The Little Girl and the Frail Woman

Thanks, friends again, my name is Drew. I'm the pastor here and excited to open the Word with you a little bit. Not just our Jesus storybook Bible, which we love, but Scripture. Here we are in the book of Mark. And as a church here and this story, I was really excited this week when this story came up because this account is from Luke, but the same story of the little girl. There's just many, many nights I remember being even frustrated a little bit like that story. Again, as a parent, if you read the same stories over and over, sometimes you're like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. The same story, even to the point. This is a story that I would try to zip through so she'd go to bed. And if your kid knows a story well enough, they go like, you missed a part. She would miss parts. It's a story. I think it's incredible. I mean, as a dad, it's very encouraging to have your kids say, hey, I'm really scared. I'm really overwhelmed. Could you remind me with the gospel that it's okay. I mean, for my daughter, even when she's 4 years old, 3 years old, saying, I'm really scared. And this reminds me that God is good, that God wants to heal me, that God actually cares for me, that even. Even if death is what we're competing against, that our God is bigger and stronger than that. There's a reason why she wanted to read it. And I think this week most things we're going to read in the Book of Mark and through scripture fit right every day and everything. But this week, as I felt overwhelmed, that I felt like things are big and what do we do? And I had moments of like, just felt like you're spinning a little bit and a little bit of chaos. What a story to read. And I got to read it over and over as I was preparing for this and be reminded over and over that I really identify with all the people except Jesus, probably. But these girls, especially, even this frail woman of just being so desperate. I need healing, I need help. I don't know where to turn. And that there is a God who doesn't wait or say, let me think about it. What have you done for me? But quickly responds and then. So we are excited. We're in the Book of Mark. I'm excited to get in this. In this passage. We're going to walk through it together. We've been going through Mark for a while, and we will for a little while still. And we are in Mark 5 today. So if you have a Bible, you'd like to crack it open. We're in Mark 5 starting at verse 21. Otherwise, we do have Bible journals if you haven't gotten one yet, Mark, study journals are free to you. They're out on the tables if you want to grab one to take notes. But we are in this wonderful story of this woman who is healed by Jesus and this daughter who is healed, not just healed, but resurrected by Jesus. Let's, let's get into it. We're going to take a little time first to just walk through the passage, through the verses, really, kind of verse by verse, just quick. So we understand it, we know what's going on, and then take a few minutes to go. So what does that mean? What does God want us to understand about this verse in Mark? So let's get going here. This is Mark, the beginning of this verse as we see this, dad. And then Jesus had crossed again in a boat to the other side. A great crowd gathered about him. And he was beside the sea. If you remember the stories before this, Jesus has just crossed over the sea. Remember there was a storm and everyone got really, really anxious and nervous and afraid. And Jesus woke up. They woke Jesus up and he calmed the storm. And then he went and calmed this guy, right? There was a demon possessed man who was outside the city. He was deathly came out of the tombs and Jesus essentially resurrects him as well, heals him, changes him, sends him back in to tell everyone about, about what's happened. And now Jesus is back on the boat. They come back over the sea and as he gets off, this happens. Then he. Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name. And seeing him, he fell at his feet and implored him earnestly, saying, my little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her so that she may be well and live. So the things we know here, a guy named Jairus, he's actually named here, he's a ruler of the synagogue. So he's not a. He's not like a priest, but he's a guy who helps run the religious organization there, right? Like he's the one who is in the culture there, in the community there. He's a leader he's probably looked up to. He's probably his family's doing okay. Like he's maybe not real well off, but doing pretty well, just so you kind of get a feeling for him. And he's running and he says, my daughter is not well and to the point of death. So he's saying, she's very, very sick. We don't know if she's gonna make it. And he runs to Jesus to say, I need you. I implore you earnestly. Like, you hear the. Like, the heart in that? I need you because my little daughter is gonna die. And Jesus says yes to him. I need you to live. What an incredible moment even, right? Incredible picture of just all of us. I identify with Jairus. I need you to live. What a picture. And now the story is actually, after this, going to switch. Now. You'd think Mark was writing this story, he would go. And then Jairus walks with Jesus to his house and he heals his daughter, right? Well, the story actually switches. This happens a few times in Mark. I love it because people call it the Markan sandwich or the Markan interpolation. It's actually, they think happens around nine times in the book of Mark where we hear a story and then it, like, gets interrupted. The story kind of gets going, and then it's like you get a side story, you get, like, the side quest. You get kind of. It feels almost like a flashback to, like, here's another story. And sometimes it doesn't feel as clear, like, why that was happening, but it helps us. Mark is trying to help us understand what's really important here. He kind of fills out even what he's talking about here. So here we're gonna get this Mark and story, this Mark and sandwich, where it's Jairus and his daughter, and then we're gonna see this frail woman, this bleeding woman, and then Jairus and his daughter again. But there are one story that Mark wants us to hear, so we don't. Sometimes this is what happens. This happened earlier in Mark where we could have divided a few of our stories. Like, there's a whole. There were stories all about agriculture and sowing and seeds. And if we divided those, we might have gotten too nitty gritty, I think, and maybe lost the point Mark wanted us to hear. We hear this about a story in Mark in three, remember, where religious leaders call out Jesus and they say, you're like, you might be Satan himself, and then you're out of your mind. And then he talks to his family, and his family says, jesus, you're out of your mind. And then we go back to the religious leaders. It's this, like, story that helped us understand everyone thinks Jesus is out of his mind. And so we get this picture in Mark. It's a cool thing when you're reading Mark to understand there's these sandwich parts, right? Things to AI, you can just ask AI, make me a Mark sandwich ad. And it does. So we're gonna see these all over. In fact, in Mark 6 that's coming up, there's a story of him sending out his apostles. Hey, disciples, I'm sending you out. And then there's the story of how John the Baptist is killed. And then there's a story back to the disciples. And if you don't read those as the Mark sandwich, you might miss that. Mark is saying, hey, go out as disciples. This is the cost. Our friend John is killed for this. Now get out there. You got this, guys. But if we miss the sandwich, you kind of miss right the. The whole picture there. So one of the cool things we get to see here is what is God here in this story of this daughter and this woman trying to tell us about who Jesus is and who people are. So keep that in mind here, the sandwich. Now we got the top piece of bread. Now we're getting into the middle, right? We're gonna talk about the bleeding woman here who approaches Jesus. We're just gonna walk through these passages here together. And he went with them. So now Jesus went with Jairus, and a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. And. And in other translations, it says pressed against him or got close. Thronged is not a word we use really, but pressed in close. And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for 12 years, who had suffered much under many physicians and had spent all that she had. And it was no better, but rather grew worse. So he's pressed in. There's a crowd, and all these people are around him, touching him, bumping into him as they move towards Jairus daughter. And in the moment there, we encounter a new. This woman. And this woman is hurt. She's been bleeding for 12 years. Something is not right. Something's really hurt in her. The amount of pain she felt, probably physically, and also then the pain she felt because this would have caused her to be unclean. It would have caused her to be an outcast. And even for the Jewish people, it would have went, if you're bleeding, then you have to. Outside of us, like, outside of our people. So she would have been lonely, disconnected. She would have been shunned. Think of the amount of shame that would be in that, the amount of outsider she would have felt. And she had spent all the money she had on doctors. Hey, can you heal me? Yeah, we'll try this thing. And then, hey, this guy will try this thing. Hey, I'll try this medicine and none of them had worked. And in fact, it even says she was no better, but actually worse than what she was. We don't know if that means some of the things they tried made it worse or if that just means she's continually gotten worse. It's an indication of for 12 years she's been bleeding and essentially dying. It's really terrible. And she is going to encounter Jesus. Now look at this moment where we get to see her encounter Jesus. She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, if I touch even his garments, I'll be made. Well, I think of all the, all the people that were bumping into him. And she though her motivation, her heart was, I've heard what he's done. I heard the story of him healing people. I've heard the story of him. Maybe already even there's word. Even as the boat came back on the shore, people might have yelled, you would believe what happened across the sea. She's heard of the stories of Jesus sitting with sinners and saying, these people are sick and need a physician to be healed. Maybe she's heard that maybe this guy is the great physician. She has decided to turn her heart to him and say, I think even if I touch just the edge of your clothes, that would be enough. That would be even a tradition around them at the time that people thought if you touched like a. A God's coat or if you dared stories, even if you touched like powerful people or spiritual people, maybe you've been healed. And she's thought, I don't even. I just want to get close enough. Also, I think she really isn't supposed to be in the crowd. She's supposed to be around the people because she's unclean, she's cast out. And so there's almost a picture here of her. She has to kind of just sneak in and quick touch his robe and get out of there before she is in trouble, before anyone finds out she's close to the holy guy, to the. To who she probably believes might be God. At this point, if she's believing this, all we know is she touches him and says, I hope this makes me well. And in all the commotion and in all the pressing in, her touch does something because it heals her immediately. The flow of blood dried up immediately. It's one of those mark words he loves saying right then and there. It's not like she was like, I started feeling better. And after a while I was like, I think that might have been from way back when I touched Jesus. In the moment, we know it's because of Jesus. Her blood dried up and she felt in her body that she was healed. I mean, you don't even. I don't know what that moment is. She. All this time, all this disconnect from the people, all this hurt, pain, physically and emotionally, mentally, where she was at. She touches him, and in the moment, she's healed, and she can feel that she's healed. And Jesus, even with all the people touching him, he can feel that something just happened. Jesus, perceiving in himself what power had gone from him immediately turned also, in the moment she touches him, she feels healed. He feels the power go out from him. He feels like someone has. Something has happened, right? And he says, who touched my garments? Of all the people pressing in and around him, who touched my garments? And his disciples say what is very logical and understanding. They say, look at the crowd pressing in around you. And you say, who touched me? How about everybody? All the people, right? Because they don't know that he just felt this woman put faith in Jesus, touch his garment, get healed. They don't even know the miracle happened. Nobody knows this miracle just happened. And she could have just like, crawled out of there and ran off. But instead, Jesus says the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell before him and told him the whole truth. Now there's even courage in this. It isn't just like, oh, how cool. He wants to meet the person who was healed. This is in the crowd. People would have known her as the unclean woman who's been bleeding for 12 years. It might have been kids that went like that. The lady, why she shouldn't be around us. And instead, Jesus says, no, I want to know who this is. And she gets to now, face to face, stand up, lift up her head, look at Jesus. And she tells him what happened. I came, I touched your robe. I hoped just that would be enough. I think you're so powerful that even that could heal me. I'm at my end. There's nothing else I can do. I need you. And Jesus looked around to see what had been done. The woman knowing that she had happened to her, she came in fear. And he says to her, this is incredible, daughter. Your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease. Just that phrase. So he says, not woman, why did you touch me? You're unclean. You shouldn't be close to such a clean person. You shouldn't Be in a crowd. Hey, maybe let's meet up later, we can talk more about this. He says daughter. He calls her family. How long has it been since she's been called friend? Or even like her name being said? But he gives this very intimate moment, this identity to her. He says, you're now a daughter. We know, right? Daughter of the most high. And you've been made well, why? Because you have put faith that I am the one who can heal you and I can and go in peace. It's like you're restored, you're made whole. He just reversed the curse on this one, on this lady who says it should be that she touches him and he becomes unclean. And now the unclean spreads and then, oh no, he's in a crowd. He's going to touch other people. Now are we all unclean? And do we have to? Instead, by touching Jesus, you actually become clean. By turning to Jesus, you actually become clean. It flips it all on its head. She knows she has to come to Jesus and he heals her. She has nowhere else to go. He heals her. She goes from unclean and outside, low down. And then he raises her up and cleans her and heals her. And in fact, even the picture. Think of what's happening in this moment. If you got to zoom up, right? If they had a drone shot of this, I don't think they had drones then, but if they had a drone shot of this, right? You get the moment where Jesus touches her. And if you zoom out, they're in the middle of a crowd of people who want to be close to God. And they said, you bleed, you can't be close to God. And Jesus pulls her in and now she is the closest person to God in that place. What a beautiful moment, right? Fixes this brokenness. She's turned to the one person, she's went to all these others and turned to the right, the right one. That alone would be like, what a story. Don't forget we're in the middle of the sandwich right now. What's going on with Jairus daughter? Well, we find out while we were still. While he was still speaking, there came the rulers from the ruler's house. So from Jairus house, some who said, you daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further? So as Jesus is doing this, you'd have to hope. Maybe some of the disciples are in awe. There's maybe other people who are in awe. There's almost like, we gotta celebrate this woman who's been healed. We're reminded there's actually a girl who's dying. And in that it's interrupted by someone saying, don't worry about it, Jesus. It's too late, she's already dead. But it's not the end of the story. Not with Jesus it isn't. But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of his synagogue, do not fear, believe. He doesn't say, no, no, I can still do it. Or just be patient for a second or hold on, I was healing this other lady. Now we'll get to your daughter. You're walking too slow. He could have made it if it weren't for you. He just says, I mean, the dad in the moment has to be crushed. He's like, I was so close. The wave of fear that washes over him. And Jesus says, oh, you don't have to be afraid, just believe. Put faith like this woman just did. We're not done yet. Here you can believe. And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John, the brother of James. So he grabs, he grabs these three who often are in some of these moments where he just grabs a few of the disciples. He grabs these three and says, come with me. And they come to the house of the ruler of the synagogue. And Jesus saw a commotion. People are weeping and wailing loudly. So he gets to the house with them. The work's not done and there's already people mourning. There's actually a crowd there already of people weeping and mourning. This would have even been. Traditionally, there would have been people who do this. This is their job. They come. Depending on what commentary I read. Some say there's people who would have been crying. There's actually some that would have been playing instruments. There would have been like sad flutes playing. Imagine a sad flute. That's extra sad if it's a flute. So there's just this sad place this morning, grieving place. This 12 year old girl has died. Terrible. This is Jesus and his friends. But he's not stopping. He's still moving towards them. And when he had entered, he said to them, why are you making a commotion? Weeping. The child's not dead, but sleeping. It seems almost silly. Like when he, when he stopped for this woman and then they said, she's dead, don't worry about it. He's like, no, we're going to still go. You're like, Jesus, you're, this is getting out of hand now we've seen her, she died. We're here mourning, we're here grieving. And he says, no, what are you doing? She's just sleeping. She's gonna wake up. And they did what we all would do. Okay, I get maybe you healed a woman out in the crowd. That's pretty. That's pretty cool. You're kind of a miracle worker. But this is death now we're talking about. This is a young girl who has been sick, and we've watched her die, and she has died. You're silly Jesus. But he put them all outside. Look at this picture again. We get. He was like, okay, you don't believe you can go out here. Hold on. I'm gonna go in to the house. And he took the daughter's father and mother and those who were with him, his disciples, this little group of people, the family, these brothers, and where the child was. And taking her by the hand, he said to her, talitha kumai, which means, little girl, I say to you, arise. Or it could mean that the phrase actually also has been used little lamb or daughter. All amazing phrases for this moment. He holds her hand. We've seen this before in Mark, where he holds someone's hand. This just sweet, gentle care, the shepherd that we have. And he says, arise. Stand up. There's not a long. He doesn't give a long, like kind of incantation. There's not a lot of work. This is just Jesus immediately, hey, little girl, stand up. And immediately the girl got up and began walking, for she was 12 years of age. And they were immediately overcome with amazement. I mean, again in the moment, can you feel any of the motion that would happen in that moment? We're mourning our daughter. Jairus thought he might have run fast enough and got Jesus in time. And it wasn't. And just one more time, crushed by this illness. And just. It's done now. And then he comes in there, and he doesn't do anything spectacular except that he's Jesus. And he says, stand up. And she does. I imagine that she doesn't. Is amazed, but just in that she woke up. She's like, it's good morning, everybody. And he strictly charged them, no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat. We see this in a few accounts of resurrection in scripture, where they eat something. It's a way to show like, they're really resurrected, their actual body was resurrected. Because it's something I think Mark and other Gospel writers know. Hey, this could be a story that later people could go, I think even in the moment with Jesus knows, hey, it could be like, maybe it was just her spirit. Maybe they just felt her Presence in the room. And he goes, no, I want you to eat something. You're a real live person who is awake, who have reached into death. In the Jesus storybook Bible, do you remember this part? It says he reaches down into death and pulls her out. What a picture, huh? He says, give her something to eat. She's hungry. She just died and resurrected. Come on, she's got to be hungry. Get her something. It's beautiful, right? She goes from dead to alive. She's on the outside, the ultimate outside right of living. She's laying there, even this beautiful picture laying there. And now she stands up, eating alive. This picture of these two women, right? One from an influential, powerful family. She's in a room in her bed where she's passed away. And the other woman is out on the street on the ground outside. Both of them in desperate need of someone to heal them because they're dying. Both of them clinging to Jesus, and he resurrects them. It's incredible. So we have this Markin sandwich today that tells us some pretty incredible things of two women who we might at first think, oh, they're very different. One's a little girl. She's from this different family. She was sick and died. One woman is probably older. She was bleeding, outcast, really, in the end, like, we're the daughter and we're the woman. We're in need of Jesus. They're bleeding as she was dying. They were both. It's interesting. She was, for 12 years, was bleeding. She was 12 years old. One commentator said she was. Had been dying, slowly dying for 12 years. And the girl had been living. The woman's cast out. She's unclean. She's alone. She's the lowest and she's faithful. The daughter is dying and passed away unclean. She's mourned. She's the highest in the community. Jesus says, both of them, I want both of them. I want to heal both of them. I don't discriminate in that. And Jesus comes along and he changes everything. He makes them alive. He heals them. He welcomes them back as family. Both are called family. We welcome them back, daughters now of the king of Kings and calls them to belief over fear. So in this beautiful story we hear today, these two women, there's some things that we can pull from this story here as we move towards the end of our time here. Jesus, we learned today, has the authority over bodies and even death. It's a good reminder story. A lot of these stories are. But it's a reminder of that Jesus cares also about our bodies, cares deeply about our souls, our hearts, right? About all of us, though. The whole of us. He cares about these women and even cares about death. He's one who reverses this curse. You think I'm unclean and all I can do is spread more uncleanliness. I'm death, and all I can do is spread more death. And he says, no, I can actually. I can change that. When I was a kid, my brother would. If there was one cookie left, this might be in your house. Actually, not even one cookie. Just in general. If there was, like, food that we both liked, he would lick it. I would also do this. But let's just think about my brother doing it. Cause he's the bad guy in this story. So there's a good cookie, right? Left. And he would lick it. And then I'd go in the kitchen and be like, I get the last cookie. And he'd say, I licked it. And I'd say, gross. And for some reason, that contaminated the cookie, right? Like, I don't know why. It didn't really matter. And then I learned to get him to stop doing it. I would say, like, I don't care. And then I would. It was gross to me. I'd eat it. But I was hoping that would trick him, right? That he'd go, oh, he doesn't care about the cookie. But in that instance, right? I just would fake that the cookie wasn't unclean. It was unclean. My brother's gross tongue touched that cookie, knows what else he ate. Jesus isn't doing that. He's not going. He's not saying, hey, you're just not unclean. Hey, you're great. You're not unclean. He is actually making her clean. He's actually changing her. He's actually reversing the curse in her. She's made whole. She's healed. She's human again. This girl is actually dead. He doesn't just go, hey, hon, you're not really dead, guys. She's not dead. She's great. He's saying he actually is making her undead. This is incredible. I mean, no one can do this except Jesus. He makes people whole. And he makes all of all people whole. So he takes, like, this woman and this girl who normally probably wouldn't ever hang out or be around one another, and he says, I can make both of them whole. It's a beautiful picture here. He's reminding us of this image bearer that we all have. We bear this image of God. And he wants to come and heal all people. He asks for faith over fear and invites us to himself. He says, come, fear does not have to rule. Faith in me will bring this healing. I often feel that, though, like that somehow if I can become more scared and more feel more worked up, somehow that's going to fix things. And it actually causes more fear. Turning to him, knowing that he can do this is a big deal we see in the story. And also he makes us wait, but he will deliver. There is a part of the story where this dad had to wait. I mean, when he gets the word, your daughter's dead, he's like, I've been waiting watching you in this crowd and heal this woman. And it's a story of reminding us also that there is a waiting. This story is a picture of our lives. And I think of this. We say, jesus, I come to him, I need you to heal me. And we're all still waiting for the full healing, right? We know that one day Jesus will come and make all things right. And he'll say, rise up, you're healed. And we'll feel, oh, my, everything's healed. But there's a weighting in that. And so we get a picture of this. He does care deeply for people. He does care deeply even for our physical bodies. He does care for all people. He does want to see us live in faith and not fear. And also in the midst of that, we get to experience the world around us. And there's a waiting in it, knowing that he will come again. Today we're going to sing a song that it's beautiful that really captures this, like this posture of these women and this family. In this story, we're about to sing these words in a few minutes. Sometimes I fall to my knees and pray Come, Jesus, come Let today be the day Sometimes I feel like I'm going to break I'm not holding on to hope that I won't fade Come, Jesus, come I've been waiting so long for the day you return to heal every hurt, the right, every wrong we need you right now Come and turn this around Deep down I know this world isn't home we also sit in that right? There's a reality that, yes, we come to Jesus and he heals us. He makes us whole and there's also a waiting for that fulfillment of that. And we can keep asking him. There's a fulfillment of that. So this first call, two things I just want to encourage us with. First is this. We have to come to Jesus. The woman went to him and touched his cloak he was her only hope and she went to him. Jairus runs and begs of Jesus to come heal his daughter. He's their only hope. First we must come to Jesus and be healed, be transformed, be made alive. And then from that we get to be people. From that first that, then from that we get to be people who do get to love well, who do get to do the same thing, is introduce people to what life looks like. We have a little picture frame in our house. If you've ever left our house, this is right by our door. There's a quote from MLK this weekend. You might have work off tomorrow. You don't know why it's MLK Day. It was his birthday this weekend and we celebrate him and really kind of a celebration of civil rights. But this is one of a very well known. This is our weekly activity. Our computer turns off once a week. And that's when it decided to. It's a little eerie. There's a quote from MLK that you maybe heard and we have it on our wall just as we walk out our door. Darkness cannot drive out darkness, Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. It's from a sermon that he preached in 1957 called Loving youg Enemies. He was walking through the Beatitudes and he was walking through Matthew 5:43 where it says, love your enemy. He was saying, the reason why if I continue to hurt people that are hurting me, it's not doing anything is because it doesn't drive it out. It's like unclean doesn't make more things, doesn't make unclean. You need a clean to make things clean. And you need life to make things life. And you need light to push back darkness. And there's someone who's come that does that. He's reminding his church that there's a light that has come and that we get to join that light. And one of the things that means is that we get to move towards and love our enemies. So he's teaching from this passage here in Matthew. He says, you have this from Matthew. It says, you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. So you should love the people who are your neighbor that you like. And you should hate those people who are different than you, or you don't like, or maybe that have even come to hurt you. But I say to you, love your neighbors and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven, for he Makes his sunrise on evil and on good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same. And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same. You, therefore, must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. This last line is the one you're like, okay, how. How we be perfect? Will we turn to Jesus? Be perfect? But the thing I want us to see here, really, is that right in the middle there, right? 44, 45. So that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. Now think of the story we just read called sons or daughters, called children of God. When we're called children of God, When I come to Jesus, I need you. I'm desperate. You're all I have. He says, daughter, be healed. Son, be healed. And now I've joined the family of God. And what does that mean? That means now I get to do the work of God. I get to join God in the good work of bringing light to darkness. We know, right? In John 1, we hear, Darkness cannot overcome light. It's Jesus. He's come. And now he says, hey, join the family business. Help reverse this curse. Help turn people to me and say, I know the one who can make you healed. I know the one who can make you clean and alive. Turn to me. You want to be someone who says, I want to love people. Well, even if I consider them enemies, even if they're against me, I can still turn to them. You want to see people's lives changed and darkness pushed out of a place? It's us being laid. And what that looks like is what Jesus does, which turns to all people, cares for all people, brings light into all places, and turns people towards him. That's what we get to be if we call him our Father as his children. How does that even work? Well, it works because this picture we just had, if you remember, at the end of Mark, at the end of this passage, he tells them to not tell anyone. Yet one commentary said part of why he's not telling anyone isn't because he's like, I want to keep this a secret because everyone's going to come and try to talk to me. It's because this is like an opening act to the real show. He wants people to know he's not just like a miracle worker magician, like a medicine man who. Who just figured out ways to, like, heal people. He wants people to know that he is like the healer of healers, the resurrector of resurrectors, the great, the good shepherd, right? And we see the picture of what just happened. We see in another sandwich in Mark. We see at the end of Mark, where we see Jesus bleed, die and resurrect. He acts out the same story, but now it's not just for these two women. It's for all people of all time. He puts an end to death. He puts an end to brokenness. He puts. He puts an end to bleeding, that there'll be a day when there's no longer any of that. And we see this sandwich here in the story of these women at the cross that gets interrupted by a story of Joseph burying him and then the women again at his tomb. So here in this. The one commentary said, the last of the Markan sandwiches, which sounds so official and not when you have the word sandwich in a commentary. It says there were also women looking from a distance, among whom where? Mary Magdalene, Mary Mother, James the Younger. These women were at the. Were at the cross watching him die, watched him give his last breath. We're weeping over him. And then we get this great story that leads to this. We see he dies. The story's interrupted. We're going to follow these women, but first we're going to hear about this guy named Joseph who brought a linen shroud and taking him down off the cross, wrapped him in the linen shroud and. And laid them in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. This is where Joseph of Arimathea gives Jesus his tomb and he rolls the stone against the entrance. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus saw where he was laid. These women are back in the story, right? We hear about them again. This is why it all. This is why we can turn to him. This is why we can touch the edge of his cloak and be healed. This is why any of this matters, is because this is true that they saw him die and buried, but he didn't stay like the. He didn't stay dead. He says, hey, actually, he's just asleep. When the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother, James and Siloam brought spices so they might go and anoint him. And looking up, they saw the stone had been rolled back. It was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe. And they were alarmed. And he said to them, the tomb. He's not there. Where is he? Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who's been Crucified, he's risen. He's not here. See the place where they laid Him. Resurrection is real. If resurrection is true, it is that Jesus rose from the dead. Then I can go to him and he can heal. I can go to Him. He can raise from the dead. I can go to him and he can change me to be someone who goes. I. I can't even love my enemy. I can even bring light to dark places. Because I no longer live in fear. I no longer live in a place where I'm worried about what someone thinks. I'm no longer living in a place where I'm worried about what I'll gain from this. Because I've been given all. I've been approved and loved of by a God who loves me dearly. I can come to Jesus and He can heal me. Fear not, my friends. We can believe and be healed. And not just healed. It can change how and who and where and why we move where we move. So in a week when you might have felt. There's just a weariness this week that I felt of what do I even do? Like, if I do, I say something and then what do people say? Someone's. Someone's upset that you didn't say enough or you said too much or you did something and you shouldn't have done something. There's like, the weariness of, like, I'm not sure even where to move and then even what category. How do I decide that? And then do I watch a bunch more clips of videos? Maybe that will help me. That didn't help me. What do I do? Different friends who I trust have different thoughts on what I should be doing and what should be going on. This is where we start. We come to Jesus. He heals us and he changes us. And he says, this is what I want to see you do. And we can live free of the fear that we feel because we can follow Him. We're just doing his work. He just says, hey, join my work. Join the family. And we get to do that. We don't have to live in fear, but we can live in belief and in faith in Him. And one day he'll come and make things all right, which is really, really good news. But until then, we can join him in bringing light to darkness. I want to welcome our worship team up to help us sing and worship a little bit more. A few things just to consider here as we move to a time of response. We do that different ways here at Hope Heights. First, just some things to consider, maybe to ponder, reflect on first, will you come to Jesus? Step one is bend your knee as the woman did, and essentially as that daughter did. Jesus, I need you. From there, he'll change you and work in you for the rest of your life. But first, come to him. Maybe consider what is taking the life from you. What do you feel like it's causing you to slowly get worse and not better? And where do you even go for life? What does life look like? What's your source of life, and is it working? And who could you bring the light of Jesus to? Today you get the opportunity to turn to someone and bring light to them. Even today, maybe there'll be someone. We also respond in a few other ways. We take communion here at Hope every week. It's out in the hallways. Everyone's welcome to it, who's believers, so it's meaningful to you. It's an opportunity to remember his blood spilled, that he bled, and that his body was broken. A lot like these women in this story, right? Except he conquers death, he conquers hurt. It's incredible. And so communion is an opportunity each week for us to go our service to build to a moment where we say, this is it. This is incredible that our God would be broken and bleed for us. So we encourage you to do that. You can do that with family or by yourself, but there is juice and crackers out there. It's also an opportunity to give. Out in the hallway, there's a box, a black box you can give to or online. And then there's always. People would love to pray for you, just care for you. In the back of the room, there's people on both sides with yellow lanyards. They would love to pray for you during this time. Please take them up on that. It's a. It's a great opportunity. It's a blessing for me every week. Let me pray for us. And we're going to worship Jesus more. Lord, thank you for your goodness and your kindness, your love towards us, that you've moved to us. There's times I can't even get to you. I want to crawl to you. I can't even get to you. And you've come to me. I pray that we would just cry out to you and, Lord, that we would turn to you rather than to fear or whatever else it is, and that you would heal us. It's parts of us, Lord, that feel like they're dying. I pray that you would bring those to life. I pray for our world and our community again and for us as now we get to be sent out as lights into darkness. I pray you'd help to help us discern, give us wisdom that whatever it is, Lord, that you just give us peace. That we can cling to you and join you in your work. Thanks for these people in this place and that we get to worship you. Amen.

Matthew 5:43