Matthew 9:18-26 Just Sleeping

Today I am beginning a short sermon series on resurrection stories in the New

Testament. Technically, they should be called “resuscitation” or “revivification” stories, because the people in these passages are brought back to life, yes, but they are brought back to their same lives, in contrast to Jesus’ resurrection into a new life and a different kind of existence. That’s why Jesus is called the “first born from the dead” (Colossians 1:18). Our Christian hope at the end of all things is resurrection - a new, perfect, and eternal life; and the resuscitation of this little girl, and others in the gospels, isn’t the resurrection life of Jesus, but it does point us to resurrection, and is perhaps instructional in a couple of other ways, as well.

Now, these sermons are inspired by two things: the “Rediscovering Jesus” series of studies on the four gospels beginning this afternoon at Central Christian

Church in Killeen, and the organization known as Talitha Koum coming to our church a couple of weeks from now. Talitha Koum is the Aramaic phrase, meaning “Little girl, get up,” the words Jesus speaks to the child in Mark’s parallel account of this story.

Matthew and Mark and Luke tell this story, each with slightly different emphases, Matthew’s account by far being the briefest. But they all include the healing of the woman with the hemorrhage- and they include it in the same place- in the middle of the larger story, so it acts like a fulcrum for the greater miracle of the little girl, balancing on the one side the faith of the desperate father, and on the other side, the raising of the girl.

So what is it we should learn from this scripture? We’ve heard the story before- I don’t think anyone was surprised, as I read the passage, that it ends with

Jesus bringing the girl back to life. Perhaps the beginning point for us is to recognize that none of it happens without faith: consider the illogical or radical or impossible faith of a dad, even though his daughter is already dead; and you can’t cure dead- she is gone, there is no longer any chance for healing! But he comes, and so, demonstrates great faith. Or perhaps it’s simply that he had no other place to go, and sometimes maybe that’s the same thing. Just like the suffering woman, also a person with this one last chance, who sneaks up behind Jesus to touch him and be healed. Jesus acknowledges her faith and proclaims it the cause of healing, just as earlier in chapter 9, when he sees the faith of the crippled man and the friends who brought him; and just like that time at the end of the chapter when he gave sight to the blind men, saying, “By your faith this is done for you.” Should we understand from this that God is the God of lost causes, or that faith means never giving up, or that we should always expect a miracle? Perhaps, but my guess is that no matter how much we pray and hope and believe, we won’t see our loved ones brought back to life. In the gospels there are only four such stories, and what is emphasized here is not the miracles themselves, but the faith that calls out to Jesus and comes to him. So the purpose of the author, I believe, is not to show Jesus’ power to do great deeds, or his compassion, giving blessings and health; the meaning of faith is not in the getting of even these things, but the getting to a place.

Here is what I mean: the man comes to Jesus begging for his daughter, the woman comes to Jesus for healing; earlier the crippled man is brought to Jesus; in verses 27-31, two blind men follow Jesus, crying out for mercy. They all come to

Jesus, and that’s always the right place to be. The object of faith is to get you to that place.

And verse 18 gives us a bit more. Matthew has written that the man came and knelt down “while Jesus was still speaking.” That means that this scripture, about the faith of the man and the raising of his little girl and the faith and healing of the woman, is connected to the previous verses that tell us about Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners- outcasts and low-lifes- despite the complaints of the righteous Pharisees; we also read where someone asks him, “Why are you eating and drinking, shouldn’t you be more serious, fasting and praying?” And

Jesus answers, “How can guests at a wedding mourn while the bridegroom is still with them?” or to paraphrase, “While I am with you, you are gathered into a joyful community.”

And that’s what has happened to the sick woman, for twelve years unclean and alone, unable to take part in celebrations and worship, an outsider in the community, but by her faith, brought back into relationship with others; here is the helpless man, probably someone with high standing in the town, but despairing and mourning his little daughter; but he is given back his joy, given a place at the banqueting table because the bridegroom is near, Jesus has come; and the little girl, brought back to the community of family and friends- from farther away than anyone else- raised up into the kingdom of the living because the Lord touched her.

Their faith had made them well, and turned their sorrow into gladness.

Let us think of faith as coming into the presence of the one who loves and heals and makes alive. And all of us who have been loved by our Lord and made whole, let us believe he is with us even now. Here is the sign of his nearness, that he has created a fellowship where we may hear his words, and rejoice in his compassion, and share the love he has given to us. This is the proper place for us; let us come to the Lord who meets us at the table of fellowship with forgiveness and healing and joy.

A few days ago, while I was preparing this sermon, a news story came out, of another- yet, another- bullied teenager, a 15-year-old girl, who had committed suicide. A cyber-stalker had published pictures of her, kept tweeting and emailing her, and she couldn’t get away. She moved, changed schools, changed her email address, yet he found her; and she felt so desperate and friendless, and finally just gave up. A young girl, like in our scripture, but this girl will not be resuscitated.

No happy ending here. What word in our scripture can give us hope, some understanding, some comfort in situations like these? Maybe there is hope in the call to faith Matthew issues in chapter 9, where again and again Jesus approves of the faith of those who come to him, a faith that in each instance is rewarded: the woman is healed, the little girl is raised up. Near the end of the story, when Jesus tells the professional mourners to go away, says to them, “She isn’t dead, she’s just sleeping,” it is a promise to all of us that death is not the last word, not even for this teenager who has taken her own life, not the last word for any of us. Faith says that death is just sleeping, and that the Lord is with us even then.

But notice this one other thing. That it wasn’t the little girl’s faith, rather her father’s. She is raised up because of him. Don’t take from this that I’m saying if we believe hard enough, we can ask God to do any miracle and it will be done.

But that we should see that the pain of the father was part of his faith, so that part of our faithful response to God’s love is to be made able to feel the hopeless, crushing pain of even suicidal teenagers, or lonely old folks, or homeless immigrants, or someone sitting close by right now; and out of that pain, that we may come to the place where Jesus is and ask for healing for them. The thing is, the story of the gospel is, that that place of their pain is where Jesus already is.

And so, it is where we need to go. Where they are, where the pain is, where our

Lord is. And so, to understand that healing comes when we get there- comes from the faith that knows their hurt and shares it, and that asks the loving God to heal it.