It's impossible to interrupt Jesus, right?
We shouldn't treat people like interruptions, because Jesus
doesn't treat people like interruptions.
Mark Chapter 5, verse 21 will go until the end of the chapter.
Usually we stand for the reading of God's Word before the
preaching, but today we're going to skip that.
I love that. Symbolically, it shows us that
God's Word is higher than the preacher's word, but we're
skipping it this morning for a simple reason.
And that's because I want to hide the ending of this amazing
story from you. That way we can walk through it
like a story, because this story is in amazing testimony to the
mindblowing perfections of Jesus.
And if you can stick with this sermon for the next 30 minutes,
I think that perhaps you'll see increased clarity, the
perfections and the glory and the worth of Jesus in a way that
maybe you've never thought of it before.
So my only ask of you over these next 30 minutes is that you try
your best, regardless of what's going on in your mind, to stay
locked into the roller coaster, stay locked into the drama, stay
locked into the tension, stay locked into the roller coaster
of this story to the best of your ability from beginning to
end. And then we'll ask the question,
are you an interruption? So let's start at the beginning
of the story, which is at verse 21.
So Jesus has just crossed the he's just crossed the sea.
When he got to the other end of the sea, he healed a demon
possessed man. He was kicked out of that area.
So he's crossed back over to the sea.
And right when he gets back to the sea.
What happens, verse 21, when Jesus has crossed again in the
boat to the other side? Well, a great crowd gathered
around him, and he was beside the sea.
Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Gyrus, my name.
And seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet and implored him earnestly,
saying, My little daughter is at the point of death, my girls at
my girl is at death's doorstep, is the way one commentator
translated it. My daughter is at the point of
death. Please come and lay your hands
on her so that she might be made well and live.
And Jesus went with him and then a great crowd followed him and
thronged all about him. Pause the story for a second.
So just like his last trip at like, what is it about Jesus?
Okay, just like his last trip, as Jesus, soon as he gets to the
shore, somebody's already sprinting over to him.
Exactly like the last time you went to shore, except this time
it's not a demon possessed man, it's a religious leader, a local
ruler of the synagogue. So if you want to draw kind of a
modern comparison, the dude is like a pastor.
He what we know about local synagogue rulers was that he
ruled over the local synagogue in that area.
His primary job would have been overseeing people, teaching and
make sure that the teachings of the synagogue were Orthodox and
in accordance with the Old Testament scriptures.
And so this religious leader, this pastor, this this local
leader immediately sprints over to Jesus.
He's probably got crazy eyes, the swirly eyes that you see in
cartoons. He's probably got snot running
and out of his nose. He falls at Jesus's feet and he
says, Jesus, my daughter is on the doorstep of death.
This is a man who's at the end of his rope, moments away.
And so Jesus, seeing the pain and suffering of a father on the
verge of losing a child, goes with him.
But as Jesus starts to walk with Gyrus to Gyrus's home for this
healing, there's a little detail that we need to remember.
And the detail is this. This little girl is on the
doorstep of death. Do you understand that?
There's a Jesus is he's on a ticking time clock right now.
There's not a second to spare. There's not a moment to spare
and as they walk towards the religious leaders home with the
hopes of getting there in time to perform the healing, the
worst possible imaginable thing happens.
An interruption. We don't have time for an
interruption. 1st 25 They're walking towards Gyrus's home.
And then there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12
years and who had suffered much under many physicians.
That's a haunting phrase, suffered much under many
physicians, depending on the commentator.
Some people think that not only did the physicians not make her
better, but they made her worse. Some academics think this might
be a reference to abuse, others a reference to the physicians
merely using her illness in order to make a profit, in order
to make a buck wherever you fall in that spectrum.
Either way, sad stuff. She had spent all that she had,
and not only was she not better, but rather she grew worse.
But then she began to hear the reports of Jesus and came up
behind him in the crowd on his way to Gyrus's home.
Reached out and just touched his garment.
Touched it right for, she said. Even if I touch his garments, I
will be made well and immediately the flow of blood
dries up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her
disease. Pause the story for a second.
Let's think about this woman, this interruption.
A discharge of blood is not a minor inconvenience in the
ancient world. It's probably, it's not even a
minor convenience even in the modern world, but doubly so,
triply so in the ancient world. And it's certainly not a minor
inconvenience when it's been happening for 12 years.
OK, So a discharge of blood would make somebody ceremonially
on clean in the Jewish world for up to seven days after the
discharge had dried. So that means that if she's been
struggling with this discharge of blood for 12 years, she's
been ceremonially on clean for 12 years.
You know what that's like. That's 12 years.
If she has a family of not being able to come into contact with
her family, that's 12 years of being an outsider to the
religious world as 12 years of being an outsider to society at
large. Here's the point.
Just like the demon possessed man earlier in Chapter 5, this
woman, for all intensive purposes for the last 12 years,
this woman is dead to the world, OK?
And the world is dead to her. So when she reaches out in faith
and touches Jesus's garment and believes for her healing and
feels the flow of blood growing up, what she's just experienced
is not merely a healing, although it is that.
What she's just experienced is a resurrection.
She got her life back. She got her friends back, right?
If she had a family, she gets her family back.
She gets her kids back. This coming Sunday, she gets to
go back into the synagogue and worship God.
This is amazing, but I want you to remember something as all of
this is happening, Remember one detail.
Gyrus's daughter is at the doorstep of death.
They don't have time to spare. We don't have time to spare.
This woman just brought her problems out of nowhere and have
slowed down the Messiah from where he needs to go and what he
needs to do. This woman, in her uncleanness,
has just slowed Jesus down and it makes the person wonder
what's going to happen to the young girl.
What's Gyrus doing right now? OK, can't this wait for like
another eight hours? Jesus, let's go right.
This is not the time to be slowing down.
Did these fatal few seconds cause the difference between
saving a life and losing a life? There she is.
She's experienced this profound healing.
But then things go from bad to worse.
She reaches out, touches the garment, experiences healing,
and then things get even worse. Jesus stops walking, turns
around. No time to spare, not the time
for interruptions. And Jesus, what's going on?
He just stops walking. Look at this verse 30.
Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from
him, immediately turned around in the crowd and said, Who
touched my garments because I was like we.
We talking about everybody's touching you right now, right?
The disciple said to him. You see the crowd pressing
around you and yet you say who touched me.
You could think about that all week, right?
Turns out you can bump into Jesus.
You can touch Jesus and not touch him.
You understand? Everybody's touching you.
What do you mean? Who touched you?
And then Jesus, you got to love this, looked around to see who
had done it. Right?
Now is not the time to be a teacher, but here's Jesus going.
We don't have time for this. We're on a shot clock right now.
And so the woman, knowing what had happened to her verse 33,
came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told
him the whole truth. Pause the story.
What's happening right here is that this woman fears that she
has just taken something precious from Jesus without
asking. And you don't do that in the
ancient world. You certainly don't do that in
the ancient world in Rome if you're a woman.
And Jesus just stops, turns around and he asks who touched
my garment and he dramatically looks around and waits for an
answer. He scans the crowd around him.
Remember, right now is not the time to be scanning around
what's happening to Gyrus's daughter.
What does Gyrus think right now? She's on death's doorstop.
These fatal few seconds could be the difference between life and
death. And this woman breaks down, snot
and everything, confesses that it was her.
And here comes the public rebuke from Jesus.
Right here comes the public rebuke from the Messiah.
How dare you take something without asking?
How how dare you slow me down? How dare you interrupt me?
Don't you know that I've got things to do?
Don't you know that I've got to go heal a little girl so that
she doesn't die? Don't slow me down, right?
Is this your view of Jesus? Because while she's expecting a
rebuke, A rebuke doesn't come. Jesus looks at her knowingly,
nods, probably smiles, and says verse 34, Daughter, your faith
has made you well, go in peace and be healed of your disease.
Jesus knew the whole time who touched his robe.
He's got in the flesh. He knew that it was her.
What he's doing right now is he's strategically singling this
woman out, not to rebuke her. He's singling her out in order
to honor her and praise her. Not only does she not get
rebuked, she gets put forward in front of this entire crowd of
people as the model of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.
That's what he's doing. By singling her out, he's
saying, hey, this is what faith looks like.
Your faith has made you well. Your faith is awesome.
I love this kind of faith. He's saying this is what faith
looks like, right? He's saying to the entire crowd
of people, Hey, right here, what this woman just did.
This is Christianity. This is this beautiful,
beautiful moment. They're having this amazing
moment. Your faith has made you well.
I love your faith. But remember, now is not the
time for amazing moments. The clock's ticking.
What's going on with Gyrus's daughter?
Did these precious few moments did this one interruption make
the difference between life and death?
And just then, while Jesus is celebrating this healing,
smiling over this woman and honoring and celebrating her
healing, the worst imaginable news comes verse 35, while he
was still speaking there came from the ruler's house.
Some who said your daughter is dead.
Stop bothering him. Why trouble the teacher any
further? OK, So what happens?
The little girl dies and man I it just makes you want to pull
your hair out, right? We could have prevented this,
right? Gyrus has got to be thinking,
Where were you like last year? I have a buddy of mine who's a
pastor and a church planter and and he lost his wife to suicide.
And I remember going to the funeral and seeing him walk in
with his kids without his wife. And I remember seeing him walk
to his chair. And then he sat down with his
kids. And I just wanted to ball my
fists up, just be like, God, where were you we doing?
He gets to his seat with his kids at the funeral, puts his
hands on his kids, and he prays for him.
I'm just like, man. All I could think was I couldn't
do that. Like I would just.
I would just be lost. I would be lost.
I'd be irreparably broken. He was his man, praying for his
kids and leading them in worship at his wife's funeral.
He just filled me with rage. I was just like, Lord, what are
you doing? Like this dude gives his life to
you. Preaches about you.
Every Sunday. Blended church for your glory.
You just let his wife die. And like, Gyrus has got to feel
that way, right? He's like, you could have done
it. You could have done it.
And instead you let this woman with her problem of a bloody
just charge slow you down. And now my daughter's gone,
Right, Well, like, where were you?
That's got to be what he's feeling right now.
If you had gotten there in time, my little girl would still be
alive. And then the story, just this
story, is unbelievable. Verse 36, Jesus hears what they
said, but over hearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of
the synagogue Do not fear, only believe.
And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and
John and their brother of James. And they came to the House of
the ruler of the synagogue. And Jesus saw this commotion,
people weeping and wailing loudly.
And when he had answered, he said to them, only Jesus could
do this right? Why are you making a commotion
and weeping? The child's not dead, but
sleeping, and they laughed at him.
So pause the story. The people who are weeping and
wailing in the story right now, they're they're probably not
family members. Most commentators think that
these are mourners okay. So this is going to help put
things into perspective here a little bit.
In the ancient world, mourners were a professional Guild of the
careerist opportunist okay. So even the poorest people in
the ancient world, when a loved one died, they would pay at
minimum 2 mourners for the event.
These people would be paid to come to the event, the death,
and the funeral, to weep loudly and wail loudly at the death.
Because by doing this, that would encourage the people
present at the death and present at the funeral to engage in
weeping and wailing too. And so essentially, when you
think about these people who are weeping and and wailing, these
are these are mourners who have built a career that's dependent
on death. And so when Jesus says that
she's only sleeping, they feel threatened, right?
So they do what? They laugh at them.
I was struck by this note in a commentary on Mark on these
mourners. This commentator said quote, the
professional mourners here represent the hardcore cynics of
every age who decide when empirical realities have
foreclosed on. Divine possibilities, maybe.
You know some mourners. It's okay to mourn.
Jesus is not tearing into people who are mourning.
He's ripping into the mourners, the professional cynics, right,
who love to laugh in the face of divine miracles and fill people
with the poison of cynicism. They laugh at Jesus, but who
ends up being right, Jesus or the Cynics?
Verse 40. They laughed at him, but he put
them all outside and took the child's father and mother and
those who were with them. And when and where the little
girl was taking her by the hand, right?
Takes the little girl by the hand.
He says to her it's Alitha Kumi, which means little girl I say to
you will rise, right? It's like it's like this little
child. It's time to get up.
That's what it sounds like to the Greek ear, right?
Or the Hebrew or whatever. It's time to get up, verse 42.
And immediately the girl gets up and she begins walking.
For she was 12 years of age and they were immediately overcome
with amazement. And he strictly charged them
that no one should know this and told them to give her something
to eat. Oh, it's like, woof.
What a story, right? And you listen to a story like
that, and you can't help but wonder where you go with that,
right? We could talk about Jesus as the
resurrection, and that would be great.
And we could do that for another 30 minutes.
We could talk about the divine possibility in the face of grim
reality, and that would take another 30 minutes.
So instead of going one of those two routes, here's what I'm
going to do. I'm going to say what I feel
like saying this morning and pray that it's what God wants to
say to our church this morning. Here's where I want to go.
Don't treat people like interruptions.
Notice the shape of this text. There's a desperate story about
somebody at the end of their rope unfolding, and then
somebody interjects themself into the story, seemingly as an
interruption. But instead, Jesus treats the
interruption like a human and after giving this person his
attention. Then Jesus tends to the original
problem and solves it. This is what scholars call a
sandwich story, and many commentators have commentated
endlessly about how the shape of the story influences the meaning
of the story. And here's what I take from this
It's impossible to interrupt Jesus, right?
We shouldn't treat people like interruptions because Jesus
doesn't treat people like interruptions.
And so, like, I spent a lot of time thinking about what my
daughter said to me earlier this week, because when she said it
to me, I hadn't even started prepping for the sermon.
So I think maybe Della is a prophet.
I don't know. She said that to me.
I've been thinking about it all week.
Right, Dad? Why don't you ever laugh at my
jokes? And again, inside my soul, the
hard thing was that I knew the answer.
It's because I'm busy and because I treat you like an
interruption. Sweetie, we just need to, honey.
Right. We just need to.
We just need to get to the car. We just need to get to the
grocery store. I just.
I just got to do XI. Got to get my servant done.
Got to do scheduling. I got to do this right, honey.
Just just got to get X done, got to get Y done, got to never slow
down, don't stop. And you end up treating your
daughter's attention like an interruption.
And ironically, it's it's unbelievable because the best
part of my week, this last week, was when I said yes to the
interruption. You know, like it's just amazing
the way it works. It was like later later that
week, my son, my older son came up to me.
It was like 15 minutes after bedtime and and we needed to go
to bed. And he starts poking me, right?
It's like 815. He starts poking me.
I'm like, dude, now it's not the it's not the time to wrestle,
right? He wanted a rough house.
He wanted to throw some punches with me.
He wanted to wrestle around. He starts poking me.
Everything in me was like, everything in me was like okay
bud. But we got to get to bed, pack
it up. I'm not telling you how to pair
okay. You put your kids down whenever
you need to. He starts poking me.
I see it as an interruption. And I I I felt like I heard the
Lord just be like, hey, what if it's not an interruption?
What if it's an opportunity? So I was just like, all right,
let's do this and we start wrestling around for the next 10
or 15 minutes and I'm telling you highest point of my week by
a mile. It's just like laugh laughing so
hard that we ended up crying like just delirious joy and and
it just it struck me like was as I was thinking about the story.
It struck me that if we look at people through the the eyes of
the flesh, we always see people as interruptions.
But by faith, through grace, if we can look at people through
the eyes of Jesus, we see interruptions as possibilities
and everything unfolds itself and everything changes, and you
end up experiencing these incredible invitations to joy.
And so all week long I've been feeling God saying to me through
these stories, Cole don't treat people like interruptions.
And that's that's important because Jesus, this is what
Jesus is like. And we should be like Jesus.
And being Christ like is really, really important.
And as important as this is, it's actually not the bottom of
the story. There's something one inch
deeper in this story than just a moral platitude.
No matter how true the moral platitude is, and the thing
that's one inch deeper in this story, then don't treat people
like interruptions. The thing that's at the bottom
of this text is this. You're not an interruption to
Jesus. You're not an interruption to
Jesus. In fact, you can't interrupt
Jesus. Think about that.
Jesus has never been interrupted.
He's too divine for that, too perfect for that, too sovereign
for that. And this is going to take some
getting used to, I think, because we've all had well
meaning. Religious people beat it out of
our heads, right? Like it usually comes like this.
You ready? You think God cares about your
cold while there's world wars out there?
It's like, well, gosh, certainly not right.
You think. You think God cares about your
football game or your volleyball game when there's demons and
murderers out there? We all hear this kind of
religious crap and we walk away thinking, I mean, yeah, if Jesus
had to choose between my little problems and cosmic problems, of
course my little problem of depression or sadness or sorrow
or struggle with sin or cold or flu, of course my little
problems are nothing but a mere interruption to Jesus.
I think God cares about your sadness.
Well, there's people starving all over the world.
And when I read this story, I think, yeah, I do.
I do think he cares about that. In fact, I think the reason why
he cares about that is precisely because of his character.
He is sovereign, and because he's sovereign, he never has to
choose about what to care about. Jesus has never had to choose
about what to care about. He's so sovereign that he can
care about the cosmos and the hairs on your head.
He can care about the Hurricanes and care about things that only
a microscope can see. He can care about all of
humanity while caring about little unimportant you.
Since he's God, he doesn't have to choose.
You've never I don't care what your request was.
I don't care what your prayer was.
No matter how trite it seemed to you, no matter how trivial it
seemed to you, you have never interrupted Jesus.
You don't have that power. Jesus has never been
interrupted. And man, I think if only one
person this morning walked away from the sermon thinking, you
know what? All of my problems matter to
Jesus. All of my prayers matter to
Jesus, no matter how small, no matter how trivial they are.
And so I think I'm just from here on out, I think I'm just
going to voice it all to Jesus. If one person walked away from
that this morning, the whole sermon would be worth it, right?
If one person walked away thinking, you know what?
I'm actually not in an interruption, right?
Because of the gospel of Jesus, I am forgiven.
I'm covered in his blood, I'm covered in his righteousness.
And that means that everything about me, every little thing in
my life, matters to Jesus. In fact, when you approach Jesus
like the woman with the bleeding problem or gyrus with his
daughter on the doorstep, or you with your issues, right,
whatever, it is when you approach Jesus with any sort of
request because of the gospel, the King of Glory hands, he
holds up a hand to all the angels around his throne and he
says, shh, my daughter is speaking, shh, my son is
speaking. That's how important you are
because of the gospel of Jesus. But I I deeply believe I've just
become convinced of this this week, that in the deepest part
of my heart, that even while Jesus is saving sinners and
casting out demons and exercising sovereignty over
every square inch of the cosmos and upholding the world with the
word of his mouth, he's still the type of God who laughs at my
daughter's jokes. So bring it all.
Your bleeding problems, your bloody nose, right?
Being at the the doorstep of death, Your sadness, your
sorrow, bring it all to Jesus. You're not an interruption.
And to quote one of my favorite TV characters of all time, let's
address the larger than average size elephant in the room.
And then we'll be done. Here's the elephant.
Why doesn't Jesus always bring back people from the dead today?
Maybe you've lost somebody that you love and Jesus didn't bring
them back from the dead. Why didn't Jesus bring back my
pastor friend's wife? And the answer to the question
is actually profoundly simple. I don't know.
Because in loss we end up asking questions to which there are no
answers, and a broken heart refuses any cold, logical,
detached answers that logic could ever give, right?
And that's why Jesus's response to suffering seems to be less
about giving an answer and more about giving us himself.
And so I don't have an answer to that question.
And if I did give you some logical tidied up answer, you'd
probably want to punch me in the mouth.
The heart refuses cold, detached logic, and Jesus knows that.
So why doesn't he bring our loved ones back from the dead
all the time? Today let's throw our hands up
in the air and say I don't know because we don't know.
But there's one thing I do know from this text.
Death is merely an interruption, and there will be a day when
Jesus comes back to Foley and finally defeat the powers of
darkness. And in doing so, he will cast
death into the lake of fire and finally create a perfect and new
world, free from pain and free from suffering.
And on that day, he'll take your loved ones by the hand.
He'll take you by the hand, take you by the hand.
And I'll say the child, it's time to get up.