GET
UP
Hello. My
name is Jarius. I am an elder in my little synagogue on the edge of the land
the Jews call their own, near the lake that Jesus seemed to always be going
back and forth on during his ministry—the Sea of Galilee. I wasn’t a teacher or
a preacher. Instead I was the one that cared for the building, prepared the
elements for worship, I planned and prepared the prayer services, and I would
teach the children’s classes while the rabbi taught and led the rest of the
community. I was in essence the lay leader of my little congregation.
There in our
little town on the edge of the lake I lived most of my life. It was hot, dirty,
rugged, and beautiful. My marriage was arranged, and after I learned my trade
and established myself and took a wife.
Those days
were wonderful days. Days when your dreams for you future take up more space in
one’s mind and heart than do one’s past and one’s present. We had planned to
have a whole quiver full of kids, as the Psalms put it. We were going to fill
our house with love for the Lord and love for one another. We were so excited.
After a few
years, God blessed us with a child. A beautiful little baby girl. In the
following years, we had hoped for more, but we could not have more. That was
ok. It seemed that when this little girl smiled, the whole world just lit up.
And when she giggled, our whole world was filled with joy. We treasured every
moment with that little girl. She was our everything.
One day,
everything seemed to go terribly wrong. She started out with a little cough.
The cough soon turned to a fever. The fever soon became hotter and hotter. Our
little girl alternated between chills and sweats. We tried every remedy we
could find. None of them worked.
I was lost. I
would run to the synagogue to do some chore or errand, and time seemed to stand
still. The task that usually took me five minutes would take me an hour. I was
lost for ideas. I prayed. I cried. I asked out loud, “What should I do, Lord,
what should I do?” It was apparent without some change our daughter was going
to die soon.
So I looked
out toward the lake. I don’t know what I was looking for. All of the sudden I
saw a boat heading in our direction.
I knew which
boat it was. It was such a rickety boat. It was always on the verge of sinking
at one point or another. Yet, it carried a very important passenger.
The boat that
was coming our direction was the one that carried Jesus of Nazereth and his
disciples. They were coming back across the lake from another one of their
missionary and teaching ventures. Word was, Jesus had cast demons out of a man
possessed by them, and sent the demons into pigs, who in turn ran into the lake
and drowned themselves.
I had heard
of the many miracles Jesus had done. Was this the man that could help us? Our
rabbi as well as our doctor seemed convinced that our 12 year old little girl
was going to die. “Begin preparing for the worst,” they told us, “It is only a
matter of time.”
I told my
wife, “I am going to go down to the city, and see if I can find Jesus, and see
if Jesus will come with me. I can do a lot of things, but I am not just going
to sit here waiting for her to die and not do anything!”
I walked down
toward the harbor where the boats always land and tie up. I walked through a
number of small little villages of 50, 30, or 100 people. They all knew me or
knew of me, and I them.
I walked
along talking to myself, my hands flailing everywhere. I was trying to work out
exactly what I was going to say when I met Jesus. People would look at me and
look away. They knew who I was. They knew what I was dealing with. Folks are
used to seeing people walking around and talking to themselves in some small
towns. Everyone has been caught talking to themselves without knowing it. Some
of us are just a little bit more embarrassed about it than others. Besides,
walking along and talking outloud is the way a lot of people prayed in our
time.
So I got down
to the city, down to the docks, and it became obvious from looking behind me
that other people were also becoming used to seeing that rickety old boat. They
were all coming toward Jesus. I fought my way to the front of the crowd. I fell
at my feet. I made the speech I had been practicing. I kept it simple. I said,
“My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she
can be healed and live.”
Jesus agreed
to come with me. Praise the Lord! He was willing to heal her! Oh, my heart was
about to explode with joy. Thank God for his sense of good timing, sending
Jesus to us at this moment! And so we began to walk. Together. Toward my home.
As Jesus and
I began to walk, crowds began to gather en masse. People were not impeding our
progress, they knew the urgency of the situation, but they were pushing in on
us from every side.
Then Jesus
stopped. He paused. He frowned. He looked around. “Who touched me?” He said.
His disciples
thought this was a silly question. I did not quite get it either. Everyone was
touching everyone.
Everywhere
Jesus went was like a political rally. People pressing in from everywhere.
Standing room only. Room to walk and wiggle. But people were shoulder to
shoulder.
Jesus said
that he knew someone had touched him. He then waited for a while to hear the
response. He said that he knew someone had touched him because he had felt
power go out of him. Eventually a woman came forward.
She shared
that she had been bleeding for 12 years straight. That she had been to every
doctor and tried every self-help plan and none of them worked. Now she was
broke and had no where left to turn.
She said she
had been bleeding for 12 years. It made me think of my little girl. She was
born 12 years before. The woman had been bleeding as long as my girl had been
alive. Jesus was telling her that her faith had made her well. He was touching
her. She was moved by his kindness….and in the middle of all of this I felt a
hand placed on my shoulder.
I turned
around. It was folks who had been sitting with my family up at my house. I
looked in their eyes. I knew exactly why they were there.
She is gone,
they told me. Your daughter has died. You should just tell him she has died. We
no longer need him to heal your daughter. We need to begin funeral
arrangements.
Just a few
moments before I was thinking that Jesus had the best timing in the world, and
that his arrival in this place at this time was some blessing from above
designed by God to answer my prayers for my daughter. Now…I don’t know.
It seems like
this interruption on the way, with this woman, was just…well…bad timing. Is
everything lost? O Lord, help me, I prayed under my breathe.
Jesus
replied, even as I was praying, lost in my grief, “Don’t be afraid, just
believe!” The word he used is better interpreted “faith” from our language, but
faith is a noun in your language, and always an action word in ours. In other
words, Jesus said. Fear not, keep faithing…but believing sound so much better
in a sentence.
At that
point, Jesus’ pace increased. He just brought Peter, James, and John with him.
He got near the house, and there was no mistaking where we lived. I did not
have to describe which little hut was ours. There were people standing outside
of it, filling it inside, crying and screaming. It was more chaotic than a
season ending episode of New Jersey Housewives.
Jesus waded
through the crowd and into the front door. “Why all this commotion and
wailing,” he said, “the child is not dead. She is just asleep.”
The crowd
looked at him. They paused. They said nothing. Then they laughed. The laughed
loud at Jesus. They did not know what else to do. This man that was supposed to
heal my daughter, they thought, must be going crazy.
So Jesus got
a little bit angry. He forced everyone to leave the house, except his three
guys, and my wife and I. He grabbed a chair. He looked at her lovingly. He
grabbed her hand. Then he said, “Little girl, get up”. No magic works. No
mysterious prayer. Just, “hey little girl, it is time to rise and shine, and
give God the glory.”
And that is
exactly what happened. She got up. Just like that. And she began to walk
around. Then Jesus reminded us that she had been sick for days, and she might
need to eat something if she was going to say healthy. We got her dinner. And
she ate…a lot.
Jesus made
his way down the road not too long after. He told us not to tell anyone what he
did. Guess I am falling a little short with that here talking to you, but of
course people have been reading this story for two thousand years. I think the
statute of limitations has run out…
So, what does all this mean
for us?
As I ponder this passage,
the phrase that keeps coming to mind is “get up!”
This word “Get up!” is
actually one word in Greek, also translated “arise!” The same word as “risen”
in “he is not here, Jesus is risen” on Easter morning.
Jesus said to the young girl
“Get up!” He said to this lifeless body “Arise!” And he says the same to us
today.
Some of us here have spent
our lives chasing after money or cheap thrills, thinking that these things
would elevate us and our lives, and we have found that these pursuits have left
us empty and tired, with our heads down. I say to you, get up, and embrace the
new life that Christ offers. Arise to a new life, the life that God offers
through faith in his son Jesus Christ.
Some of us have spent our
lives slaves to our doubts and insecurities about ourselves. We have had
dreams, hopes, callings, and goals, but we have shunned them because we have
come to believe that we are not good enough, or we can’t, or that is not worth
trying. We have forgotten that God can do all things through Christ who
strengthens us. We need to get up, and remember these oft quoted words:
Our deepest fear is not
that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond
measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.' We ask
ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually,
who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your
playing small does not serve the world. GET UP.
And there are some of
you here, well, you are content to simply play at your faith instead of truly
living it with passion and gusto. You try to do just enough to get by, say just
enough to get by, in the hopes that you might do just enough to impress God and
others.
My friend,,,repent of your
half hearted faith. GET UP. Give of your best to the master. Make your last
years your best years!
But don’t listen to all
this just because I said so. Do it because of the one who went to a cross and
died on a cross. He was dead and buried. And then on the third day, God raised
Jesus from the dead. The Lord said, GET UP. And Jesus got up. Death could not
hold him. Sin had no power over him. And now he sits at the right hand of God.
As we come to this
table, we celebrate the hope this offers, that the one who gave his body and
blood for our sins invites us to come to this table to celebrate his sacrifice.
He invites us to remember though that his death is not the end of the story.
That it allows us to proclaim that he will come again to rescue those who believe
and give them eternal life.
Get up. Believe. Eat.
Drink. Go. Share.
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