Sermon for July 1, 2012 (5th Sunday
after Pentecost)
Lamentations
3:22-33; Psalm 30; Mark 4:35—5:43
First Presbyterian Church ●
Lake Crystal, Minnesota
Rev. Randal K.
Lubbers, Pastor & Teacher
Read Lamentations 3:22-33
Read Psalm 30
Intro to the Gospel Reading:
Today’s reading from Mark consists of four
miracles:
- the storm on the lake (which we looked at last week),
- the story about the man possessed by demons who is set free from his affliction when Jesus casts out the demons (giving them permission to enter into a herd of swine),
- the cure of the woman whose bleeding wouldn’t stop, and
- the raising of Jairus’ daughter.
Bible scholar Robert Reid points out
that although today’s reading might be pictured or outlined as a mirroring of
two kinds of miracles—there’s a bit of a problem with that approach because of
the way Mark introduces the story of the final miracle. Mark introduces Jairus
first (just long enough to set the stage), then tells the story of the woman
who had suffered for twelve years, and only then returns to the story of
raising Jairus’ daughter from her deathbed.
Some commentators explain this a
technique for building suspense in the story. But Reid disagrees with that—he
outlines this whole section with the plea of Jairus at the center of the
outline—at the peak of the arc of the plot-line, and he explains this structure as key to understanding the primary message in this particular unit.
If you think of Mark’s plot-line as
extending a nearly a full 100 yards of a football field, the story illustrating
Jesus’ power over nature is on your left on the two-yard line. At around the
30-yard line comes the story illustrating Jesus’ power of the demonic. At the
other “30” (on your right) is healing of the woman. And near the other goal
line, Jesus speaks the word and the little girl gets up and walks again.
At the 50-yard line—at the center
of it all—is Jesus’ first contact with Jairus. In other words, Jairus’ plea for
mercy is at the very center, the very heart of this whole unit.
One other thing that Robert Reid
points out that I’ve found enlightening. Mark was a preacher. Mark’s gospel was
a sermon—or a collection of sermon; a complete sermon series, if you will.
It’s interesting, because so often we
expect preachers to put the POINT of the whole sermon right at the end! We expect the
conclusion to communicate “the point of it all.”
But Mark preaches with a different
approach, usually. His main point is right in the middle of the sermon; not
that the ending isn’t important or surprising or effective—it is!—but Mark’s sermons seem to
follow an arc—the fancy term is “chiastic structure” or “chiastic parallelism”—or, picture it as goal line, 30-yd-line, 50-yd-line, 30, and goal line
again.
A big reason for reading the whole
section today is to give us an opportunity to hear Mark’s whole sermon. The
title of his sermon might very well have been, "The Miracle of Faith":
Read Mark 4:35—5:43
At the Center of It All
The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases,
his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your
faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in
him.”
~ LAMENTATIONS 3:22-24
You have turned my mourning into dancing; you
have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my soul may praise
you and not be silent. O LORD my God, will give thanks to you forever.
~ PSALM 30:11-12
Then came a man called Jairus, one of the synagogue presidents.
And when he saw Jesus, he knelt before him, pleading desperately for his help.
“My little girl is dying,” he said. “Will you come and put your hands on
her—then she will get better and live.”
~ MARK 5:22-23
The storms still
rage
Have you noticed that the storms still
rage? I know, I know, I asked that same question last week. But, have you
noticed, have you? The waves seem higher than ever; the wind is blowing harder;
it seems like the perfect storm. And have
you noticed that our pleas for healing are not always answered with miracle
cures? Is there a God? If so, is God even aware of my crisis, my heartaches, my
loneliness, my friend’s cancer, the trouble my child has with reading or math,
the problem in my marriage?
The writer of Lamentations asked these
sorts of questions. He even blames God, claiming that God has made him a
laughingstock, that God his filled him with bitterness, that God brought him
into darkness without any light. He sounds hopeless, saying, “Gone is my glory,
and all that I had hope for....”
God, do you care? God, will you wake up? God,
didn’t you say something about never leaving me nor forsaking me?
And yet, in the midst of it all; in
the center of affliction and hopelessness, yet, this I call to mind, and
therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
At the Center of It All
The story at the 50-yd line, at the
center of it all, is the story of Jairus’
plea for mercy.
Jairus, remember, is no ordinary guy,
but one of the officials in the synagogue; perhaps (probably?) a wealthy
man, one of the patrons of the synagogue which, in that day, might have had its
fixed expenses underwritten by just a few wealthy men. So it is quite something for Jairus to fall to
his knees in a posture of worship, a posture of submission and servitude.
Robert Reid says, “Jairus was the one man who had everything to lose by
throwing himself at the feet of Jesus." The religious authorities had already branded Jesus as someone to steer clear of; someone
who wasn’t welcome in nice neighborhoods; a sort-of-crazy-man who did radical things like allowing
demons to take over pigs…
So why would such a powerful man fall
on his knees at Jesus’ feet?
Because when things are hopeless,
nothing else matters. Nothing else is important except to plead, desperately, “My little girl is really,
really sick. Come with me, please. Lay your hands on her to make her better, to
save her life.”
Coming to the end of ourselves
Jerry Sittser, in A Grace Disguised, says that experiencing loss forces us to come
face-to-face with the huge role our environment, our situations, our
circumstances play in determining our happiness. He says, “Loss strips us of
the props we rely on for our well-being. It knocks us off our feet and puts us
on our backs. In the experience of loss, we come to the end of ourselves.”
Jairus was knocked off his fit and
onto his knees. He was at the end of hope. And at the center of it all we see him
on his knees—he has cast himself totally upon Jesus in faith. “She’s sick,
Jesus. Come. Lay your hands on her. Heal her. Save her.”
Jairus’ plea for mercy is Mark’s echo of the running refrain of Psalm 107 (we read part of it last week, remember?). In that psalm (Psalm 107), each time the people find themselves at the end of their rope—and, poetically, you'll notice how the psalmist moves us into a low, low place along with them—each time the people are as low as can be, they cast themselves totally upon the mercy of God:
Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them… then they cried to the Lord in their trouble!They fell down, with no one to help… then they cried to the Lord in their trouble!They drew near to the gates of death… then they cried to the Lord in their trouble!They reeled and staggered like drunkards, and were at their wits’ end… then they cried to the Lord in their trouble!
How often haven’t you heard stories of people who have said, “It was when I was at the end of my rope…” (or) “It was when I had lost everything…” (or) “It was when I experienced the Dark Night of the Soul—It was when I had lost… all… hope…Gone was all my glory and all that I had hoped for—And then the softest voice of faith spoke inside me, What's this I recall again? Oh, yes, yes, I remember: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, God’s mercies are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness.And it was at that lowest point that I cast myself completely and totally on the mercy of the Lord in faith—and that dark, low point in my life is a time I remember like it was yesterday:It was the time I felt closest to God.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
References: Robert Stephen Reid. Preaching Mark. Chalice Press, 1999.
