Live in the Fear of Death or in the Hope of Resurrection (Mark 5:21-43)

Live in the Fear of Death or in the Hope of Resurrection

 

Mark 5:21-43

 

For today’s sermon, I gave this title: “Live in the Fear of Death or in the Hope of Resurrection.” Should I live in the fear of death or in the hope of resurrection? This is the question of today’s sermon, and of course, we don’t have to talk or think long to answer this question. From the biblical perspective, we can divide people’s lives largely into two modes. one is “a life of running away in the fear of death,” and the other is “a life of running after the hope of resurrection.” The two look similar in that both are running hard, but in fact, the two modes of life are directly opposite to each other. The former is a life looking behind, and the latter is a life looking ahead. The former is a life bound to earth, and the latter is a life bound to heaven. The former is a life of flesh, and the letter is a life of spirit. The former never succeeds, and the latter never fails. The end of the former is death, and the end of the latter is resurrection and eternal life. Of course, the desirable mode of life is the latter, namely, a life of running after a hope. What God wants from us is not to live in the fear of death but to live in the hope of resurrection.

 

Today’s passage introduces us two persons who came to Jesus. one is a synagogue ruler named Jairus, and the other is a woman who had suffered from a chronic disease for 12 years. The two persons came to Jesus with different problems, and in different styles. And Jesus also solved their problems in different ways. Nevertheless, both of the two stories are about faith and salvation in Jesus Christ. By comparing the two events, we can learn precious lessons on faith and salvation, and one of them is that our faith must be rooted in the hope of resurrection, not in the fear of death. only when our hope is in resurrection, we can be truly free and can exert all our strength in the race toward the kingdom of heaven.

 

There was a woman who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years. Bleeding is a women’s chronic disease that discharges blood irregularly due to an abnormality in the body. The disease itself is a great pain to the patient, and according to Leviticus 15, moreover, it was regarded as an unclean disease, and all the people and things touched by one with the disease were also treated as unclean. This woman suffered from this illness for a long period of 12 years. Not only this, but also she had been harassed by many doctors, and spent all she had, yet instead of getting better, she grew worse. In the course, her soul must have been devastated even more badly than her body. Her bleeding disease destroyed the woman physically, mentally, socially, financially, and spiritually. Her life was as good as dead. The poor woman was trapped in deep darkness with no hope at all.

 

One day, however, a ray of light shone upon her. It was that she heard about Jesus. She heard that Jesus had driven out evil spirits, cleaned a leper of his leprosy, raised a paralytic, and healed a man with a shriveled hand. Upon learning Jesus’ healing power, she said to herself. “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Out of her terrible experience of bleeding for 12 years, she knew well how intractable her disease was. In order to get out of it, she invested everything and tried every possible remedy, and all these efforts had been useless. Nevertheless, she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Considering Jesus’ power, she thought that her disorder was less than nothing. She believed that just a touch of his clothes would be enough to shake off her 12-year-old chronic disease. We don’t know how she came to have such faith. The Bible simply says that “she heard about Jesus.” Probably “what she had heard” rooted and grew in her heart. The woman came up behind Jesus in the crowd and touched his clothes. Then immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. It happened exactly as she believed. She was healed. A new life came upon her.

 

Synagogue ruler Jairus, another main character of today’s passage, came to Jesus in a quite different way. When Jesus was by the lake with a large crowd, Jairus came there. He fell at Jesus’ feet and pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” The man’s earnestness is more from the father’s desperate love of his dying daughter than from his faith in Jesus’ power. This presents a good contrast with the woman’s quiet touch from behind. Although Jairus fell at Jesus’ feet, his mind was already dragging the Lord to his house. His lips were parched with fear and his heart was burning with anxiety. The shadow of death was almost there to sweep away the poor girl’s flickering life. Even in front of Jesus, the Lord of life, he was being tormented with the fear of death.

 

Hearing Jairus’ pleading, Jesus went with him to his house. But against Jairus’ desperate situation, Jesus’ met the woman with bleeding on the way and wasted a lot of the precious time. And this while, Jairus’ daughter died. Now the situation was over. There was nothing that Jairus could expect from Jesus. Amazingly, however, Jesus said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.” With this word, Jairus might have thought many things. “What is he talking about? What do I believe now when my daughter has died? What can this man do for me when everything is over? Do I still have any hope?” Despite all these questions rising in his mind, however, Jesus’ word had authority and power. “Don’t be afraid; just believe.” The word thrust into Jairus’ heart, and began to gleam like a dawning sky after coal-black darkness. When the daughter was still breathing, he was entirely desperate and fearful to keep the flickering life. But now when she died, he could hear the voice of Jesus, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.” When the daughter’s heart was pulsing faintly, all his nerves were set on the girl’s barely moving little body, but now upon her death, he grabbed Jesus’ word of life and held onto it. Strangely, faced with the beloved daughter’s death, Jairus tasted “fearless true faith,” which he had never imagined or expected.

 

Jesus healed the woman’s 12-year-old disease “immediately” only by being touched. Jesus also raised the girl from the dead as if waking up her from sleep. This is Jesus’ power. Jesus is Mighty God, and is the Word who created and holds the heavens and the earth. There is no limitation in his power. only our faith is limited. By what is our faith limited? Why does our faith often fail to reach Jesus’ infinite power? It is because of the fear of death. We believe Jesus but we often believe him in order to “avoid death.” We beg the Lord to save us “before death overtakes me.” We believe him only within the boundary drawn by the fear of death. This is not a genuine faith because we think that death is beyond Jesus’ control. Jesus understands our weakness as such, and he is merciful even to those who come to him in the fear of death. However, the Lord wants us not to stay in the faith limited by the fear of death but to advance to stronger faith, faith of resurrection. And for this, he allows us to be swallowed by death. This is only to show his mighty power, to give us the hope of resurrection, and to help us live by God's power. This is the gospel that Jesus testified through his own body. 2 Corinthians 13:4 says, “For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God's power. Likewise, we are weak in him, yet by God's power we will live with him to serve you.”

 

Strictly speaking, Christians are “dead people.” Now we don’t have to fear death. The only thing remaining to us is “the hope of resurrection” in God’s power. Therefore, now this hope should be the basic mode of our living. What would it look like to live in the hope of resurrection? The Bible often compares a believer’s life to “running” or “a race.” Saint Paul summarizes his life journey in this way: “I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7b). In Galatians 5:7 as well, Paul reproves the Galatian believers who fell off from their first faith, “You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?” A life living in the hope of resurrection is a race running through the entire life toward one ultimate finishing line, which is the resurrection. There is a fish called mackerel, which is popular on Korean people’s table. Korean people call this ‘go-deung-eo.’ According to the Britannica, this fish cannot stop swimming. From birth to death, mackerel keeps swimming swiftly without stopping even a second. Because the fish does not have an air bladder or a separate respiratory organ in the body, it cannot float in the water and cannot breathe oxygen unless it swims so fast without stopping. So the 6~7-year-long life of mackerel is actually “one single race.” This is also the life of the believers. Christians have already been deprived of all life-support systems vital for settling and living in the world. Thus, if we stop running for “easing the body,” we cannot breathe, and the body gets heavier and sinks deep and dies after all. The only way of the Christian life is running at the highest speed in the water of Jes

us and breathing the Holy Spirit. It is loving and meditating the Word of God day and night (Psalm 1:2), praying continually (1 Thessalonians 5:7), and always giving ourselves fully to the work of the Lord (1 Corinthians 15:58). It is, admitting that I am already a dead person, not sowing to please the flesh any longer, and instead, taking up my cross and following Jesus. Running in this way through our whole life is living in the hope of resurrection.

 

Jesus gave us “his death on the cross and resurrection.” The meanings of the two gifts are unfathomable, but based on today’s passage, Jesus’ death and resurrection tell us that we should live not by being chased by the fear of death but by running after the hope of resurrection. This hope arises from faith in God’s mighty power. This power dusted off the woman’s incurable disease, and woke up Jairus’ dead daughter. This power also raised Jesus from the dead and gives us the promise of resurrection and eternal life. “Daughter, your faith has healed you!” “Don’t be afraid; just believe.” “Little girl, I say to you, get up!” What wonderful words these are! I pray that these words of the Lord penetrate deeply into our souls. I pray that these words drive out the fear of death in us. I pray that the powerful work of the Holy Spirit fills each cell and nerve of our bodies with “the hope of resurrection” in Jesus our Lord.