Wh

OUT OF DESPERATION

By William M. Spangler
Franklin Circle Christian Church
(Disciples of Christ)
Cleveland, Ohio
July 2, 2006

The psalm we are about to hear is the sixth of the seven so-called penitential psalms. A person in great distress cries out to God for redemption from iniquities. He fears God, but why? Listen carefully, and you will learn why. The brief psalm begins as a prayer. Then the poet confides his longing for and hope in God to the reader. The psalm closes with an appeal addressed to the community, underscoring the reason why we should fear God. Psalm 130:

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.
Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplications!

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with you,
so that you may be feared.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morn-ing,
more than those who watch for the morn-ing.



O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is great power to redeem.
It is he who will redeem Israel
from all its iniquities.

In the gospel lesson, an episode in the life of Jesus begins with a man making an urgent appeal for immediate help. On the way to bring aid, Jesus stops when he senses someone has touched his cloak, a woman with an illness she has suffered for years. But in character with this gospel, the narrative soon re-sumes the first story and brings it to a conclusion. Let us listen in on Mark 5:21-43:

When Jesus crossed [the lake] again in the boat, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, “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.” So he went with him.

And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I touch his clothes, I will be made well.” Immediately her hemorrhage stopped, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’ ” He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened, came in fear and trembling, and fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you whole; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house and said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” He allowed no one to follow him but Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said, “Why do you make a com-motion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up.” Immediately she got up and began to walk (she was about twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her some-thing to eat.

It may have been out of desperation that I chose the title for this sermon. Preparing a sermon is sometimes an act of desperation—a frantic spinning of mental wheels in the face of writer’s block and un-solvable theological mysteries. After a while every-thing grinds to a stop, which makes me even more frantic.
But I comfort myself in the knowledge that I am not alone in my desperation. I stand in a long line of rather desperate folk, including the Hebrew poet who called to God out of the depths of his awareness of sin, Jairus who threw himself at Jesus’ feet, begging him to come and heal his dying daughter be-fore it was too late, and the woman with a flow of blood that had continued unceasing for twelve years. She probably had to summon all the courage she had in order to reach out and touch Jesus’ cloak.

And who knows how much desperation at this very moment hovers over those gathered here? Out of desperation we cry to God when burdened with guilt, when out of work, when loved ones or we our-selves are threatened by serious illnesses or injuries, when dealing with rebellious teenage children, when overcome with grief, and God alone knows what else.

So. Out of desperation we may find ourselves crying out to God, overwhelmed like the poet of Psalm 130 whose iniquities stood naked before the all-seeing presence of God. Almost in despair he asks, “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?” Indeed! Who among us gathered here could stand? Yet it was not the burning judgment of God that threatened to incinerate the poet along with his sins that made the poet tremble. His prayer takes a surprising turn, standing this fear-of-God thing on its head: “But there is forgive-ness with you, so that you may be feared.” The gift, according to Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann, precedes obedience. His thought recalls these lines from John Newton’s famous hymn:

‘Tis grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved.

Where there is no hope, there is no fear, but be-cause there is forgiveness with God, we have hope, and trembling in the hope of redemption we fear.

In great fear, Jairus came to Jesus, though not out of fear of God or fear of Jesus. He was driven by fear because that his daughter was dying. So we come to God, come to Christ, when we are in great distress. We come because with God there is hope and healing in addition to forgiveness.
Let us suppose a close family member, a daughter, has been seriously injured in an accident. Will she live or die? Shaking in fear, we sit in the emergency room, waiting for the surgeon to finish the operation. Can she be helped? Did she get to the hospital in time?

So. We wait and pray. Will her life be spared?

We begin a conversation with a woman waiting for her husband to be released after coming to the emergency room with a severe reaction to some medication he was taking. She begins talking about her medical problem—lupus or some other autoimmune disorder that leaves her in constant pain. “Right now,” she says, “it feels as if a knife is sticking in my back. I’ve been going to doctors with this for over ten years now, and after all that expense I’m no better. Worse maybe.”

Her complaints go on and on and on, and we wish we could get away from her, at the same feeling sorry that has found no relief, and has probably alienated all her friends with her constant complaining. “I’m thinking about going to a faith healer,” she says.

And that reminds us of the woman in the crowd following Jesus on his way to the house of Jairus. She reached out in desperation to touch the hem of Jesus’ robe, believing that she would be healed of the bleeding that sapped her strength and depleted her financial resources, and made her ritually unclean, an outcast among her people. Immediately she felt healing power surge through her body, and she knew she was cured. Jesus felt power going out of him when she touched his cloak, and he asked, “Who touched my clothes?” I wonder how he asked the question. Did he speak in puzzlement, “Who touched my clothes?” I suspect that he spoke more sternly, even demanding, “Who touched my clothes?” because the woman trembled in terror. Did she think Jesus had magical powers, and that she, unbidden, had intruded upon those powers, stealing something from him? Or was she afraid he was angry because she had contaminated him with her uncleanness?
But Jesus did not have magical powers. Even though he felt power go out of his body, it was her faith that tapped the power. He said to her, “Go in peace. Your faith has made you whole.”

One thing leads to another as we sit in the emergency room, we think how, after confronting the woman who had touched his clothes, Jesus continued to Jairus’ house, heard the news of the little girl’s death, but went on anyway, dismissing the professional mourners when he arrived. He permitted only the girl’s parents and Peter, James, and John to enter the house with him, and took the child by the hand, and said to her, “Little girl, get up!” As he did on other occasions of working a miracle, Jesus emphatically instructed the child’s parents and the three disciples not to breathe a word about what had happened.

He did not want to be known as a magician or a miracle worker. Obviously it was impossible for him to keep concealed what he had done, considering the large numbers of people he openly cured of their illnesses. His reputation as a miracle worker spread. Yet it interfered with his mission to renounce his power, and suffer the consequences of challenging the authorities of his people and their Roman over-lords with a gospel of justice, mercy, and faith. Such was the power of his person that the crowds of disciples who followed him to Jerusalem a year or two later, proclaiming him as Lord and King, created a threat to the Roman overlords and the priestly establishment in Jerusalem. Jesus refused to take up the sword on behalf of those who came with him, for he did not come to lead a violent revolution.

Even so we can understand why the priests were frantic when Jesus and his crowd occupied the tem-ple day after day, and why the Romans, who did not put up with uprisings of any kind, nailed Jesus to the cross. But that, according to the gospels, is how Jesus understood his mission. The way of love led him to the cross because to live out God’s love for people, he had to challenge the citadels of greed and power.

Our musings are interrupted when the surgeon, still in his scrubs, comes into the waiting room of the emergency center. “I have good news,” he says. “You daughter suffered a concussion. We had to put in a temporary shunt to relieve some swelling in her brain, but her vitals and reflexes are all normal. You should be able to take her home tomorrow.”

Tears come to our eyes. We breathe a silent prayer of thanks: thanks that our child will recover, thanks for the care and skill of the surgical team—thanks to God for a happy outcome. We waited for this news through a night of fear, and on hearing the surgeon’s report recalled the words of the poet in Psalm 130, “My soul waits for the Lord,/ more than those who watch for the morning,/ more than those who watch for the morning.”
The repetition of the words, “more than those who watch for the morning,” stresses the intensity of the poet’s longing, and fear, lest the dawn will not come. Even when we wait in faith, the immediate outcome is not always certain. Yes, the sun will rise tomorrow, but we do not know if it will rise upon the joy that comes when God grants our petitions, or on the desolation of disappointment and loss.

When my brother at age forty-six lay dying with an incurable cancer, our eighty-five year old mother prayed in perfect faith for his healing, but healing did not come, and she wondered for the rest of her life on earth why God took him and not her. Perhaps we are incapable of understanding why. We believe God has a plan, yet we are dangled between destiny and chance. Even if we dare to believe that God’s plan may never be thwarted, we also know that it may be postponed indefinitely in its fulfillment, and we cry out of desperation, “How long, O Lord, how long?”

This is not a new thing. The refrain, “How long, O Lord, how long?” echoes throughout the Old Testament from times when the people of God had no hope for a meaningful life hereafter.
God sent Jesus to bring us the gift of eternal life. This Jesus inspired such faith that a woman who had suffered twelve years with her ailment found herself cured the moment she touched Jesus’ cloak. Jairus came to Jesus out of desperation when his daughter lay dying. And Jesus brought her back from death.
In our experience, it doesn’t always happen that way. People may come back after near death experience. Resuscitation of persons who are clinically dead is a routine procedure. But not when a person has been dead for several hours.

Now and then we read or hear a news story of someone who lay dead for a week or more while family, friends, or pastor, certain that God would work a miracle, prayed in vain for God to bring the person back to life. It happened in Mentor, Ohio many years ago. A first grade teacher in a church school believed the Lord was telling her she would be cured of her diabetes if she had faith enough to halt her insulin injections. So she stopped them. A few weeks later she died. Her pastor believed that God had planned an even greater miracle. God would raise the teacher from the dead. She lay on the bed where she died in the home of the pastor and his wife for over a week. Finally the pastor realized there would be now miracle, and notified the authorities of her death.

In Gethsemane Jesus himself prayed to be relieved of drinking the cup of suffering the night be-fore his crucifixion. But the heart of his struggle was really not to avoid the cross. He prayed out of the desperation of his eleventh hour need to bring his will into full conformity with the will of his heavenly Father in order to fulfill the redemptive purpose for which he came. If he had not been able with the Father’s help to drink freely and willing the cup of grief and sorrow, he would have died in vain.

By faith we understand that he prevailed. He conquered death. And so he is with us in our times of trial, when we cry to God out of desperation. He is with us to conform and transform our live according to God’s will and purpose. It is through drinking the cup of his suffering we may rise up in the glory of his resurrection.
 

-- XP --

Rev. William Spangler

Franklin Circle Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

1688 Fulton Rd., Cleveland, OH 44113-3096