Brown's Daily Word 6-17-11

Good morning,
Praise the Lord for this new day. It is Friday now and Sunday is coming. Pray for our weekly TV out reach this evening at 7 PM on Time Warner Channel 4. One of our Ministry teams will prepare and serve a meal tomorrow at 12 noon at the First UMC Endicott and we will meet there again for Saturday Evening worship. I will be preaching and Laureen will be bringing special worship music.
This coming Sunday is Father's Day. Let us look at a dad who is briefly mentioned in the Gospels, a man named Jairus, who was deeply concerned about his daughter, a father with a sense of urgency.
Jairus was a prominent leader of the synagogue and a respected member of the community.. Jairus was a man of importance, yet he humbly knelt before Jesus. Jairus was a religious leader, but he was first and foremost a father. We don’t know his daughter’s name; we do know she was his only daughter. We don’t know what she thought about her father, but I think she came to know that faith was important to her dad. What we need today are fathers who bring Jesus to their home.
Though Jesus often at odds with the religious leaders, He was pleased to help this distraught father. Religious leaders often assaulted Jesus with theological arguments, but this leader came with a broken heart. Nothing is harder in life than seeing your child suffer. It was a risky thing for Jairus to approach Jesus, knowing how unpopular Jesus was with the Pharisees. In spite of this, Jairus put the welfare of his daughter in the hands of Jesus without reservation. He put his reputation on the line as well. He didn’t come at night, as Nicodemus had done, but in full view of the public. He could have sent a servant to find Jesus, but he came himself. Some things are too important to delegate.
Before Jairus could get Jesus to the child, Jesus was interrupted by a woman desperate for healing. Because of hemorrhaging, she was regarded as ceremonially unclean and unable to worship in the synagogue. She couldn’t even touch other people or they would become defiled. She was cut off from normal relations with others and apparently cut off from God. She was seen by many doctors and spent considerable money for treatments, but her condition was incurable. Even today we understand the limitations of medical science. In contrast to the physicians of the world we see here the capability of the Great Physician.
During this unscheduled healing Jairus was likely wishing Jesus would hurry up and share his sense of urgency. As they got closer to home, he was feeling a (short-lived) sense of relief. His optimism was dashed by blunt words from a messenger: “Your daughter has died; do not trouble the Teacher anymore.” Jairus must have felt at that awful moment the death of his hopes and dreams, and perhaps some resentment toward the sick woman who briefly interrupted them. Perhaps Jairus blamed himself for not coming to Jesus sooner. It didn’t help having the mourners laugh at Jesus when He claimed the girl was asleep. These mourners likely were angry at Jesus because He was not weeping with them, which they misinterpreted as a lack of respect for the family. They had no idea that life was about to triumph over death. Jesus ignored the mourners; He encouraged Jairus to “fear not, only believe.” It is possible to overcome fear, even in the face of death. If faith can cast out fear in the worst-case scenario that we can face, then faith can eliminate fear for any situation.
Jesus was not suggesting that the girl wasn’t dead, but that her death wasn’t permanent; she would be awakened from death by His miraculous power. There’s no doubt that the girl was dead because mourners were present. Jesus alluded to what He intended to do, to raise the girl up, as if she were merely sleeping. “Sleep” was a common word, a euphemism, for death in Bible times. Paul used the word “sleep” to describe death in I Corinthians 15, the Resurrection Chapter of the Bible.
Speaking the girl’s native Aramaic language, with authority and tenderness Jesus took her by the hand and she returned to life. Touching a dead body was another means of becoming ritually unclean, but in both miracles, Jesus turned what is unclean into wholeness; He overcame death and defilement. According to Jewish Law, if someone clean touches something unclean, then the person who was clean becomes defiled. It was not so with Jesus. He restored the girl, alive and well, to her parents. Because of her fatal illness, she had been unable to eat for some time, and Jesus knew she was in need of food. The mourners were astonished. The funeral plans were canceled.
What do we take from these two miracles? The compassion of Jesus should reassure us that He is never too busy with the rest of the world to care for us individually. Sometimes God’s delay brings a greater demonstration of His power, so we should never give up. The answer to fear is faith. When we’re tempted to question why God is taking so long to answer our prayers, we should remember our Lord’s delayed visit to Jairus’ home.
In Christ,
Brown

http://youtu.be/bDjwUzUnNpU