Do Not Fear, Only Believe
“Now when Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him. 41 Just then there came a man named Jairus, a leader of the synagogue. He fell at Jesus’ feet and begged him to come to his house, 42 for he had an only daughter, about twelve years old, who was dying.
As he went, the crowds pressed in on him. 43 Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years; and though she had spent all she had on physicians, no one could cure her. 44 She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his clothes, and immediately her hemorrhage stopped. 45 Then Jesus asked, “Who touched me?” When all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the crowds surround you and press in on you.” 46 But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; for I noticed that power had gone out from me.” 47 When the woman saw that she could not remain hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before him, she declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed. 48 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”
July 28, 2013
Luke 8:40-56, Do Not Fear, Only Believe
Doug Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church
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49 While he was still speaking, someone came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead; do not trouble the teacher any longer.” 50 When Jesus heard this, he replied, “Do not fear. Only believe, and she will be saved.” 51 When he came to the house, he did not allow anyone to enter with him, except Peter, John, and James, and the child’s father and mother. 52 They were all weeping and wailing for her; but he said, “Do not weep; for she is not dead but sleeping.” 53 And they laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. 54 But he took her by the hand and called out, “Child, get up!” 55 Her spirit returned, and she got up at once. Then he directed them to give her something to eat. 56 Her parents were astounded; but he ordered them to tell no one what had happened.”
In his first Inaugural Address, on March 4, 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated perhaps the most famous fear quote of all time: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified, terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” From the angel’s announcement of Jesus’ birth to the word of the angels announcing the resurrection of Jesus at the empty tomb, one of the core messages of the Gospels can be summed in the words, “Do not fear, don’t be afraid, fear not.” God knows there are a lot of situations in our world today that are making people fearful, but the Lord doesn’t want us living in the paralyzing grip of fear.
In today’s Gospel reading we encounter two situations which might cause someone to be fearful: a twelve year old girl who is dying and a woman with a chronic physical condition that she’s had for twelve years that no one has been able to heal. If you can picture this scripture like a movie from the perspective of Jairus, the leader of the synagogue, you get a better feel for the tension and drama. The scene opens with Jairus, the father of the girl, bowing on the ground before Jesus, begging him with urgent desperation, to come immediately and heal his daughter, his only child, who is at the point of death. There is no time to lose, and our first reaction is supposed to be, “I hope Jesus can get there in time to save the girl.” But as Jesus and Jairus are on the way, their progress is slowed by a crowd of people pressing in on them, as many want to see Jesus and be healed.
Among them is an unnamed woman who has been dealing with an issue for twelve years but who believes with all her heart that Jesus can heal her. There is the whole encounter with her and Jesus feels power flow from him and she is made well and it’s amazing, but put yourself in Jairus’s sandals. He has to be thinking to himself, “We’re losing precious time; my daughter is at death’s door, we have to hurry.” His worst fears are confirmed when messengers arrive with the sad news, they are too late, his daughter is dead. Jesus challenges Jairus to hold on to his faith even when life and the messengers might cause him to doubt. “Do not fear. Only believe, and she will be saved.” This moment in time between hearing the news of his daughter’s death and her being healed is where most of us need to lean into our faith and starve our fear. Amazingly Jesus restores the girl to life and to her parents.
There are many different situations we may have to deal with or face in life that can cause us to be afraid or to doubt God’s compassion, love, mercy, faithfulness or even God’s existence. There are many scriptures that offer examples of such times including Psalm 30 which is a prayer of someone who is seriously ill or coping with some physical problem. There is the Book of Lamentations which speaks especially to those who are grieving and coping with loss which is true for many of our families right now. I have spent a great deal of time since early June with families who have lost loved ones. In addition to those who are grieving, I have also spoken to men and women who have serious medical issues, seen people whose bodies & minds are breaking down, people who are struggling with key relationships, others are facing the challenges of getting older or experiencing depression. There are those who have serious financial problems. Some folks are struggling with several of these at once. Those of us who find ourselves in these sorts of circumstances can relate to the pain of the people in Lamentations or of Jairus. And all of us can benefit from the words of faith, hope, & love in Lamentations 3:21-26:
“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:
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.”
The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”
These few verses in this little-read book of the Bible offer some of the best advice for how to cope in life’s most difficult moments. I suspect both Jairus and the woman in today’s gospel had heard these words before, which is why they were seeking Jesus’ help. What can we call to mind, what can we remember that will give us hope when our hearts are breaking? When we hold on to the truth that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, that the Lord never stops reaching out to us regardless of our circumstances, then, we can still have hope. Not only that, but God’s mercies never come to an end, every single day God’s mercy is revealed to us in new ways if we have eyes to see it. Sometimes we may have to look harder than other times. God’ faithfulness to us is beyond our comprehension. We believe the Lord is good to those who wait for him, to those who seek him.
The two stories in one from the Gospel of Luke are about illness and death; circumstances that can cause us to be afraid or to doubt God. There are also situations when life causes us to doubt that are more subtle, private, or invisible to some extent at least to other people; an illness that isn’t life threatening, but difficult, like the unnamed woman in the gospel; family situations, strains in relationships, or even the need to feel needed or of value. There are visible, obvious crisis situations – ones that we often see on our prayer list or in the news, such as in Syria or Egypt, but there is another layer of situations that are powerful and impact us too… that are more personal, perhaps some things we don’t even feel comfortable saying aloud that can cause us to be fearful.
Jesus says to Jairus “Do not fear. Only believe, and she will be saved.” Fear is not something we want to cultivate or encourage. When we’re in situations that cause us to be afraid or fearful, then reminding ourselves of God’s promises and God’s character is helpful. When we’re facing difficult challenges, doing what Jairus and the woman in the Gospel do – seeking out and trusting Jesus– can help to overcome our fear. Perhaps one of the best known scriptures about not being fearful is the 23rd Psalm.
In it, we’re told that the presence of our Shepherd delivers us from our fear of evil as we journey through life, even through the darkest valley on the way to new pastures. God is there for us to lean on, to help us find our way.
God believes we can get through the valley. One of the most important truths in Psalm 23:4 is that we don’t stop and we don’t stay in the dark valley, whatever it is. We are walking through. “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” I think this is part of what Jesus is trying to remind Jairus. Even in death, when Psalm 23 is used at a funeral, we are affirming that the one who died is passing through to a more exalted life with the Lord. In the book of Deuteronomy, God warns us that the human tendency in times of prosperity, health, and safety, is not to think as much about the nearness or the importance of the Lord. God’s presence may not seem as needed or urgent. But when we are in a dark valley, the fact that God is near is even more important. Who will be with us in every situation, in every dark trial, in every dismal disappointment, in every distressing dilemma, God says to us, “I’ll be.”
Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town, was written about events that occurred in the very early years of the 20th century in a small town called Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire. The main character of the story is named Emily. The story deals with the preciousness of time and the gift of life, the meaning of which we often miss. Emily dies, and in a conversation she has with the saints departed, she asks to go back to Grover’s Corner for one day. She chooses her twelfth birthday (when she is the same age as Jairus’s daughter). It tears at your soul, because the words are really about your life, and mine. She goes back and watches what happens in the kitchen, the living room, the dining room, and outside the house. She notices that people, even the people in her immediate family, don’t seem to notice one another. They go about their busy lives preoccupied. She finally cries out, as if her mother might hear her, “Oh, Mama, Mama, just look at me, look at me for a minute, as though you really see me, just for a moment now, while we’re all together. Mama, let’s be happy. Let’s look at one another and really see each other.” But their life goes on, preoccupied and fleeting. Emily turns to the stage manager, the character off to the side, who plays a very important role, and she says, “Life goes so fast. We don’t even have time to look at one another. I didn’t realize this while I was living. We never noticed.”
At the end, almost broken-hearted, she asks to be taken back to heaven.
As she’s just about to leave, she looks back, over her shoulder, and she says, “Good-bye world, good-bye Grover’s Corner, good-bye Mama and Papa, good-bye good taste of coffee, good-bye new ironed dresses and clocks ticking and hot baths, good-bye sleeping and waking. Oh life, oh life, you’re too wonderful. Why don’t we realize?” She then turns to the stage manager and says, “Does anybody do it? Does anybody really notice?” The stage manager answers, “Some do, poets, saints, artists, but very few.”
I thought about that scene because of how different Emily’s experience was from Jairus’s daughter. Can you imagine the story that she had to tell for the rest of her life? I suspect she and her parents hugged each other pretty tightly that day. The same goes for the woman who was healed; I imagine she was happy to share with anyone the story of her encounter with Jesus and how he did for her what no one else could do. Think of this young girl and this woman: one had died and the other had a chronic issue for 12 years. One had faith and the other had someone bringing Jesus to her. Both of their experiences have been preserved in the Gospels and told unnumbered times through the ages as a reminder to us to have faith, not to fear but to believe, and to keep trying to get our family members and friends to Jesus and his compassionate, healing power.