From Desperation to Resurrection: Jesus Puts Us Together

Things fall apart and they stay that way, but not when Jesus walks in the room. The noise is outside now, the laughter, the disbelief. It's quiet, just the father, a mother, a few disciples, and a little girl still, silent, gone. And Jesus moves towards her. He doesn't stand at a distance. He doesn't speak from afar. He comes close. He reaches out his hand and he takes hers. [01:05:38] (32 seconds)  #JesusComesClose

Touching the dead brought contamination, but Jesus is unafraid. And all that death enters into him and all his life into her. And he says, little girl, little girl, it's time to get up and life. She rises and walks and Jesus instructs him. Right? This is my favorite part. Hey, she needs to eat. Just so awesome. She's not partially restored. She's fully restored, completely in her body, back together. [01:06:10] (35 seconds)  #FullLifeRestored

Now, story in Mark five doesn't end here because one day Jesus himself would lie still, silent, lifeless, and there would be no one to take his hand, no one to say, get up. He would go all the way into death, our deaths. Why? Because he's not just healing one life at a time, he's confronting death itself. He's entering the full dissonant integration of ourselves and our world. And on Easter, he proves nothing is beyond his reach. [01:08:21] (31 seconds)  #JesusConquersDeath

Mark says he overhears them talking. He refuses to listen to the mourners. He turns to Jairus and he says, Jairus, do not fear. Only believe. He doesn't lay out a plan. He doesn't defend his delay. He doesn't even say she's gonna be alright. He just says, Jairus, don't fear, believe, and then walk with me. Easter is this sort of thing. It is Jesus inviting us when our desperation turns to despair and Easter says to us, don't fear, believe, stay with me. [00:58:05] (40 seconds)  #DontFearBelieve

And Jesus, he entered in. He carries the cross and is nailed to it so that what is dying and what is broken and what is falling apart can be put back together again? So when Jesus says to Jairus, do not fear, only believe, he knows what is to come. He's not asking him to understand. He's asking him to stay, to walk, to trust his presence before he sees the miracle. And that's what Jairus does. [01:04:31] (32 seconds)  #TrustHisPresence

And with those words, she is restored, named, brought back in, and Jesus says, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Not just healed, whole body and soul, a new identity even, no longer outsider, no longer cut off, but put back together. What the fall and sin and death has wrought in her has been undone in a moment. What physicians and money couldn't buy, Jesus did because of the life surging out of him. [00:53:06] (35 seconds)  #RestoredAndNamed

these sins don't just make us guilty. They don't make just make us wrong. It does something deeper to us. It it it, like, pulls us apart. Right? Pride fractures us. Envy hollows us out. Lust distorts our eyesight, our loves. Greed enslaves us. Sloth slowly erodes us, and our anger breaks whatever it touches. And so sin is this, like, sort of vandalism. It's a vandalism of our own souls and bodies and of, like, God's way of life in the world. [00:37:54] (39 seconds)  #SinIsVandalism

Now, you weren't in that room. You're outside. You didn't see the touch or the rising. Interestingly, the woman came in secret and she's healed publicly. Jairus came publicly and his daughter's healed privately. We cannot control the way Jesus enters into our story, but in both cases, he brings healing. And you sit there later on, you see her walk, and you are full of wonder and shock. Who is this man? Because you watched death lose. [01:06:45] (39 seconds)  #JesusEntersUnexpectedly