Text: Mark 5: 21-43
A Girl Restored to Life and a Woman Healed
21 And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him; and he was beside the sea. 22 Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Ja′irus by name; and seeing him, he fell at his feet, 23 and besought him, 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.” 24 And he went with him.
And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. 25 And there was a woman who had had a flow of blood for twelve years, 26 and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard the reports about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. 28 For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I shall be made well.” 29 And immediately the hemorrhage ceased; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30 And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone forth from him, immediately turned about in the crowd, and said, “Who touched my garments?” 31 And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” 32 And he looked around to see who had done it. 33 But the woman, knowing what had been done to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. 34 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
35 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?” 36 But ignoring[a] what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” 37 And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John the brother of James. 38 When they came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, he saw a tumult, and people weeping and wailing loudly. 39 And when he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a tumult and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” 40 And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. 41 Taking her by the hand he said to her, “Tal′itha cu′mi”; which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” 42 And immediately the girl got up and walked (she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement. 43 And he strictly charged them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
It sounds so simple: “Do not fear.”
Yet it is unbelievably hard. It may be that fear is a more deeply-rooted emotion in the human race even than love. Certainly a dose of healthy fear kept our ancestors from going into that dark cave over there, or stepping behind that big bush over there or walking over to see what that group of strange people wanted. It was a good survival instinct.
When I was small, I was afraid of my own shadow. I had to have a night light on every night. The closet doors in the room I shared with my brother had to be shut tight. The bedroom door had to be open. But even then, I would cower under my blankets, and there were very many nights when I took refuge in my parents’ room. The safest place in the universe to be when you’re three years old is right between your parents. My parents didn’t think it was such a hot idea, but they let me in, anyway.
And this is what we do for our children. If we’re huddled in our basement while the storms rage outside, we say to them, “Do not fear, everything will be OK.” If our car breaks down in the middle of nowhere – and it’s always the middle of nowhere – in the middle of the night – and it’s always in the middle of the night – we try to tell them that there’s nothing to be afraid of, even if we sometimes aren’t sure ourselves.
“Do not fear.”
On this 4th of July weekend, I’d like to share something that the late great Paul Harvey first broadcast back on July 4th, 1974:
THEY PAID THE PRICE Americans, you know the 56 men who signed our Declaration of Independence that first 4th of July–you know they were risking everything, don’t you? Because if they won the war with the British, there would be years of hardship as a struggling nation. If they lost they would face a hangman’s noose. And yet there where it says, “We herewith pledge, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor,” they did sign. But did you know that they paid the price? When Carter Braxton of Virginia signed the Declaration of Independence, he was a wealthy planter and trader. But thereafter he saw his ships swepted from the seas and to pay his debts, he lost his home and all of his property. He died in rags. Thomas Lynch, Jr., who signed that pledge, was a third generation rice grower and aristocrat–a large plantation owner–but after he signed his health failed. With his wife he set out for France to regain his failing health. Their ship never got to France; he was never heard from again. Thomas McKean of Delaware was so harrassed by the enemy that he was forced to move his family five times in five months. He served in Congress without pay, his family in poverty and in hiding. Vandals looted the properties of Ellery and Clymer and Hall and Gwinett and Walton and Heyward and Rutledge and Middleton. And Thomas Nelson, Jr. of Virginia raised two million dollars on his own signature to provision our allies, the French fleet. After the War he personally paid back the loans wiping out his entire estate; he was never reimbused by his government. And in the final battle for Yorktown, he, Nelson, urged General Washington to fire on his, Nelson’s own home, then occupied by Cornwallis. And he died bankrupt. Thomas Nelson, Jr. had pledged his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor. The Hessians seized the home of Francis Hopkinson of New Jersey. Francis Lewis had his home and everything destroyed, his wife imprisoned–she died within a few months. Richard Stockton, who signed the Declaration of Independence, pledging his life and his fortune, was captured and mistreated, and his health broken to the extent that he died at 51. And his estate was pillaged. Thomas Heyward, Jr. was captured when Charleston fell. John Hart was driven from his wife’s bedside while she was dying; their thirteen children fled in all directions for their lives. His fields and gristmill were laid waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves and returned home after the War to find his wife dead, his children gone, his properties gone. He died a few weeks later of exhaustion and a broken heart. Lewis Morris saw his land destroyed, his family scattered. Philip Livingston died within a few months of hardships of the War. John Hancock, history remembers best, due to a quirk of fate–that great sweeping signature attesting to his vanity, towers over the others. One of the wealthiest men in New England, he stood outside Boston one terrible night of the War and said, “Burn Boston, though it makes John Hancock a beggar, if the public good requires it.” He, too, lived up to the pledge. Of the 56 signers of the Declaration, few were long to survive. Five were captured by the British and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes–from Rhode Island to Charleston–sacked and looted, occupied by the enemy or burned. Two of them lost their sons in the Army; one had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 died in the War from its hardships or from its more merciful bullets. I don’t know what impression you’d had of these men who met that hot summer in Philadelphia, but I think it’s important this July 4, that we remember this about them: they were not poor men, they were not wild-eyed pirates. These were men of means; these were rich men, most of them, who enjoyed much ease and luxury in personal living. Not hungry men– prosperous men, wealthy land owners, substantially secure in their prosperity. But they considered liberty–this is as much I shall say of it–they had learned that liberty is so much more important than security, that they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. And they fulfilled their pledge–they paid the price, and freedom was born. Paul Harvey, Good Day.[1]
Another true story: There once was a man named Eddie. He lived in the early part of the 20th Century. He first came to the world’s notice as a race car driver – he got quite a reputation as a daring, devil-may-care kind of guy. The spectators and the press loved him. He won race after race after race.
Then along came World War I. Eddie went off to serve with the US Army as an ambulance driver. But, shortly after he got over to France, he was recruited into the brand-new US Army Air Corps, and was trained to fly some of the world’s first fighter planes.
When people look at pictures of those planes today, they might be tempted to laugh. They might shake their heads at these rickety contraptions – made literally out of thin wood, baling wire, and with wings made of silk or other cloth stretched over a wooden frame. They just look so primitive. They couldn’t fly very high by today’s standards, and they were slow.
But we might not realize, when we look at these planes, just how incredibly brave the young men of that time – on both sides of the war – were to climb into those crates, day after day, to go on patrol, seeking to deal death to their enemies, or to receive death at the hands of their enemies.
Those planes had no ejection seats. There were no parachutes. If your plane was disabled and crashed, you crashed with it. If your plane caught fire, you burned, too. Many of the pilots in those days would fly with revolvers strapped to their waists – not to shoot at the enemy, but to use to end their own lives in such cases.
I heard our pilot, Eddie, say in his own words the following about courage: “Courage is doing what you are afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you are scared.”
And you might have guessed by now who this pilot, this Eddie, was: He was Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, our nation’s first fighter ace. Here’s the miraculous part of the story: He flew hundreds of missions, he went through the entire war without getting so much as a scratch.
In 1941, Norman Rockwell painted one of his most famous series of illustrations for the Saturday Evening Post. One was titled “Freedom of Speech,” another “Freedom of Worship,” the third was “Freedom from Want,” and the fourth was “Freedom from Fear.” That painting shows a young couple standing over their sleeping children, and it’s very moving indeed. As those parents protected their children, in those dark days of World War II, millions of other young men and women fought to protect them, too, and millions of other families, so that the bright flame of freedom won for us by the patriots in the Revolutionary War might not go out.
All of them knew the truth of what Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker said. And most of them, I like to believe, also took to heart Jesus’ words “Do not fear.”
Now, I don’t know anything about Capt. Rickenbacker’s particular religious persuasion, but I have heard that he had a pretty solid confidence in his skills. He did what he did because he – somewhere inside – believed that he could perform well and do the job when called upon. Even though he was terrified, that belief carried him through. Thank God for him, and for all the millions of others whose determination and bravery allows us to be here this morning!
Do not fear, only believe.
The way I overcame my fear of the dark when I was a kid was, basically, by just getting mad one night. The memory is crystal clear, even now: I threw off my covers, ran over to the closet, threw open the door, and began thrashing around in the clothes inside, shouting, “OK, monsters, if you’re in there, now’s your chance!” And, of course, nothing happened. There was nothing in the closet but clothes. After a minute or two, I went back to my bed – leaving the closet door gaping wide open – and had a really good night’s sleep. After that, I could walk through the blackest night or the darkest room with no problem at all. I think that I had maybe finally taken to heart what my parents had been telling me all my life to that point that there were no monsters in that closet, to which they no doubt added, “so could you please start sleeping in your own bed?”
“Do not fear; just believe.”
Have you ever been in a situation where you were afraid and felt that there just was no hope? Have you ever been in that dark place where you racked your brains but could find absolutely no solution to your problem? Have you ever had the feeling that the harder you worked the worse things got?
Well, you’re not alone. As we’ve seen, all of us have felt that at one time or another.
But today’s Gospel lesson tells us the following:
- God loves us, and that unconditionally and totally.
- God cares for us all. Equally.
- God will take care of us.
The Bible is the record of God’s acts in human history. On literally every single page, whether in the Old Testament or the New, we see God stepping in to correct, to help, and to save us, His children, almost always from ourselves. In today’s lesson, we see Jesus – our God – interrupting what might be called the natural order of life and cheating death by raising the daughter of Jairus. We see the power of God through Jesus healing the woman, doing something instantly that even today’s advanced medicine would not be able to do.
And all because God loves us – each of us – knows us better than we know ourselves – knows what we need before we do, and provides it.
“Do not fear; just believe.”
Just believe that, no matter how hard life gets, God’s in your corner. Just believe that, no matter how big a mess you make of your life, God loves you and forgives you. Just believe that, when you have lost your last friend and maybe your last dollar, you are not alone, for Jesus is with you.
Sisters and Brothers, as we partake today of our Lord’s Body and Blood, let us not be afraid, but believe.
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
[1] Source: Paul Harvey, News and Commentary, July 4, 1974, July 2, 2001.