"23 When Jesus came into the official’s house, and saw the flute-players and the crowd in noisy disorder, 24 He said, “Leave; for the girl has not died, but is asleep.” And they began laughing at Him. 25 But when the crowd had been sent out, He entered and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. 26 This news spread throughout all that land."
If you have recently received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, please write and let us know so that we can pray for you. Also, let us know if you would allow us to share your story. Each one of us have been blessed with a unique testimony. We'd love to hear yours.
Hardships are a normal part of life, often leading us to think that God has somehow abandoned us. Times when you cry out to God and He seems to be silent. God often uses trials and challenges to accomplish His purposes and plans, to deepen our faith and help us to grow closer to Him. Especially, when He is all we seem to have left. I believe that it is important to remember that, during those times we fail to see God's hand move, He is hard at work intervening on our behalf.
I pray that you are not experiencing any serious difficulties in your lives, if not, you can be sure they will come eventually. On this side of eternity, difficulties are just a fact of life. Throughout the Bibles, we see that many experienced difficult and uncomfortable circumstances. Faith is a necessary requirement to help us endure difficult situations. As Christians, we can even learn to rejoice in trials, not for the trial itself but for what God is accomplishing in and through us. We can know the ultimate outcome will be for our good and His glory!
Unfortunately, what makes one person stronger, and become better also causes another to become weaker and wither away. There are two things that will bring you to Christ, a sense of desperation in your circumstances and the other is faith.
In Christ’s name we ask and pray.
Amen
Today's Message: Touching Jesus
Matthew wants us to understand the miraculous power of the Messiah. In chapter 8, he beautifully illustrated that Jesus has power over physical, spiritual, and moral disorders. Here in chapter 9, he shows us that He has power over death. You will remember in our last message, Jesus was having a conversation the followers of John the Baptist, when He was interrupted by a synagogue official came and bowed down before Him, and said, "My daughter has just died; but come and lay Your hand on her, and she will live." Jairus had a selfish motive, his daughter had just died. He had a desperate need and great faith. Nowhere do we see Jesus' power over death more clearly than in Him raising this girl from the dead.
It was a miracle within a miracle, part of the resurrection miracle. Within that miracle, we see Jesus dealing with the woman who had the issue of blood. She too had a desperate need, she could not be healed by anyone, and she had faith Jesus could heal her. In Mark's account, we learned she "had endured much at the hands of many physicians." In both situations, we see a marvelous glimpse of how Jesus dealt with people who had a desperate need. He stops what He's doing and addresses their concerns. Jesus' entire life was in accessibility meeting the needs of people. Out of the mass of crowds, everything that was happening around Him, His focus is on a man and a woman. One is need, and the other is faith, they both had the faith to be saved. Neither one of them deserved anything, yet in His compassion, He helped them. By the way, they demonstrated greater faith than even the disciples showed on a number of occasions. The disciples believed but had little faith. He was impartial. How powerfully this speaks to us today.
I believe it's important to note, that Jesus is setting the pattern for us in dealing with people who are in need. Even those who we may feel do not necessarily deserve it. He stopped what He was doing. He was sensitive to their need and He responded to them. What a tremendous principle. When Jesus Christ came into the world, in His availability, God became accessible. I love that.
You know, so many Christians today think they're too important to be bothered by those they believe to be "lesser," than, those who are "unworthy of their valuable time and money." Allow me to remind you of Paul's words to the Corinthians in chapter 1, "For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God."
It's no wonder critics have looked at the church and sighed, "If those people are supposed to represent God, I don't need Him! Hypocrites." The Creator of the entire universe, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, God Himself was available, He was accessible, He was impartial, He was no respecter of persons. All throughout the New Testament Scripture, we find that Jesus stopped what He was doing and helped multitudes upon multitudes of people. In John 13, Jesus Himself said "Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them."
Have you even read the Bible? Who do we think we think we are? We're too busy or too good for those in need? We who profess to have so much love, so much worship and so much respect for Jesus Christ, I mean, please, please; Examine yourselves!
In that day, in the Jewish culture, a funeral was very different, it was very noisy. There were professional mourners, paid women wailing, there were musicians, everybody was making a lot of noise. So because this was a very important man, this would have been very a big, noisy funeral. The Talmud said, it should be in accord with your wealth. Now that we have a little information on the background, let move on to today's passage.
"When Jesus came into the official’s house, and saw the flute-players and the crowd in noisy disorder, He said, “Leave; for the girl has not died, but is asleep.” And they began laughing at Him. But when the crowd had been sent out, He entered and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. This news spread throughout all that land."
First we come to verse 23, "When Jesus came into the official’s house, and saw the flute-players and the crowd in noisy disorder," because the synagogue official likely had substantial wealth, when Jesus came into the official’s house, there would have been a number of people weeping and wailing, musicians playing flutes all over the place. We can just imagine what this funeral would have like, it was a very noisy event. Jesus has already that she’s dead, Jairus told Him. That's why He's there, to raise her from the dead.
So Jesus comes in the house and He says in verse 24, "He said, "Leave; for the girl has not died, but is asleep." Jesus arrives and tells them to go away. Why would He do that? They're doing what is right, it's proper, the Talmud requires it. He's saying you have to stop treating as if she's dead, you have to treat her as if she’s just asleep. This is temporary. Look at the end of the verse, "And they began laughing at Him." All their weeping and wailing quickly turned to laughing. It's the verb "katagelaó," only used here. They ridiculed Him in scornful laughter reserved for mocking someone who is thought to be stupid. The implication is Jesus is going to wake her up, raise her from the dead and they laughed in His face. He got rid of them. The laughter of the crowd underlines the greatness of the miracle that Jesus was about to accomplish.
Verse 25 "But when the crowd had been sent out, He entered and took her by the hand, and the girl got up." He took her by the hand and said to her, "‘Talitha cumi.’" Which means little girl, arise. And she got up! Whose laughing now? Not them, they were astonished. By the way, He didn’t have to touch her, He could have just spoke the words "Little girl, arise." But He didn't, He took her by the hand in tender, loving compassion. In Luke's account he records "And her spirit returned, and she got up immediately; and He gave orders for something to be given her to eat." The is the pinnacle of the power of Jesus Christ. He has power over death. The keys of hell and death are in His hands. Beloved, we should not fear death, we should rejoice! He conquered death. He will not leave us there. When the dead hear His voice, they arise in life. When Christ touches somebody’s heart, they are no longer spiritually dead, they become spiritually alive.
In the next verse, he goes on to write " Her parents were amazed; but He instructed them to tell no one what had happened." We see in the next verse they couldn’t resist telling everyone. Look at verse 26 "This news spread throughout all that land." They inevitably caused the pressure on Him to increase as His enemies continued to move in even closer. Was the theology of Jairus correct? No. Was his knowledge of Christ complete? No. He was acting out of desperation in faith. And Jesus responded. Christ honors the person who in desperation and humility is seeking to touch Him.
In Closing...
It's strange, when we are having a rough time, when we're struggling to deal with crisis after crisis in our life, it is a great comfort to know that God is Sovereign and in complete control over the events in our life. There's peace knowing He is Lord. Other times, we struggle against His Sovereignty, we want Him to "butt out" so that we can rule our own life, making our own laws and living by our own rules. This is exactly what we're seeing in our nation today. Today they still laugh and scorn at His words.
We
want to live in rebellion to Him, celebrating what God calls sin. And
still expect Him to bless our lives. That's not how it works. There will
be consequences for our actions. The key to God's blessing is in seeking His will, obeying His commands. If you walk away from an experience with Jesus, just as lonely, just as broken, just as sinful and wicked, just as miserable and as sick as you when you came to Christ, that because you never touched Him! The power of Jesus defeats the power of sin.
May it be so..
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
Copyright © 2019-2022 All Rights Reserved