TITLE: “The Word of Jesus Brings LIfe”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.  Our text for this morning is the raising of Jairus’ daughter from the dead, found in Mark chapter five.

This episode in Jesus’ ministry teaches us that Jesus is the helper and rescuer from the worst enemy of all: death.  If there is one thing that is clear in life, it is the death is at the end of it.  Our end may be quiet, at our bed with family gathered around.  It may come from an accident.  Or it may come from something violent and terrible, as is common on television and movies today.

But while death is always with us, and always threatens us around the corner, mankind as a whole works very hard to despise what the Bible says about death.  And even more so, our world hates the message that Jesus is the only one who can save us from death.  Now this isn’t just weakness.  This is a malicious attempt on the part of the world to rip the comfort of the Gospel away from the children of God.  You will die.  You know it.  Everything around you testifies to this.  And yet at the same time, the world works harder than anything else to convince us that death doesn’t exist.  Death is normal.  Death is simply a part of the “circle of life,” as the Lion King song spouted forth a few years ago.  And furthermore, the only one who can save you from death is Jesus Christ, as we see in our text for today.

But think of how crazy we are!  If you were injured or hurt, you would do whatever it took to get to a doctor.  If you were hungry or thirsty, you would do whatever it took to get food or drink.  Anytime we are burdened with something, we flee and run, go wherever we need to go or do whatever we need to do to be rid of it.  Doctors, nurses, pills, diets.  We cannot stand to be burdened.

Yet death is the greatest evil of all, greater than all the other hurts and ills combined, because when we talk about death we are not only talking about death in this world, but eternal life and death.  What could be more serious than that?

Into this comes Jesus Christ.  Jesus, the true physician who can heal you, comes to rescue you from death, not just physical death, but eternal death.  He comes to rescue you from hell itself.  He comes to save you from the power of Satan and sin that grip you with cords of death.  All you do is trust His Word of forgiveness.  Cling to me, he says, and I will raise you up from death itself.  Jesus comes to give you eternal life.  It doesn’t get any better than that.

Yet it is that very message of resurrection and forgiveness that we so often despise.  We live as though life and death don’t matter.  Our lives as often as not are defined by cars and boats and stuff.  We live our lives as if God didn’t matter and as if I matter more than anything else in the world.  So it is that the message of the resurrection of the dead is one of the most despised messages in the world.  From ABC specials to cartoons about Jesus, the resurrection from the dead is almost never the point of the story.  Nor is it for us.  We despise God’s Word and refuse to hear His message of forgiveness. 

Imagine, if you will, esteemed doctor going to a sick person with the cure for his or her disease.  The doctor says, “I can heal you if you do what I say.  If you trust me, I can heal you of your sickness.”  And the sick man responds with, “Get away from me!  I don’t want your medicine!  It tastes bad.  I would rather die than take what you have to give me!”  Everyone would think that this man was out of his mind!  We might think, “let the man die, if he’s so crazy and dumb.”  Well, that is what we do to God in our unbelief.  Jesus comes with words of life and forgiveness, and what do we say?  “Nah, I think I’d rather die eternally.  You just go right ahead and let me go to hell.”  We know that we will die, and yet we stubbornly refuse to believe that there is a way out.  We live as if God doesn’t exist at all.

Christians who see themselves in the story of Jairus’ daughter, though, hear a different message.  When all other helpers fail and comforts flee, Jesus is the one who comes and abides with us.  The whole world may come to an end, everyone may abandon us, the whole world may not be able to help us at the end of our road.  But there is one who can help with everyone else has left: Jesus Christ, the victor over death.  Only Jesus can trample death’s power and make us alive again.

Christ’s words and actions bear this out.  What does he say about this young girl, about 12 years old?  She isn’t dead, but sleeps.  And he takes her by the hand and raises her up from the dead!  There we see that He is God and we are not.  To you and I, the dilemma is insurmountable.  No one could save her.  No one could wake her from this sleep of death.  But it is easier for Jesus Christ to raise her from the dead than it is for you to wake your own daughter up from sleep.

Jesus said, “God is not the god of the dead, but of the living” (Matthew 22:32).  We must die, but God Himself, and only He can raise us up from the dead.  Only He can take your broken life and make it whole.  Only He can put you back together the way God intended you to be made.  And He does.  Jesus is really proving the First Commandment here, You shall have no other gods.  No one else is the master over death and life.  That is the purpose of Church right there.  We are gathered by God in this house so that He may teach us that He alone is God, and that we can trust Him with our very life.

Jairus came to Jesus with a request: prove the First Commandment to me.  Prove that you are the God of the living and the dead.  Raise my daughter up.  No one else could do anything for her.  No one could save her.  Not all the doctors in the world could help her.  But you, Jesus, you alone can help her.  And Jesus says yes!  He takes her by the hand and says, “Little girl, I say, get up!”

Jesus wants to rescue you from death.  Now he doesn’t do it for everyone at all times.  He could, but He saves most for the Final Day.  But make no mistake about it, you will rise from your grave.  Jesus will call to you, and you will awake as from a sleep, and rise from the dead to be with your Lord.  That is the power of His Word over all the world.  But He raised Jairus’ daughter so that you might believe that it will happen to you. 

There were people in Jesus’ day that didn’t believe.  There were scoffers who mourned at the house as though Jesus was not God Himself.  There were scoffers than as there are no.  But pay them no heed!  Jesus Christ is Lord of life and death, and by His resurrection, He paved the way for you to eternal life.

That is why we preach Christ Jesus and only Him.  There is no other name under heaven whereby we must be saved.  When you hear of the message of Jesus Christ and His love for you, it brings you up from the dead.  Only His Word can call you out of death.

So when your last hour comes, take heart!  Jesus has gone there before, and will call you out of your sleep to live forever with Him.  You may remember the last part of Jairus’ story.  She rose up and ate.  Resurrection leads to eating and drinking with Christ.  So rise up, and come partake of the banquet of heaven we call the Lord’s Supper!    Come to the Table and receive life from Him which you can receive nowhere else.  He calls you to His home.  He call you out of death into life.  Little one, arise!

In the name of the Father and of the † Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

The peace of God, which passes all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith, unto life everlasting.  Amen.

Todd A. Peperkorn, STM

Messiah Lutheran Church

Kenosha, Wisconsin

Pentecost 6B (July 23, 2000)

Mark 5:21-24a, 35-43