen this for me? They didn’t come to Jesus out of piety. They came to Him knowing that they were weak and helpless and sinners in need of salvation, in need of Him. And Jesus, here goes: Jesus didn’t come to make us pious people either. He came to make us Christians. A person can be pious without being a Christian. And a Christian, on the other hand, has nothing to say about his or her piety. There’s no basis for appeal. Right? As Paul says, lest anyone should boast. Salvation is a pure gift. That is the common temptation. We’re in trouble. It’s the natural reflex that harkens back to our good disposition: “I don’t deserve this. I deserve better.” No, we don’t. A person can’t be called a Christian simply because he or she does this thing or that thing. Everyone who is a Christian is a Christian by receiving the forgiveness of sins and the gifts of God given in and through Christ Jesus alone. That’s the principal function of a Christian: namely, to receive what God does, to receive the gifts of God. Cut yourself off from the church, you’re cutting yourself off from the gifts that God gives through the Word and Sacrament ministry of the church. When a person stops receiving the forgiveness of sins, that’s when they stop really, truly believing in Christ, and he or she ceases to be a Christian.
Jairus wasn’t alone in his plea for mercy, understanding he himself was entitled to nothing. There was a woman who had a discharge of blood for twelve years — there’s that number — and who had suffered much under many physicians. She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind Him in the crowd and touched His garment. For she said, “If I touch even His garments, I will be made well.” And Jesus, perceiving in Himself that power had gone out from Him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched My garments?” But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth. And Jesus said, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” The woman, see, didn’t consider herself to be pious. She was a poor, miserable sinner. That’s why she came to Christ in fear and trembling and fell down before Him. That means it’s an act of worship. It’s acknowledging Jesus to be Lord and Savior. Her illness robbed her of everything: of all of her money, her status, her resources. She suffered as a social outcast, being declared unclean for all those twelve years. All that was left her, her only hope, was Jesus Christ alone. Her faith was a gift from God, imparted to her when she heard the stories and the testimony concerning Christ. It had nothing to do with herself, or her own disposition, her own good nature, her own kindness, her own self-perceived good works. It was all about the Word of God in Christ. “If I touch Him, the power will go out from Him and heal me.”
As for the daughter of Jairus, she died before Jesus got to the house. 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?” But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” And then Jesus went to the house, and He entered the house, and He said, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” And immediately the girl got up and began walking, for she was twelve years of age. Start looking for the number twelve, you’ll find it in all kinds of places in the Bible, right? It’s the new twelve. It’s the twelve tribes. It’s the church. It’s where God’s grace and forgiveness is to be found. And they were immediately overcome with amazement. The twelve-year-old girl had no piety of her own either. She was dead, for Pete’s sake, in her trespasses and in illness. She couldn’t “decide for Jesus,” as many Christians speak today. When the news of his daughter’s death reached Jairus, his personal faith was shaken to its very core. That’s why Jesus said to him, “Do not fear, only believe.”
Of all the elements, all the elements in the story go against our temptation to misunderstand what Jesus said to the woman and to Jairus: “Your faith has saved you,” or “Your faith has made you well.” In English, it sounds like the faith is the activating entity, the power that enables the healing. And that’s how it’s preached in many churches today. But Jesus was not elevating personal faith over the cause of the forgiveness of sins and salvation. The power to heal came out from Jesus to the woman as she touched Him. The little girl would be raised from the dead by the power of Jesus’ own words. Apart from Christ and God-given faith, all there is at the end of the day in this life is weeping and mourning over the dead. In Christ, there is, though, the forgiveness of sins, life eternal, and salvation. Let’s be clear about this spiritual and biblical fact: personal faith itself is never the cause of healing or salvation. It only receives the gifts of Christ. The woman Jesus healed, and to whom He spoke, was truly sinful and unclean. This is even more obvious in Jairus’ daughter’s case, since she was dead and had no faith. But with just two words, “Talitha cumi” — “Little girl, I tell you, get up” — Jesus called her back from the dead and gave her her very own resurrection, even before His own resurrection. Against the voice that says that death is the end, Jesus comforts mourners, telling them the child is not dead but is sleeping. To them, it’s laughable. It’s common sense. It’s obvious to them that the little girl has, in fact, died. Who does this stranger think He is? God? That’s why they were laughing. But life had the last word. For Christ said, “I am the resurrection and the life.” And “No one comes to the Father except by Me.” Against all the world’s words concerning death, Jesus always comforts the believer with His words. For Jesus’ baptized believers aren’t dead in their sins anymore. They’re only sleeping. Jesus bore our sin in His body, taking upon Himself our uncleanness, and giving us His holiness in return: the divine exchange. By His wounds we are healed. Christ Jesus destroyed death by His death, and won our salvation by the forgiveness of our sins.
As Christians, we live in a world that is preoccupied, focused, obsessed with death, inflicting death upon every generation in one form or another, from the womb to the tomb. We seem to think it’s our job to inflict, or to help, death along. But Christ, Christ is about life. Christians are about life. As Christians, we can listen to the world and its words of Law and despair and sin and death. But God tells us that Jesus is His Son, whom He has chosen, and that we are to listen to Him. Against all the voices of death, Christians get to say boldly that we are not dead but alive — and more than alive than those who will mourn our passing — for we are in Christ. Our sins are forgiven through Baptism, and the Lord’s gift we receive each and every week: the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, through His very body and blood in the Word and Sacrament of Holy Communion. Jesus came through the lineage of Israel to accomplish our salvation by way of the cross. Now this salvation is distributed and received in the same way by both Jews and Gentiles. That Galatians passage: for there’s neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female, but all who are baptized in Christ are one. Blessed are you who will be addressed by your Lord: “Little one, I say to you, arise.” Or again: “Do not fear, only believe.” God’s mercies, as the Old Testament said, are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness to you. And we can say to Him: You, Lord, You have turned my mourning into dancing. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you by His poverty might become rich. So also by His life, though you die, yet you shall live. Christ has made you well. Your faith has received. Amen.
May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.