Sermon: Holding Onto Hope
February 2nd, 2020 Rev. Betsy Perkins
First Baptist Church, Delavan WI
Scripture passage: Mark 5:21-43, Psalm 131
Two Daughters
Last week we heard Jesus’ story of two sons – both were lost, each in their own way, whether through sinful waywardness or through self-righteousness goodness. Both sons were in need of a true elder brother, One who would seek them out, find them, and bring them home. This morning we hear a story of two daughter – both are also lost. Only this time they are lost to disease and death, lost of hope for life. Both of them are in need of a true healer, One who can save them and restore them to their families, just as the sons were invited to be restored to their father and family.
Unlike the two sons, however, this is not just a story illustration that Jesus is using to teach the gathered crowd about the true nature of God. The 2 daughters are real people, real families are affected, real fear and real hope hang in the balance as Jesus makes his way across town.
The events begin to unfold with Jairus’ daughter first. Jairus is a leader in the local Jewish synagogue – like the moderator in our congregation, perhaps. He is desperate to find healing for his dying daughter. So desperate that he is willing to come to Jesus, and fall at Jesus’ feet. Jesus has gained a reputation for miraculous healing, but he is also gaining a reputation as a bit of a rebel, as a trouble-maker for the Jewish leadership. So making this request of Jesus was taking a risk for Jairus, and yet he pleads, begs, grovels, before the one he believes is his only hope.
As Jairus, Jesus, and the crowd head off to Jairus’ home, a second daughter enters the scene – a daughter with notable contrasts to the other daughter as well as with some similarities. The little girl is identified as a daughter right from the start; the woman only becomes ‘daughter’ when Jesus gives her that title and claims her as family. Jairus’ daughter is 12 years old; the woman has been suffering from her disorder for those same 12 years. The girl suffers from an acute illness that appears to have come on suddenly; the woman from a chronic illness that has cost her all she had over the years. Jairus is named, he is a prominent member of the community; the woman is unnamed and would have been an outcast from her community because of the nature of her illness. Both would be considered equally contaminating under Jewish law. Touching either a corpse or a menstruating woman was thought to defile all who came in contact with them and required a specific period of cleansing before one could once again enter into contact with the community, the family, or enter a holy place of worship, into God’s presence.
It makes me think of how we isolate those who have been in contact with what we believe to be a contagious person. I think of the millions of people in China and now in many other part of the world, being isolated away from community and family to try to contain the spread of the coronavirus. That contagious illness has now been declared a global health crisis by the World Health Organization in hopes that a global approach will save lives.
For the lives of the two daughters in Capernaum, there would seem to be little hope. Yet as Jairus falls on his knees, exposing his desperation, we also see that he clings to the hope that Jesus holds power over life and death. Jairus says, “Please come and put your hands on her, touch her, so that she will be healed and live.”
The suffering woman, too, clings to hope. Even after so much disappointment at the hands of doctors who had left her bankrupt, she was not yet bankrupt of hope. She had the hope that Jesus was different, that though him there could still be a future. “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed,” she thought.
Hope
What is hope? Jerome Groopman, an oncologist and Harvard medical school professor, did some research into hope which he published in a book titled, The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness. Dr. Groopman shares the stories of patients at critical moments in their lives as they reached for hope – for some it eluded their grasp, but others took hold of hope and held on tight. He writes, “Hope, I have come to believe, is as vital to our lives as the very oxygen that we breathe.” Through his research, Groopman discovered that there was “an authentic biology of hope. Belief and expectation – the key elements of hope – can block pain by releasing the brain’s endorphins and enkephalins, mimicking the effects of morphine.” The doctor said, “Hope, true hope, has proved as important as any medication I might prescribe or any procedure I might perform… I see hope as the very heart of healing.”
A key finding in the study was that hope was different than optimism. Hope didn’t come from being told the ‘think positively’. Hope didn’t grow from hiding the difficult details and giving an overly rosy prognosis. The doctor discovered that true hope had no room for delusion, instead it was rooted in reality. “True hope is clear-eyed,” he puts it. “It sees all the difficulties that exist and all the potential for failure, but through that carves a realistic path to a better future.”
Barriers to Hope
There are some things that get in the way of hope, some barriers to hope. As Dr. Groopman implies, there is the danger of false hope. This kind of hope refuses to face the facts. This kind of hope knows something is wrong, but tries to ignore it in the ‘hope’ that it will just go away.
The World Health Organization has praised China’s quick response and prompt reporting in dealing with the new coronavirus, as compared to how they dealt with the SARS outbreak in 2003. That was kept under wraps for several months, exposing more people and delaying preventative measures. In 2003 there was a false hope that it could be kept secret, that the initial fatality rate would not continue, that the illness could be contained without the help of the global community.
Misinformation, disinformation, hiding the truth, is actually a barrier to true hope. As he examined it, Dr. Groopman learned that true hope “gives the courage to confront our circumstances and the capacity to surmount them.” Jesus told us that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, who will lead us into all truth. And the truth sets us free, to take hold of hope.
Another barrier to hope is fear. We are told that after Jesus realized that healing power had gone out from him, he looked around for the one who had touched him. The woman realized she had been noticed, and came and fell at Jesus’ feet, trembling with fear. When we have struggles in our lives, there is a fear of what others might think, a fear of being exposed, a fear of being criticized or ostracized, as this woman experienced. Too often the church has acted as if it was still operating under the old laws of purity, acting as if it can be contaminated by reaching out to those who have done bad things, or suffered from particular illnesses (I think of how those with AIDS have been treated), or those who have experienced the brokenness of divorce, or those with different gender identities. But Jesus demonstrates that it is not the sickness that contaminates Him, rather His healing power overcomes. It flows out from Him rather than the other way around. He listens to the bleeding, outcast woman and relieves her fear as he accepts her and calls her ‘daughter’. “Go in peace,” he says, freed from suffering, freed from fear to really take hold of life and of hope.
Some people find that what blocks them from hope is the feeling of being undeserving of hope. The messengers from Jairus’ house say to him, “Why bother the teacher anymore?” In our Wednesday morning Bible study group there have been a few times when someone has shared a concern and then added “but I’m not sure I should bother God about this.” We are tempted to think God is too busy, that our problems are too small or even too big for God. Jesus shows us differently. He overhears the messengers trying to squelch Jairus’ hope, and says, No! Don’t be afraid. Just believe. Just have faith.” In the letter to the Hebrews, the definition of faith involves hope. It says, “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”(Heb.11:1) Jesus says to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid; just have faith;” have confidence in what you hope for.
But (you are probably thinking) his daughter has now died! And maybe as I have been talking about hope, you have been thinking about a loved one who did not survive an illness. Just this week, some in this congregation are grieving the loss of a friend, Brad Brown, who died of cancer. Others have been praying for a family that lost 2 young children in a tragic car accident, with the mother’s life hanging in the balance. Jairus’ daughter still dies, despite her father coming to Jesus in faith. Yet Jesus insists: death is not the final word. Jesus enters into the place where death and suffering are real and Jesus transforms it. Not always by bringing healing, as in this story, but by bringing faith and hope.
Hope is Jesus
Dr. Groopman affirms what we believe as Christians: “Even when there is no longer hope for the body, there is always hope for the soul.” This is because hope is so much bigger than simply physical healing. Hope is a relationship; hope is a person. Hope is Jesus himself.
Jesus did not allow fear of what people would think keep him from completing the mission his Father sent him to do. Jesus did not allow threats or discouragement or situations that were unfair, keep him from extending hope and offering life to all those who came to him. Jesus, too, had to suffer at the end of his life. He, too, died. It seemed like a hopeless situation. Yet through the power of God, Jesus overcame death. He broke a way through death to resurrection life, and opened the door for every person to live in hope. Not because death and suffering have been eliminated (that is yet to come!) but because suffering is not forever and death is not the end.
I have also struggled with illness. As most of you know, my immune system was out of whack and attacking parts of my own body, so it needed to be knocked down. I was vulnerable to infections. But in the past few weeks, an immunologist has discovered that other parts of my immune system have completely quit working and I have become even more vulnerable to infection. But this hope was held out to me: to receive immunity from the community – literally. This time it’s not just by all of you around me getting your immunizations; this time it’s receiving infusions of immunity that actually comes from other people. Amazingly, they are able to take the donated blood from tens of thousands of healthy people, and skim off the immunoglobulins and antibodies and give them to people like me. Through their sacrifice, their blood, I am healed.
As I sat in the hospital infusion center 2 weeks ago, with that gift of immunity dripping into me, I thought about how Jesus told his disciples that the sacrifice of his blood would bring healing, would bring a new way of living, a new hope for the world. Jesus longs for us to come to him with our fears and our desperation, with our brokenness and suffering, with our lostness, our strife, and promises to make something beautiful from it. Jesus is our hope!
Closing Song: “Something Beautiful”
Something beautiful, something good;
all my confusion he understood;
all I had to offer him was brokenness and strife,
but he made something beautiful of my life.
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