Only Believe
Mark 5:21-43[1]
There are some experiences in
life that take us to the very edge of our ability to cope. You lose your job and wonder how in the world
you’re going to find another one. Or you learn that the cancer has
metastasized. Or you look at the person you’ve shared your life with and
realize that it’s over. It may take a while, but in situations like that, the
stress you feel can easily push you beyond the limit of what you think you can
endure. We have a word for it: finding yourself at the end of your rope. Most
of us either have faced or will face this kind of situation. And,
unfortunately, when that time comes, our faith can seem pretty empty.
Our Gospel lesson presents us
with a couple of people who had reached the end of their respective ropes: a
father whose daughter was dying and a woman whose life had been almost literally
consumed by her illness. The lesson begins with a prominent man in the
community coming to Jesus and asking him to save his daughter. As they were on
the way, however, a woman who had been afflicted with an illness for 12 years
came and touched Jesus. The woman was so desperate, she believed that all she
needed to do was touch Jesus’ clothes, and she would be healed. And in fact,
she was! Jesus told her that it was her faith that healed her.
It’s hard to know what it was
she believed in. The fact that she thought she would be healed if she only
touched Jesus’ clothes makes it sound like she had some kind of magical view of
who Jesus was and what he could do for her. But I think more important is the
faith and the courage it took for her to take the step of venturing into the
crowd and reaching out to touch Jesus. Her particular illness rendered her, for
all practical purposes, an outcast. She was perpetually “unclean,” and
therefore unable to take part in any of the normal activities of life, even the
worship of God at the synagogue! Rather than giving up, she had the faith and
the courage to seek the one who was healing people in God’s name.
Unfortunately, although the
father came to Jesus first, during the time Jesus was healing the woman, his
daughter died. One would think that would be the end of it. But Jesus told the
father, “Do not fear, only believe” (Mk. 5:36)! That seems to me a strange
response to death. Normally we would say
something like, “I’m terribly sorry for your loss.” Or “Please let me know if there’s anything I
can do for you.” But to say, “Do not fear, only believe” strains the
imagination. The fact that he, an influential leader, came personally to beg
Jesus for healing suggests that he was just as desperate as the woman. What was
this father supposed to believe in now that his daughter was dead?
I think the answer has to do
with the whole purpose for miracles in Jesus’ ministry. They were not meant for
show, or to convince skeptics, or to gain notoriety. They were acts of compassion
in response to human need. But they were also more than that. They were
individual demonstrations of the new life of God’s Kingdom. So in a very real
sense, what Jesus was asking this grieving father to believe in was that God
had begun working to make all things new already in the here and now. And that
Jesus was the agent through whom God was bringing this new life into our world.
And that somehow all of this would make a difference even for him.
What do we believe in when we
reach the end of our ropes? Many of us these days have a hard time believing in
miracles. When life brings something so painful, so devastating that it feels
like you’ve gone beyond what you can humanly endure, what then? For many of us,
if we’re honest, we’d have to admit that our faith tends to evaporate. But is
there some way to face that kind of devastating loss without giving up our
faith? I guess what I’m asking is what we can believe in when it seems like we
have nothing left to believe in.
We may have to start with the
people around us. We can believe in the
people who continue to show us love and compassion and support—those who walk
with us through the valley of the shadow of death. That’s something we can
believe in. And we may also have to take a hard look at ourselves. When we go
through our own end-of-the-rope situations, we can believe that our life isn’t
over. One chapter may be coming to a close, but as it does, it opens the way
for another chapter to begin. Ultimately, however, I think what we can believe
in is that the one who has carried us from the day of our birth will continue
to carry us all the days of our lives. We can believe that God can and does
bring something good from what seems to be our worst nightmare come true. We
can believe that God is working in and through all the heartbreak and suffering
in this world to make all things new.
There are times in our lives
when things happen that press us to our limits and beyond. When that happens,
we have a choice. We can pull the covers
over our heads, isolate ourselves, and try to escape from it all. Or we can
embrace what we’re feeling and move forward in faith that God has a future for
us. Just because we experience devastating loss doesn’t mean our lives are
over. It could very well mean that our lives are just about to truly
begin! If we can only believe, and open
our hearts to see the new possibilities, it may just be the greatest miracle of
all!
[1] ©
2018 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 7/1/2018 at
Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
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