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The Jairus Jolt Help us lord to be so connected to you that we might become the servants of others. Take our lips and speak through them, our minds and think through them, and take our hearts, and set them on fire. The true story is told of a man named Gregory. Gregory is on his way home from work one night when he hears muffled screams coming from behind a clump of bushes. Alarmed, he slows down to listen and panics when he realizes he’s hearing the sounds of a woman being attacked. The sounds of grunting, scuffling, the tearing of fabric… A wave of utter helplessness comes over Gregory as he realizes at that moment, he’s at a fork in the road. Voices fill his mind. He asks himself, "Should I get involved?"
As the seconds tick by the girls cries grow weaker and weaker. At that moment, he knows he can do only one thing. He prays to Christ and out of that prayer, this is what he would later write: “I’m not brave. I’m not athletic. But as I prayed, I became strangely transformed. I ran behind the bushes and pulled the assailant off the woman. Grappling, we fell to the ground where we wrestled until the man jumped up and ran away. Panting, I stood up, and gently approached the girl crouched behind a tree, sobbing, in the darkness I could barely make out her outline. Not wanting to frighten her any further, I spoke from a distance…It’s okay…the man ran away, you’re safe now.” There was a long pause, and then I heard words I shall never forget. “Daddy, is that you?” And, from behind the tree, stepped Katherine, my youngest daughter.” My friends, have you ever found yourself in this kind of a situation? Something going on is so horrible, you knew you had to take action, even if it meant putting yourself on the line -- even if it meant potentially losing your life, even if it meant embarrassment, or a loss of dignity. Moments when you felt undeniably against all odds, yet called to action. There is perhaps no other better Biblical character that models this, than a man named Jairus -- a modern day Gregory, a man who in his own life is faced with a huge fork in the road, someone who knew that the cost of inaction was higher than the cost of action. He was someone who knew of the potential embarrassment, and in Jairus’s case, the potential loss of friends, and the complete loss of dignity. You see, this man Jairus adored his daughter. He had just celebrated her 12th birthday, which was a big deal because in Jewish culture, a girl is made a woman at the age of 12 years and one day…a huge rite of passage. But, right after that for reasons we don’t know, she becomes deathly ill Now, you need to know something about Jairus. He was, as my son Christian would say, he was Mr. Fancy Pants. He was the equivalent of a Washington D.C. power-house kind of a man. He was financially well off, well respected in his culture, president of his synagogue, chief administrative head, yet also in charge of making sure the worship services were done right and well. Yes, he would be very committed to the faith of his day. He’s so important and so well known that he’s one of the few characters in all of the gospel of Mark to be given a name! Most others simply were known as man or woman, but Jairus, so important, his name is given. Now, pause that thought and imagine for a second, if down on Connecticut Avenue near the Avalon theatre, a charismatic, non-denominational church opened up, pastored by kind of a crazy faith healer. The church begins attracting people that many might consider strange. In fact, it begins to make headlines, and oh, the mockery of this little store-front church… But people’s lives are being changed! This is the general feel of the movement, of Jesus Christ at the time of Jairus. Lives are being transformed and Jairus knows it. And, as the movement of Jesus Christ grows, so does the opposition, especially through the local synagogues. It would be completely unseemly for anyone of Jairus’s stature to be seen there! But here’s Jairus, his daughter wracked in pain, knowing there was a possible solution out there, but is he willing to pay the price? It was that critical juncture of decision…. So, like Gregory, he does something that, just weeks earlier, would have scared him half to death. He runs to find Jesus, and notice that he doesn’t just run to Jesus, he runs and falls at the feet of Jesus. He begs Jesus, please, please my little girl…save her! Costly….costly…
Nothing in his life would be untouched as a result of this choice to go to Jesus. In fact, this is the last we would ever hear of this man. But my friends, on the way, a woman enters the scene. If Jairus is on top of the social ladder, the woman is on the bottom for two reasons:
And, you know what happens? Two major things happen in a split second. She’s healed by the Christ, immediately, and she would never be referred to as woman again by Jesus. Now, Jesus calls her daughter because she’s willing to put it all on the line. This is where we begin to cook with gas. Jesus wastes no time. He immediately continues the journey to the home of Jairus. Once there, Jesus says…Why all the commotion? Your daughter isn’t dead, but asleep! She not only gets up, but to prove that this miracle is true, Jesus almost with humor says, ‘How about some Tabouli, or some shish-ka-bob?’ Jairus is jolted into amazement! My friends, what we learn from the Jairus jolt is this -- faith in Jesus that takes action results in transformation. Memorize that: Faith in Jesus that takes action results in transformation. Jairus, out of a desperate faith, takes action and runs to the feet of Jesus…risking it all. The woman, whose very identity is changed, takes action by confessing to Jesus the lifestyle she had. Jesus heals and transforms. Do you see my friends? Faith in Jesus that takes action results in transformation, healing and change. It simply isn’t enough to have a vague belief about Jesus and hope he might heal. Remember that the ancient Israelites who had been wanting out of Egypt for years and years actually had to trust God to the point of entering into the Red Sea. Only then were they saved! And I ask you my friends, what is dead in your life that desperately needs reviving?:
Be guided by this: faith in Jesus that takes action will result in transformation. But, here is the challenge, and one that is often overlooked when we read this passage. Did you notice that as soon as Jesus said he was going to transform this child, as soon as he said…your child isn’t dead, but asleep, remember what happened? The people around the house laughed at him. There it is in Verse 40. The very first encounter Jesus would have with the skeptics of his day. The people laughed at him, kind of like the way people laugh at Christians today who say Jesus does have the power to transform our lives and our lifestyles, people laughing at the Christian for our belief that there is life after death! People laughing at the Christian claim that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and that no one comes to the father but by him! Have people laughed or mocked you at that? Now this might come as a surprise to some of us, but Jesus didn’t reply to these people in a pastoral way. He didn’t put his arm around them and gently woo them. We often have this vision of Jesus as the premier Mr. Nice Guy, pastoral 24 hours a day, never a rude or a politically incorrect word out of his mouth. But guess what Jesus does to those laughing in scorn? Jesus puts them out. How about that? I wonder if he takes them by the collar as his impatience gets the best of him, or does he simply show them the door? We don’t know how he did it, but he takes them out of Jairus’s house, bringing home that old truth: You can’t have what you don’t believe. If you don’t believe Jesus can transform you, you will never experience it! You see, when you look at the life of Jesus, what you find is a trail of transformed lives, people were never the same after they met him. People experienced their own Jairus jolt after spending any amount of time with him! They were always transformed, or had the potential for transformation but chose to walk away from it. You see, the thought of being transformed by Jesus isn’t always welcomed. Jairus, knowing the cost, could have decided it wasn’t worth it, and sought half a dozen more doctors. The bleeding woman could have said, ‘I can’t make a confession in front of all these people, plus, my condition has become kind of a way of life for me, in all of its difficulty, it’s become my identity.’ You see my friends, when we talk about transformation, we are talking about dangerous territory. What we hear today is, ‘Lord let me celebrate who I am. I don’t want transformation, just be with me where I am. In fact, how about this one… A preacher by the name of His-ako Kinu-kawa wrote a book in 1994 on this very passage and writes: “I applaud that Jesus broke through purity and social barriers, but Jesus should have accepted the woman as she was, even if she was bleeding…if that had happened, I would call it a true miracle!” Wouldn’t it be interesting to ask the woman in our Biblical story how she would have reacted to that? Yes, Jesus, always meets us where we are, but out of his undying love for us, never lets us stay there! My friends, I believe this to be one of the central issues that has resulted in the fact that today there are two Episcopal churches, and we can say it without emotion, that’s the reality whether we like it or not. One church that, with His-ako Kinu-kawa, says the only power Jesus should have is that of walking with us in all of our imperfections. And, the other that says, Jesus died to transform every part of who we are. Case in point, in Sunday’s London Telegraph, Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali of the English Diocese of Rochester writes this: “The Episcopal Church now represents two very different views of religion…one side, that sees the world and the people in it as more or less how God intended them to be, -any sin played down…-such people should be accepted as they are and fully included in the life of the church without further question. The other side sees the value of God’s creation and regards human beings as made in God’s image. It also takes seriously what is wrong with the world and our selves. We need to be saved from the consequences of sin…from our own thoughts and deeds as well as from the wrong-ness of the world. People need not just acceptance and inclusion…..but….but conversion and Jairus-like transformation!!!!!!!!!” Is there any part of our lives that we are telling the Lord, “Hands off, I don’t want this part of me transformed. Jesus wasn’t satisfied by just walking alongside forever with the bleeding woman. He transformed and healed her! Also this past Sunday, the words of Andrew Carey, the journalistic son of our visiting Archbishop, George Carey…in The Church Times…Andrew writes: “In the commitment to be ever more inclusive, the Holy Spirit’s power to transform lives is abandoned!” Or, the new Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church saying in her first sermon, giving weight to this new and emerging religion, says our mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation and you and I are his children! My friends, Jesus isn’t just our mother who gives birth! Jesus is our savior who redeems and transforms us! As we look at little Peter who is being re-birthed today in the Holy Spirit, through Baptism, I want to see him raised in a church that will challenge him to grow into the image of Christ, one that will give him his own Jairus jolt from time to time! Indeed, that this sweet fair haired boy would be carved and shaped not into who he thinks he is, but into who our Lord Jesus is calling him to be!
The church that claims the undiluted transformational power of Jesus Christ will never be defeated. For decades, rain has fallen in the Episcopal Church in the form of theological atrophy, torrential rains, years and years of sloppy and sappy theology. And, my friends, let me tell you that therefore the dam in the Episcopal Church is breaking.
These six dioceses, led by bishops who through faith in Jesus Christ are taking action for the transformation of this church…dioceses representing nearly 400 churches in this country….gone… Can I tell you how exhausting last week was? Floodwaters not just in the area, but in the church? I think of Miss Trudi Williams who said, “This is very frightening. I’ve lived here for 34 years and we’ve never had anything like this before. Miss Trudi was talking about having to be evacuated from Veirs Mill Road because of the threat of the breech of Needwood dam, but how many of us might be able to say that about our situation in the Episcopal Church? The fact is, that again, we can’t expect after decades and decades of theological atrophy, decades and decades of rain, we can’t be surprised that the levies are finally breaking! Yes my friends, we are experiencing a major Jairus jolt that regardless of where we are on the spectrum is uncomfortable, even painful, but know this: I believe the Lord has us right where he wants us, bringing clarity and transformation into a denomination that has lost its way. The Lord is finally shouting to us…Talitha cumi…rise up! Yes my friends, faith in Jesus Christ that takes action will result in transformation, not only in the situation of the national church, but right here on Chevy Chase Circle, and right here in our personal lives. My friends, passivity was never an option for Jairus, the woman, or Gregory, the Bishops of the six Dioceses, nor is it one for you and me.
The Jairus jolt, faith in Jesus Christ that takes action will transform:
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