Let’s take your copy of the scriptures, now turn to the New Testament, our reading for this sermon this morning, Mark chapter five. So we continue in this wonderful gospel of Mark in chapter five, second section there. Before we do that, though, let’s ask the Lord’s blessing upon the preaching and reception of that word. Let’s pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, we indeed long for the day of the coming of the glory our Lord Jesus Christ, and we thank you that you give us tastes and forecasts and hints of its splendor as we worship together, Lord, even in this small band of believers at this time, Lord. And we pray that as we hear from you now, that you would be to us a tender father, that you would break the bread and place it into our mouths, the bread of life in Jesus Christ, that we indeed may feel nourished by Christ and strengthened to live in this dead and dying, this fallen world until the darkness gives way to the dawning of final light. And we see him face to face, Lord, reflecting us the light of life as we’re united to Jesus. Come to us, we pray then, and bless us through your word. And we ask all this through Jesus and in his name and all God’s people said, amen, amen. Please give full attention now. This is the reading of God’s word from Mark Chapter 5, beginning at verse 21, Mark 5, 21. And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him, and he was beside the sea. 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 made well and live. and he went with him. And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. And there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years and who had suffered much under many physicians and had spent all that she had and was no better, but grew worse. 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 garment, I will be made well. And immediately the flow of blood dried up And she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, who touched my garments? And his disciples said to him, you see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, who touched me? And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease. While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler’s house some who said, your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further? But overhearing 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 the brother, John the brother of James. And they came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead, but sleeping. And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him and went into where the child was. And taking her by the hand, he said to her, Talitha kumi, which means little girl, I say to you, arise. And immediately the girl got up and began walking, for she was twelve 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.” The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Amen. You may be seated. To the story within a story. The story within a story. Mark tells us about these two women, these two daughters. One is about a young girl who’s about to die, and one is about a lady who has suffered long with a particular disease. And we have to remember, as we look at Mark’s gospel, and as we read through all of Mark’s gospel, it’s told through the lens of Isaiah the prophet. You’ll remember how Mark begins his gospel, the prologue, if you will, or the introduction in Mark 1, verses 1 and 2 that say, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way. And it goes on. And the key in the Gospel of Mark is this emphasis that everything that this Messiah, this Christ does is an answer to the promises that God had made to his people of old, to our fathers long ago through this particular prophet. Isaiah promised that one day God would come and restore the people of Israel. that he would tear the heavens open and that he would come down indeed and he would lead his people in victory and in salvation and ultimately to their comfort and their peace and the end of their exile in that suffering. And the Holy Spirit through Mark is telling us in every story in this gospel that that’s what’s happening right now. That’s what’s happening through this particular man, Jesus, this Christ, the Messiah. And you need to have, he’s saying, the eyes of faith to see these things, unless you end up like those unbelieving, unbelieving Israel, hardened in their unbelief. And so how do these two stories, this story interlaced in another story from our passage, fit into the big picture of Mark’s gospel? How does it relate? They tell us that as we look at this interlaced two stories, that because Christ brings restoration to his people, that we can have hope in believing. And we’ll see as we look through, as we walk through this passage, we see a dying daughter, then we see a daughter living in death, and then we see a dead daughter living, alive again, right? So a dying daughter, a daughter living in death, and then a dead daughter living again. And so let’s begin as we look this morning at verse 21, where we see this dying daughter, right? As soon as Christ gets to the other side of the sea, after casting out a legion, remember, he comes back and he’s thronged by this huge crowd. People are pressing in on him. And we immediately are introduced to this man named Jairus. Jairus. He’s the leader in the synagogue, we’re told. His responsibility is to lead, is to have management and organization. He’s the president of the synagogue, as it were, and he has a good reputation in the city. This position is one of honor and esteem among the Jews. So he’s a man of reputation. He’s a man who’s looked at with favor in the eyes of the common people. And this man comes, and he immediately rushes to Jesus, and we hear of his pain in these verses, verses 22 and 23. He humbles himself. He falls at the feet of Christ, and he begins to cry out to the Lord that he must come with him because, what, his daughter is about to die. And think of this man, think of this man of Jairus’ pain and desperation as he comes, his daughter is about to die and he needs help, he needs rescue for her, this precious child of his. And he seems to know that Christ may have the power that is needed to make his daughter well and he comes and he humbles himself before the Lord. And he asked that Christ might come and lay his hands on his daughter that she might live. And Christ has compassion on this man and this request, and he immediately decides that he’ll go with him back to his home and back to his daughter. But they don’t depart alone, you’ll see. Rather, the whole crowd goes with him, and they thronged about him. Thronged is one of those words that none of us use, like, ever, right? What does thronged mean? The word means pressed in on him, compressed him, squished, crushed around him. And reading this, we can feel the urgency of this matter as he goes with this thronging crowd. The urgency, this girl is about to die. And the last thing that this father, Jairus, wants is all of these other people getting in the way, slowing down the progress of this one who will rescue his daughter from death. And you can almost feel the expectation and the anxiety As the story goes on, and Christ immediately goes, and he understands this urgency and this expectation of the matter, and we can predict how it will all end, right? Jesus will go, the girl will live, and everyone will live happy ever after. She is whole. But there’s an interruption. There’s an interruption, one that was unwanted, surely by the Father. In this situation, as it’s interrupted, it’s interrupted by what? Verse 25 to 34, right? It’s interrupted by a daughter living in death. And we’re introduced into the second character in our passage this morning. This woman’s reputation is not honored like Jairus. It’s not well-respected in that particular community. Rather, she’s one who suffered long with a particular ailment. And notice how Mark describes this woman. Notice how he describes her pain and her affliction in verses 25 and 26. Mark uses a series of words here, five consecutive phrases, five consecutive participles describing what’s going on with this woman. She’s a woman that’s having an issue of blood, a woman having suffered for many doctors, having exhausted all of her wealth, having not improved, having gotten only worse. With each consecutive phrase as it goes forward, it drives us deeper with her into this despair and this exile that was very real existence for her and the perpetual nature of her situation. It is bad for her and it’s only growing darker. No matter how many times she’s tried to fix it, it’s been to no avail. Again, the language, she’s suffered much from any doctors. She’s used all of her resources and she’s gained nothing. According to the text, all has been spent, and nothing has been gained. And this is a hopeless woman in a hopeless situation. The text describes her illness to us. It says she has a hemorrhage of blood for 12 years. She’s been bleeding continuously for 12 years, yet does not die. The text is referring to her, of course, having a continuous, unending menstrual cycle. And we know from the Old Testament that this woman is clearly unwanted and outcast, that she is unclean. Ritually. And here’s the reason why. Not just because of her physical situation, but what it means for her also spiritual and her social situation as a Jew. According to the Old Testament, Leviticus 15, this woman would have been continually unclean for 12 years. That means she would have had no right to worship in the temple, no right to approach the Lord. It means that if she was married, she would have no relations, no access to her husband’s relationally. It means that she should not be in this crowd and that she’s defiling everyone that she comes in contact with. This woman was truly untouchable in the eyes of society. She will make you defile. She will make you spiritually corrupt, at least for a time. She’s an outcast. It’s not just a physical ailment. It’s far deeper than that. It’s a spiritual ailment. It’s something that keeps her away from God, away from the temple, away from her community, keeps her away from family and friends, and it makes her someone that’s always going to be on the outside as long as she’s in the state. And we also learn from the Old Testament that uncleanness is not just a spiritual ailment. It’s a sign of impending death. It’s a sign of getting closer and closer to death, further away from the Lord. And again, as you look at the Old Testament, you’ll see that holiness is talking about what true life is, holiness. To be unclean is to be further down the spectrum towards being defiled or unholy. To be unclean means that you reside in a little bit of death, and the farther you go down that spectrum of being unclean, you end up ultimately, you are dead. And then when you’re in the state of death, you’re considered unclean because death is in and of itself unclean. because it shows the difference between that state and who God is, this one who is holy and pure, this one in whom is light and life, this one who is the opposite of all those things that are violating this woman in this text. She’s not just sick, she’s living in a state of uncleanness and therefore always living in a state of constant death. She’s a daughter living in death. And so notice as she approaches the Lord, notice her posture, right, compared to Jairus. He runs up, humbling himself, making this big announcement. She comes in a different way, right? A quite different way. She has somehow enough theological insight to have considered what she’s about, what she’s heard, or what she’s witnessed, what Christ was doing. And she says, I’ve seen this man work. I’ve seen that there was a leper who was unclean, that he was touched and he was cleansed. There was this one who lived with thousands of demons within him, and yet somehow he came in contact with this man, Jesus, and he’s made whole and in his right mind. And she thinks, if I could just touch him, which is very irrational. It’s very bold from someone who’s unclean to say, if I could just touch him, because it would directly threaten his holiness. All through Scripture, cleanliness goes one way. You defile someone. You don’t make them clean when you touch them. But she has somehow put it all together. If I could touch him, I won’t defile him, but he’ll heal me. Somehow it will run this other way, and I’ll be made whole from his cleanliness. And so that’s her plan, and she goes, and she squeezes through this thronging crowd, not caring how many she’s defiling as she goes. And she reaches out her hand and she touches Christ. She touches his garment. And Christ felt power go from him. Now, what’s interesting is this isn’t the first person that touched Jesus this day, right? The thronging crowd has touched her, has been pressing in on him, crushing him. But in her action of faith, she is made whole. She’s made well. And Christ notices it and he stops everything. And he stomps, and in this crushing crowd, he asks, who touched me? And his disciples respond quite naturally, who touched you? Everyone is touching you. And imagine at this point, as you step back from the story of what’s going on, imagine what Jairus is thinking this time. This is unimportant. This is getting in the way. It’s killing my time. It’s killing my daughter. If you have compassion, just keep going. Let’s go. But Christ doesn’t. He stops everything. And he asks this question, who touched me? And see also his interaction with this woman. He doesn’t seem to give her any sort of rebuke or correction. Rather, he’s drawing her out. He’s drawing her out to teach and to make an example and to show something very clearly to this crowd and all who are watching, including this man, Jairus, with his dying daughter. She can’t stand it any longer as he confronts her. And verse 33 says, but the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And Jesus, right, listen to the language, calling her daughter, says to her, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed. Go in peace and be healed. Some of our translations might say, be healed from your diseases. The word can be interpreted as whip or scourge or your affliction. Be healed from this. Be healed from your scourge that’s been upon you. And Jesus says, you go in peace and shalom, in wholeness, and be healed. Be delivered from the scourge that was upon you. No more will she be an outcast. She’s made whole. And this one who was always on the outside is now announced in front of everyone, whole and clean by this Messiah. And this woman, who for 12 years had been plagued and unclean, now is finally released from this affliction. And you see, she’s been welcomed, what, into the peace of the new creation, into what will be for her true when all things are made new. Will she get sick and die again at some point? Certainly she will. But this little interruption, this little foretaste, this little moment that she’s experiencing for the first time, what it will be like for her always in the new creation when all things are made new, this one who has come to bring salvation of God, it’s by him that this comes, that Isaiah spoke of so long ago and promised through this prophet. This one who was to come to make all things new and to bring wholeness to all those who are part of his kingdom. And she’s been given what will be hers fully in the resurrection of the dead. And Jesus calls her again, what? Daughter. Daughter. She’s accepted, no longer an outcast, she’s accepted as a daughter of the king. Where before she was rejected by all men, a daughter living in death. She’s made alive. the ones dwelling under the shadow of death. She’s given Shalom for all of her previous despair. This is her life because she believed in this particular Messiah, because she reached out for this one in faith, trusting that he can make her whole. It’s glorious. It’s a glorious passage, glorious good news as we hear it, until the other news comes, right? The glorious news is interrupted once more. This is a wonderful story, but this other story comes, this other news, and now the conclusion of that story presses in upon Christ, and people come up to Jairus. They come to him as the word of the world comes, and they say to him, don’t bother the teacher any longer. Your daughter’s dead. And in the midst of this woman’s celebration, the woman previously with the flow of blood, this man gets news that will crush him for all of his life. Don’t bother him any longer. There’s only a funeral to be had when he gets there. Christ’s daughter is healed, you’ll notice. But Jairus, his daughter, is dead. Think about what’s going on through this father’s heart at this time. From one moment he’s come, he’s fallen before the feet of Christ. This one who can help him can help her. And Christ says, yes, sure, I will go with you. and they’re making their way to the house, and Christ takes the time to stop and deal with something else. It doesn’t seem urgent, really, right? It’s already been 12 years with this woman. She can stand another day. Put it aside. It’s not critical. My daughter is dying. And so this father’s left to answer the question, who is this person? Was I wrong about him? Can I trust him? And the text tells us in verse 36, But overhearing what they said, the word of the world, right, the people who come to announce, don’t bother him. Overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, do not fear, only believe, only believe. And so Jesus presses him to take him at his word. Do not fear, only believe. You press him to believe that he can do something beyond what he thinks is possible. Jesus requires of the synagogue ruler eyes of faith, eyes to see what he just witnessed before him. We have to get this here, right? He requires of Jairus eyes of faith to see what he just saw before his own eyes with this woman. He knows the laws of uncleanness. He’s the ruler of the synagogue. He knows all of this. He knows that if this woman was suffering from an issue of blood for all these years, that she is indeed in the shadow of death. She’s unclean. She is defiling. These laws aren’t new to him. He knows scripture. He knows the Torah. He was forced to wait and to watch this happen in front of him. As the woman is told, she tells the whole truth of her situation, and Christ makes her come forward and tell everyone what just happened to her. and the ruler of the synagogue, this father is witnessing this all take place, hearing the story that’s being told, and he’s forced to see it as Jesus stops to deal with it. Because he tells this woman who suffered for 12 years, daughter, your faith has made you whole. And Jairus is now what is required to believe, believe that this one who can heal, this one who suffered for 12 years, this one who called her daughter, who raises this daughter from the dead, that he can go to his house and meet with his 12-year-old daughter, who is now under the shadow of death, and he can make her whole as well. You see this being pressed in on this individual. And the question is, Can Jairus believe these things? Will he believe him? Will he trust him? Will he follow this Messiah? And Christ is saying to him, my son, my unclean daughter lives whole and in peace. She was dying. My dying daughter is now made whole and she is in peace. Shalom. What will happen to yours if you will only believe? Only believe. And this certainly speaks to the power of God. It’s all surpassing magnitude and the availability that is there to his children who express faith. Imagine just how changed you would be and our lives would be if we would only believe, if we would only live lives of believing. I imagine it would be so radical. I don’t think we could fathom it. But we can again avail ourselves to the means that God has given us. We’re commanded to do. Correct? God’s given us what? He’s given us those means to increase and to grow and to mature and strengthen our faith. We must be submerged in. We must be rooted in His word. We must bring ourselves regularly before the Lord by His word, together corporately as His people and personally, privately. And we must partake, believing in faith in the supper. And it must all be steeped with what? Seasoned with prayer. Word, sacrament, and prayer. But he says to this father, only believe. And in contrast to the word of the world comes the word of the word, only believe. And what do you fear? What do we fear in our lives? This is a question that confronts this father, and it confronts us. What do we fear losing? What do we fear remaining in our lives? What do we fear happening to us? And how can Jairus believe, how can we believe in a situation that looks so hopeless as this or those where we find ourselves in? But dear Christian, there is hope. There’s hope in Christ. And his call to this Father and his call to us is to put our faith in this Christ, into this Savior, into this Jesus. Jairus is to trust that his daughter can be made whole. It’s been demonstrated right before him. He only is to believe. And he gives us a taste of that same call today. And we see as this story unfold in the next section of verses, verses 37 to 40, a dead daughter alive. She’s living again. We see a daughter alive from the dead. Paul and Jairus’ arrival at his house, we’re told there’s this great commotion of weeping and mourning and wailing. We don’t know if they’re professional mourners or not. We’re not told. But it says we see people wailing and weeping. And in this culture, there would be always a great crowd, a large crowd of those who would mourn. When they were aggrieved, they didn’t hide it, they showed it, they displayed it. They would show by their expressions, by verbal, their clothes they wore, by their demeanor. And here they’re making all the noise in front of Jairus’ house because of his daughter, that she is dead. And this is the beginning of their mourning for her funeral. And the word comes, Jesus comes. And he enters the scene and he says what? She’s not dead, she’s only sleeping. And the whole crowd, look at what it says, begins to laugh at him. Begin to laugh at him. And imagine that, this change so quickly from mourning and wailing to mocking Christ at what he says. Because they’ve seen it. They’ve seen that this isn’t a girl who’s just nodded off or fallen asleep, she’s died. And yet Christ is giving Jairus something to believe in, and that’s the condition that’s not the final word, right, that she’s in. It’s not the final word. Death will not have the final word, and what may appear to be true by his sight will not be what he is left to hope in if he will only hold on to the words of Christ and believe. There’s hope in this situation. that he finds himself, that he entrusts his daughter to. And so he gives something for Jairus’ faith to reach out and grab hold of, and that is his word. And so Christ kicks everyone out, except for the three disciples, and that he’s chosen to come with him. And again, what, he touches this one who was utterly unclean. The touching of the unclean, taking her by the hand, this dead girl by the hand, and calling her forth. And again, it’s not he who is defiled, but what she is made whole. And everyone’s amazed and Christ instructs them to get her something to eat. And as I mentioned earlier, these two stories are bound together for a reason. It’s really hard to make sense of them fully separated. It’s more than just these amazing healings that Christ has performed. There are too many things in common for them to just be random, right? The Lord doesn’t give us filler in his word, he doesn’t give us randomness, right? 12 years in issue of blood, 12 year old girl, both female, both called daughter, both unclean, both touched by Christ and given life. They’re interlaced. And Mark put this particular, put it in a particular order for a reason. And the question is why? Well, remember the whole of Mark, right? We’ve seen what Mark is trying to tell us about the salvation that God would bring to Israel, his people, as promised through the prophet Isaiah. And the question is, what are these miracles saying? What are these works of the Lord saying? What are they telling us beyond just the healings? Well, the first thing we need to know and learn from this is that it’s clear Israel is under a curse. It remains in her suffering. And that though Israel, she lives in the land, she is not freed. Though she may dwell where the temple is, that is not the longed-for restoration that is promised to come. Mark makes this abundantly clear. Israel is still somehow suffering in exile and waiting for the day of deliverance to come for them. And both these stories refer to issues of uncleanness that are proof that Israel is not prospering, but instead is under a kind of curse that God promised in Deuteronomy, you’ll recall, way back when. You remember when God gave all of those sanctions in Deuteronomy, the blessings and the curses at the end there in chapter 28. And he said, if you obey me, if only you obey me and follow me, all these good things will happen. Blessing, blessing, blessing. There’ll be a blessing in your crops. There’ll be abundant. You’ll have children running everywhere. Your wife will always be having babies. And they’ll be healthy, and you’ll eat and be full. It will be a celebration in your life. But if you don’t obey me, the curses will come upon you, and the heavens will become like bronze, and the ground will become like iron. Your crops will not come, the rain will not come, and the womb will be closed, and the children that you do have will die in their young age, and you’ll be afflicted with all sorts of diseases, pestilence, and famine, and ultimately, the final curse will be exile, separation from God, out of his presence. Well, here we run into two women that have things that are afflicting them, things that are exact replicas of what God promised during that time in the cursing of that section. Deuteronomy 28, verse 58, listen just briefly, 58 and 59, Deuteronomy 28. It says, if you’re not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God, Then the Lord will bring on you and your offspring extraordinary afflictions, afflictions severe and lasting, and sickness grievous and lasting. Affliction and sickness, grievous and lasting. And these two women that we see interlaced in this passage from Mark chapter five show that Israel really is under God’s afflicting hand, the scourge of God, the exile of God is upon this nation. These two women speak to the larger condition of Israel as a whole. And notice how these stories work for us as well. Israel is to be drawn into the lives of these two women. Israel is to see not just two women that are healed here. They’re to see themselves in these two women. And the conditions that these women experience are Israel’s conditions. We don’t have time to get into all the background. It is vast and plenty. Perhaps spend some time this day reading these passages from Ezekiel and from Isaiah. But think of the nameless woman, right? She’s unclean, scourged according to the text, right? Be healed from the whip of your affliction or from your scourge, be healed from your affliction. She’s separated from her way and separated from true life and community. She is Israel in exile. And how do we know this? Again, what does God say about Israel’s condition in the Old Testament and the cursings that will befall her? Ezekiel 36, 17. Son of man, when the house of Israel lived in their own land, they defiled it. And listen, how did they defile it? They defiled it by their ways and their deeds. Their ways before me were like the uncleanness of a woman in her menstrual impurity. And so God says, you are impure in the land because of your ways and deeds, even as a woman is unclean and impure in her menstrual impurity, according to the holiness code from Leviticus. And then consider Isaiah. Isaiah, the book that Marcus patterned himself after, has used as his guide, as a template for his gospel. And you all know this verse from Isaiah. We have all become like one who is unclean. And we all know the next part. And all of our righteous deeds are like what? Like filthy rags, like polluted garments. And notice what Israel is talking about here in this text, really is those filthy rags that have been, we’ve talked about to this point. And so it’s this woman that comes before Christ. She comes and with an issue of blood in her menstrual period for 12 years, the hemorrhage of blood, it says. She’s putting on display the very condition of Israel in the land. Indeed, by her deeds, defiling that land. And what about this young girl, this synagogue ruler’s daughter? What does Mark stress about her? What’s he telling us in this story? Well, as you look at Isaiah, we’re told that that part of the curse on Israel is on the young ones. Children will be struck down in their youth. They will not see old age. And so this little girl, again, is putting on display for Israel the curse that is upon them as a nation. They’re not freed from these things. They’ve not been made whole. They’ve not been restored. They’ve not been given victory and salvation. So that we would see in this story of these two daughters, what is it that we should see? We’re to learn of the unclean woman, what? We see that this woman who was defiled for many years, she is cleansed. Peace is pronounced upon her. She’s given wholeness. Shalom, my daughter. Salvation has come because she has placed her faith in the Messiah that was promised and is now before her. It’s language that is beautiful. She reaches out, she touches him. And why is this important? Right back to the text in Isaiah. All of your righteousness is as filthy rags and what comes next. There is no one who calls upon your name. There was no one who rouses himself to take hold of you. No one to take hold of you. And this woman, this unclean woman does what? She reaches out her hand and she takes hold of Christ in faith and salvation is promised to all in the Old Testament is brought to her personally. Shalom, peace, my daughter. You’ve been saved. Your faith has made you well, he says. And the point for all of Israel is no matter how unclean you are, you turn to this one, to this Messiah, to this Christ, and only this one and peace. The peace, the salvation that is promised to all of your forefathers will come to you as well. You refuse this one and your future will be different. You will remain in your sins, in your uncleanness, in your exile. There’ll be no peace, there’ll be unending curses, no cleanness, only eternal death. And of this little girl wasting away under death in the midst of her youth, Jesus does what? He goes in and he sends all who are weeping away only to raise her from the dead. And this is important why. Think back again to Israel. prophet Isaiah in the very next chapter, he says, I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people. No more shall be heard in it, that is Israel or Jerusalem, the sound of weeping or the cry of distress. This is exactly what Jesus has done. He sent those crying and weeping and distress away. listen to what he says next Isaiah says no more shall there be a child who lives but a few days or an old man who does not fill out his days for the young man shall die at a hundred years old Jesus has come to undo all the afflictions all that afflicts Israel and the curses that have come upon her because of her deeds and her defiling deeds and he sends these ones away who are weeping and he takes hold of of this one out of her distress and gets her life. And he says, no, you will not be taken down in your youth. You will see a ripe old age. And he’s speaking to Israel through these two daughters in this interlay story that the curses that are under, that Israel is under can be undone. If you look to, if you have faith, if you only believe in this one who was given this Messiah who has come, If you put your faith in me, he says, only believe and you’ll be saved. This Christ offers to his people a wholeness and a peace, the wholeness and peace of the new creation. They would just place their faith in him. And that offer, brothers and sisters, he gives to us as well. He gives to us as well. And through these two short stories, we see a future put on full display, a new creation, future that’s put out there. And through these two, though they will die again, there is a resurrection. There’s a resurrection. And all they have to do is believe. Though they are unclean, there’s one who has come to make them clean. Glorious indeed, and though our righteousness is as filthy rags as we are told in his word, Christ has come, and he has become unclean for us, that we might become the very righteousness of God in him. He became curse for us, that we might no longer have to live under the darkness of death that comes with the curse. Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. But instead, all life long can live under the shalom, the peace of God, the peace and shalom that God offers, that comes when we know for certain in life or in death, we are in the hands of a faithful savior who will meet with us even in the day of our death to touch us and to say to us, indeed, arise, arise, even as he did to this girl. So may we put our faith, may we put our hope fully in this Christ today and trust this salvation. His salvation for us is a lasting, it is eternal, it is sufficient, even in the midst of all of our adversity to give us hope in this age. Brothers and sisters, may we go from here and live for this one Jesus who died that we may dwell forever with him in glory. Amen. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, we do praise you for this word that you’ve given us. We praise you that you’ve given us the ability, though broken, though feeble, though frail, though forgetting as we are, the ability to hear your word, to comprehend, to believe it, even just a foretaste of it, even just a tiny bit, Lord. We thank you for the good news that you’ve given us here in this gospel. Do thank you that in the preaching of the gospel, we don’t just hear about Jesus, but it’s through this word that we hear from Jesus, and that it is his voice that we thank you for, that we hear, and that as we come to this table that we’re about to partake of, that we don’t just remember Jesus, but we feed on him spiritually, and we feed on him in body and blood to our spiritual nourishment. Lord, God, we would see Jesus, as the old saying goes, That is our desire of our hearts. We pray that we would believe what we hear in this, your word, and hear from him by your spirit. And we pray, Lord God, this morning that we would, as we do break this bread, that we would be seen and known to this, his flock, and whom he loves. We ask this all in Christ’s name, amen.

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