One of my favorite movie plot lines is when somebody has to make a last ditch effort. You know what I'm talking about? They kind of throw a Hail Mary. There's only like one or two options left.
They're going for it. It makes for a great movie, but the thing is that's a real life thing sometimes too, right? It makes for a really awesome movie, it makes for a cruddy situation or season in life. But just these last ditch efforts, when we feel like we've done every single thing that can be done.
We're only left with one or two options and typically we don't want to take those options. It might have been the fact that we've done all the easy things first. It's only the hard choices are left or the crazy choices. And we realize that the problem's so severe that we have to react in a drastic way.
It's going to cost us something. It's going to cost us money. It might cost us energy. It might cost us our emotional health.
It might cost us our time. We've gotten the point to where things are at that. You know, we're only left sometimes when we think of these last ditch situations. You know, we're only left with like the margin of the real.
Like these things that we used to think were impossible. Like the things that we could do or the situations we might find ourselves in. What was once impossible, not only now is possible, but it's very real. Like I said, makes for a great movie script, makes for a really cruddy season of life.
These last ditch efforts. And today we're going to read not one, but two stories of last ditch efforts and the way they interact with each other, the way. They're very different stories, but also in some ways they're the exact same story. And we see how Jesus is engaging and interacting with these people and they've reached this moment of life.
But both of them teach us the same thing that Jesus can accomplish life changing things in the margin of the mission. And it isn't why he is there in this, but it's what we need to know about when we get to those places in life. And so we'll open up our Bibles, Mark chapter 5, we'll start off in verse 21, and we'll go to verse 26 for right now. This is what we read.
Jesus got into the boat again and went to the other side of the lake where a large crowd gathered around him on the shore. Then a leader of the local synagogue whose name was Jarius arrived. When he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet pleading fervently with him. He said, my little daughter is dying.
He said, please come and lay your hands on her. Heal her so she can live. Jesus went with him and all the people followed crowding around him. A woman in the crowd had suffered for 12 years with constant bleeding.
She had suffered a great deal from any doctors and over the years. She had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had only gotten worse. Two people, two stories, two situations, two people that are both at the edge of things.
And they're different, but they're also the same. Jarius says here that he was the leader of the synagogue. Now, we have to kind of place this in there because the synagogue is a unique New Testament reality. You don't find it in the Old Testament.
The way that good Jewish people worship was they would go to the temple several times of the year in Jerusalem to make their sacrifices, but they had their own synagogues back at home. And in many ways, this is where we get our idea of the local church from, is this assembly of people. This is where they read scripture. This is where they held religious debates.
This was the center of their whole framework and life, especially on these outer edges to where these towns had a fair amount of Gentiles and Romans and Greeks. And it was no longer like 100% Jewish. And these synagogues were the center of how they kept up their face. So Jarius was the leader of the synagogue.
He was responsible for the whole thing. He was a very important person in town. He would have been very, very well known. He would have been very wealthy because it also meant that he had a shoulder at the fiscal responsibility of the synagogue.
Everybody knew who Jarius was. He was an important person. This woman who comes, she's not even named for reasons that we'll get into where Jarius is important. This woman is worthless.
In the eyes of the people around her in this town, especially the Jewish people, she is a worthless person because of this disease she had because where she had been hemorrhaging blood for 12 years. Straight without a break. And Jarius comes to Jesus with a very recent issue. Like my young daughter has gotten really sick and I'm scared she's going to die.
I need you to come and to heal her for me. Script shows this woman had been hemorrhaging this blood for 12 years. Then very long standing. Also tells us that she had gone through all of the healing processes that physicians had.
She had bankrupted herself in the process of doing this with it. She also had made herself even worse. She made herself even like sicker through these treatments. Now I was kind of curious about what these treatments looked like.
So I did some digging around and I found out some people that talked about what first century Jewish typically synagogue leaders would prescribe to fix this issue because this was not just a medical issue for her. But this was an issue of her faith and her religion as well because of what this meant to have a longstanding issue of the body. A couple of funny things and also not funny things but not funny things. Every, I was reading a witch doctor's recipe honestly.
Like an old movie, hocus pocus. Children, ladies and nannies. Yeah, it's like this is like crazy. The funny thing is every one of these also prescribed drinking a glass of wine with like random weird things inside of it.
Like one of them is like mix this, this, this and this, one of which was poisonous into a glass of wine and heat it and go stand in the middle of where two places intersects. Okay, so go drinking and stand in the middle of the road. Yeah, that sounds safe. Okay, such, that's, that's, like these things that cost her a lot of money and they made her life worse.
Like I'm not making this up. Like this, what's in here? Like people often say, I think the Bible's boring. I don't ask them, what are you reading them?
Because this is crazy. These, these, these, these, these doctors had made her worse and bankrupt her in the process. Um, Jerry's went straight to Jesus. Like he's waiting on him, like coming over the boats coming.
He's waiting on Jesus. I imagine he probably has like a retinue with him. Like he has like his, his entourage. I think might have carried him over there in like one of those cool like seat pole for gothings.
What was it called? This woman sneaks up. Like she like sneaks up on him from behind. Jerry's can meet him face to face.
This woman's like, I don't even have to see him. I don't need to see him. I don't want him to see me. I don't even know what I'm doing.
She might have been waiting for a moment like this for a long time. Because she could just completely dissolve inside of the crowd. You know Jerry's talked about his family that he had, his daughter and later on the sword will meet some people who work from who were part of his household. He probably managed around 100 people who was responsible for around 100 people in his household.
This woman has nobody because of this disease that she has. She cannot be with anyone. She can't live with anyone. No one can live with her.
She can't even live in town. She has to remove herself away from people as much as possible. Jerry's as the leader of the synagogue is probably seen as the holiest man in town. It's probably seen as the person who is the most richly pure among the community.
And the Jewish people believe this ritual purity was extremely important that when the whole Jewish community kept up their ritual purity that things would be better for them. Now you have this woman who's the exact opposite of richly pure. She's considered unclean. Leviticus.
You have a problem sleeping tonight. Regal vedicus. One of the things that talks about, oh actually it's not pretty crazy. I mean stuff like this and it.
No matter who you are, man or woman that when you have something coming out of your body that's not normal, it's considered to be unclean. So this isn't an issue of I've heard this before. This used to be a scripture that was weaponized against women. That makes me very sad.
That's not what's going on at all. Men and women can be richly and pure. That thing that should only make her impure for seven days is made her impure for 12 years. And anybody she touches becomes impure has to go through a ritual cleansing process.
And anything that she touches of another person touches that, then that person's richly impure. So the only way for her to live is to move herself out of society, to move out of town, to live on her own, sequester to away from people. And when she does have to come into contact with people, she has to walk around and remind everyone that she is unclean. How would you like it for the thing that stops you from engaging with God the most to not only be public, but for you then to thereby have to consistently verbally announce it to everyone around you?
If Jerry has seen as the pinnacle of what's considered pure and holy, this woman is the exact opposite. They both encounter Jesus in a way that requires healing. They both encounter Jesus in a way that causes their faith to grow. They both meet Jesus in this last situation.
We'll finish the scripture in Mark 27. So she had heard about Jesus. So she came up behind him through the crowd. Remember, she can't touch anybody.
She came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. For she thought to herself if I can just touch his robe, I will be healed. Immediately the bleeding stops and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition. She just realized that the healing powers had gone out from him.
So he turned around in the crowd and asked who touched my robe. His disciples said to him, look at this crowd pressing around you. How can you ask who touched me? But he kept looking around until to see who had done it.
In the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what happened to her came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done. He said to her daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.
While he was still speaking to her, messengers arrived from the home of Jairus, the synagogue and they told him your daughter is dead. There's no use troubling the teacher now. But Jesus overheard them and said to Jairus, don't be afraid. Have faith.
Then Jesus stopped the crowd and went and went and went and said to Peter, James and John, the brother of James. When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw much commotion and weeping and wailing. He went inside and asked why all this commotion and weeping the child isn't dead. She's only asleep.
The crowd laughed at him. But he made them all leave. He took the girl's father and mother and his three disciples into the room where the girl was lying. Holding her hand, he said to her, Toletha Koom, which means little girl, get up.
And a girl who was 12 years old immediately stood up and walked around. They were overwhelmed and totally amazed. Jesus gave them strict orders not to tell anyone what happened. Then he told them to give her something to eat.
So he's healing. How did he do this? What did the woman, what did Jairus do to make this healing happen? The scripture is pretty clear about it.
The scripture says that they had faith. They had faith that Jesus could do things at the edges of life. At those margins. At those last-ditch efforts that Jesus had the ability to do that.
But this is today, we could do like eight weeks on this passage. There's so many places. This is one of my favorite passage descriptions because there's so much truth inside of it for all of us. But what's important for us today, I really think it isn't to look at what took place but what does Jesus share about his essential characteristics?
What does Jesus share about himself that we can bring home, that we can take into those places? That when we reach the end of our line, what can we take from this story about who Jesus is and how that informs our lives and where we are? The first thing that we learn is that Jesus makes space. He allows himself to be interrupted.
We don't know what Jesus is doing. He comes to the other side of this lake. Jairus interrupts him immediately. We don't know what Jesus is planning on.
He might have been a great lunch to join with that he knew about. He was going to think of disciples too. But Jairus interrupts him. And while he is on the mission of that interruption, Jesus is interrupted again by this woman who's trying to do everything she can to not interrupt Jesus.
Jesus can make space for us. He also has to think about this. Think about what Jairus felt like when this whole woman thing happened. He thought he pulled off his mission.
And now this other person comes in and interrupts. And you have to think about what was that emotion like when Jairus had a messenger come up to him and say, no use bothering him anymore. She's dead. It didn't work.
We're going to talk more about that later on. But Jesus makes space for us. Make space for you. Make space for me.
Make space for wherever we need him. Second thing is that Jesus feels. Think about this. I love the story of the woman.
This is the thing that I've been thinking about all week long. She's going to sneak up behind him. She's going to grab him. There's a whole rabbit show.
There's a whole rabbit show. It's 15 minutes. We go down that. That meant that she grabs him by the hem of his robe and he feels the power go out from him.
Jesus interacts with us. It's not only just us interacting with him at an emotional level, at a physical level, at a spiritual level, but it's Jesus interacting with us at his emotional level, at his physical level. Our own healing. It's not a one-way relationship.
It's a two-sided thing. He's feeling things too. Think about that. It's not just something that he is easy for him to do, so he takes care of it.
It's not any problem for him. It's something that engages him in the physicality of his being. This is one of the best places I love to just contemplate. What does it mean for Jesus to be fully God and fully man?
Because you see both sides of him interacting at this point right now. Jesus, he feels. Jesus accomplishes life-changing things in the margin of the mission. He's interruptions and he does amazing big, huge, beautiful things.
It doesn't tell us what he is doing. This amazing story is completely unplanned. It's unplanned interaction. But Jesus is always willing to make space for us.
And Jesus is willing to meet us at that emotional level that he shares with us. So two things for us to think about. Two things about what a last ditch effort to look like in our life. The first question is this.
Do we let our faith, remember all this healing happened because of these people's faith? Do we let our faithfulness be a last ditch effort or the fertile yard of our soul? It's easy to come to these points when we're in a really rough spot. We feel like nothing's left.
Okay, we get Jesus involved now. This is what's funny. We were laughing at the 830 server, talking about this. Let me talk to you for a second.
How many of you are honestly prideful with the fact that you can get things done by yourself and you don't need somebody else's help most of the time? I like the fact I've got a lot of crazy tools. I might not have ever used it or I might need it in five years now, but I've got a tool for that. I know I can do that.
We're prideful. I heard a quote this week that if you want to go fast and go alone, if you want to go far and go together. We're prideful about what we can do on our own. Sometimes we only come.
We're only willing to interact with Jesus when we realize I don't have the tool for that and harbor for it doesn't sell it. But what if, I mean, in scripture, it's the exact same word for saved and healed. It's the context that gives us the definition that we use. You can't have salvation without healing, but you also can't have healing without salvation.
They work in concert with each other. Jesus is engaging these people at that level. But so many times I think we're only willing to engage Jesus at that very end of our rope, especially people who like the fact they can take care of things themselves, of which I'm one of the worst ones. It's because we're so self-assured that we think we can do it on our own until the very bitter end.
And when we find out we can't do it, we've typically also created five other problems in process. We got to ask Jesus not to come in and take care of the original problem, but to take care of the string of destruction we have laid behind us in our attempts. So what if this? Think about this.
What if we're willing to break this economy and to say I'm willing to give you things on the front end. I know that you have full capacity to do things at these rough spots. What if I'm willing to give you things before they get cruddy? What would happen if I'm willing to start when things are good to see what you can do there?
What if we're regularly proactively giving things over to Jesus before we enter the crisis zone? I'm going to tell you right now, I've had to give my pattern too. I've learned to give something over to Jesus this summer that in theory I was always doing, but I realized I was last ditching it and not from the beginning. You know what I had to give over to Jesus this summer?
I was telling you what I would do. My wife goes to bed early because she gets up at 3 o'clock in the morning and runs 80 miles. She's not here this morning because she's in Tyler running 40 miles a day with her sister because they're going to run 65 miles in a couple weeks at a race. I don't make sense to me.
But she's been going to bed earlier and I've been getting in, I've got this $200 academy above ground redneck pool. I've been getting in at almost every nine to eight o'clock at night. It's kind of like a lumpy in one place. We didn't put it up good enough.
The rubber is kind of rolled up which gives you a great headrest. It happens to be pointed at where. And I'll tell you, is there no better sunset than a Starlington sunset? Am I right?
They tell me it's because of the chemical plant but stuff that makes it clear. But I'll sit there and I'll, but you know what I spent all the time giving over to Jesus on the front side of things? This place. Because last spring was 90 to nothing, wasn't it?
You remember how much work that was? We also grew, there's people over the place. I don't know if I've shared this with you. But our capital campaign, which we did last spring, our goal was to raise $175,000 in pledge for a $500,000 project to build a new sanctuary on the land right behind here.
And we ended up pledging $330,000. I found out a few weeks ago, I don't know if I shared this with you or not, we had the second highest pledge percentage to total project cost of any first project church in the history of this campaign consulting firm that we used. We had a fantastic spring and it made me really nervous. Really nervous.
And all summer long, some of y'all know me well and y'all know, I sneezed before I preached the last message of that campaign. I was at lunch with some of y'all, I remember what I was like. At the moment of that sneeze, I knew I had a sinus infection. I was nervous about this fall.
And I started giving it to Jesus and Jesus saying, listen, this is beyond my capacity. This is beyond all of our capacity. This is yours now. I'm just going to have to roll with it.
We'll hang on. Sitting there in the pool, watching the Starlington Chemical Sunset. I'll tell y'all, the front yard is a lot better than the gutter for faithfulness. Because it hadn't slowed down one bit, but it's different.
It's better. When we're all about to lose it all, when you're about to lose it, when I'm about to lose it, whatever's going on, it's saying, no, that's going to be my beginning point now. Because I know how big and how amazing you can do at my worst. So let me see what you can do at my best.
Do we have faithfulness? Be a last ditch effort or the fertile front yard of our soul. The second thing is this. We let Jesus brush off our greatest fears.
So back to Jerry's back to that emotion back to the servants' calm. They say, don't bug anymore. Your daughter's already dead. And before he can say anything, it's just as Jesus overheard.
Y'all, when you read the gospel, Jesus either eavesdrop a bunch of the Holy Spirit like has him like a secret line, says, don't be afraid. Have faith. Then he goes and does what Jesus does, brings her back from the dead. Like these mourners, these cries are mocking Jesus when he says, oh, she's only asleep.
It's not because they thought, you silly, these are professional hired mourners, what you did back then. If you were rich and somebody died, there were people that for a living, they would come and like, cause it like a death ruckus to your house. They'd crawl in the casket so you wouldn't have to. Like these people knew what this was like.
This is like telling like the funeral home. She's not, she's not dead. They know what this looks like. He comes in, he says he sings, he does these things.
He comes in, and he comes in and away from that phrase, he's to Liza Coom, he's speaking Aramaic to them. Which is a unique language of the Jewish people that they picked up and developed while they were in exile in Babylon. And the Romans wouldn't know it, the Gentiles wouldn't know it. Only God's people knew Aramaic.
He's speaking to them at the root of their existence. Little girl, stand up. He brushes off jerias, his greatest fears. And fears are funny thing.
Because I think fear, and we've talked about this for fear exists on a spectrum in scripture. This is either complete anxiety or it's complete awareness. Complete awareness of who God is and what God can do or complete anxiety because we feel like we're completely all alone on this. We can also take this and we can either have the danger zone or the blessing zone.
That fear will easily send us into that danger zone. And Jesus wants us to brush off our fears because he says I will brush this thing off for you. If we look at that line of the danger zone, the blessing zone, the spot X, the idea of total anxiety or total awareness. This marks the spot and that's where faithfulness turns the danger zone into the blessing zone.
Our extremity is God's opportunity. What does it mean for when we think we're at the end of things? To instead think that is the end but to actually begin to think no, this is simply the beginning point for what Jesus wants to do in my life. What would it look like for us to be willing to knock down that wall instead of seeing that as a stopping point?
But to see that as a beginning point. Our extremity is God's opportunity. And for us to encounter this and engage with this, it means us coming in prayer and saying I want to give you the opportunity to make my life bigger. I want to come to you at my own last ditch.
Najarious had one and this woman had one. They were very, very different. Jesus doesn't weigh these things out. He doesn't have a bullet point system.
He doesn't have a scale saying we're... That's not bad enough yet. You're going to have to wait. He honors who we are and our person and our self and where we are and says I'm going to meet you exactly where you are.
I'm going to let you self-define what this is. But regardless of all that, I'm going to come to you in the same manner and I'm going to engage and respond in the language of faithfulness with you. The only thing I'm going to ask is for you to be faithful because I will be faithful. So friends, what does it look like for us to be willing to open up ourselves and to allow our end point to instead turn into God's beginning point in our life?
Let's pray. Jesus, we all have these in our life. As I look out, I know our stories, but I also know that you honor us for who we are and for where we are. And I know there's some last situations in this room right now.
And they're all different. God, I know there's also opportunity in this room. I know there are faithful people in this room. Jesus, we wouldn't be here this morning if we were not willing to be faithful.
If we were not willing to experience your faithfulness as well. So God, we want to meet you right where you are, which is right where we are. To love, engage, and encounter. Jesus, for you to put out the fires in our life.
And God, for us to prayerfully say that we will place a marker right there. And that that end point is now the beginning point in our life with you. Thank you so much, Jesus. It's your own prayer.
Amen.