FBC Morning Light – February 15, 2023

Our passages to read, and then Psalm 33. I want to focus on an incident in Mark chapter 5, and let me ask you this. How would you feel if you were Jairus? You know who Jairus is? Read Mark 5. In Mark chapter 5, Jairus is one of the rulers of the synagogue, so he's a religious guy.

He's apparently got some good strong faith in Jesus. He comes to Jesus very, very concerned. His daughter is lying at the point of death, and who wouldn't be concerned? And he sees in Jesus some hope for his daughter's situation, for his daughter's malady.

He comes to Jesus and says to him, My little daughter lies at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her that she may be healed, and she will live. What a statement of faith. I mean, he doesn't question it.

He doesn't say, you know, maybe you can do this. He just says, you come and you touch her and she will live. Jesus responds to that statement of faith on the part of Jairus and goes with him, and a great multitude is following along.

They want to see what's going to happen here as well, and along the way to Jairus' home, there's this interruption of this woman who touches the hem of Jesus' garment. Now, it seems like Jesus is on a mission to go help Jairus' daughter and encourage Jairus, and it should seem to us that nothing ought to hinder that mission.

He ought to stay on mission. He ought to keep going and doing what he sent out to do, but this woman comes and touches the hem of his garment, and she's a woman who had that issue of blood, and we don't know all the details of that situation, but nothing would help her, and she's just slowly ebbing away, and she knows, if I can just touch the hem of Jesus' garment, I'll be well.

She does so, and her situation is cleared up immediately. Jesus could have just kept right on going. I mean, she's taken care of, he's on a mission, but instead, he stops. He stops. You can see this whole crowd, they're all walking along, and then all of a sudden, Jesus just stops, and he turns around, and he says, who touched my clothes?

Who touched my garment? Now, again, I ask, what if you were Jairus? How would you respond in that situation? I don't know. I think I'd be pretty agitated. I'd be like, my daughter, she's dying, and you want to know who's touching your clothes?

I mean, come on, let's go. We got to get going here. You got to get there before she dies. But Jesus doesn't stop. He's looking around, he makes eye contact with a woman, she steps forward, she explains the situation, Jesus listens to her, time passes.

Precious time passes. Finally, Jesus says to the woman, your faith has made you well, and so forth, and he turns, and he continues, but before he could turn around and continue on the journey, someone comes from Jairus' house and says, it's too late, your daughter has died.

Again, I ask, how would you feel if you were Jairus? How would you be responding at such a moment? Would you be angry? Would you be upset? Surely, you'd be grieving because of your daughter's condition, but what about this interruption, this unnecessary interruption that Jesus just stopped the whole proceeding?

He could have gotten there, perhaps, he could have touched her just before she was to expire, but he didn't. He allowed this woman to interrupt him. I suggest to you that Jesus was on mission the whole way.

The interruption was part of the mission, and I think that's an important point for us to get, that sometimes we can be so absorbed with what we think we have to do, we have to get done, that we resent any kind of an interruption, that we get angry about it, we get upset with the interruption.

Instead of considering that God in his providence has brought this interruption to my day, to my journey, what's the Lord wanting me to learn here? Is there some need that he's wanting me to address here that lies beneath the surface of what I see in this interruption?

Some of us are really good at that, others of us are not so good at it. Some of us are so task-oriented that we can't handle, we don't like any kind of interruption from anybody, we just want to stay on task.

For people like me, if that's your condition, then we need to learn from this incident, that the Lord brings interruptions sometimes to deal with a need that we need to help with, we need to address, and he'll take care of the thing that we're working toward.

He'll take care of that. Maybe it'll be a blessing multiplied, as it was with Jairus. The Lord said to Jairus, don't worry, stay with me here. He gets to Jairus's house, the little girl who has died is lying in her bed, and Jesus restores her to life.

How would you feel if you were Jairus now, ecstatic with what the Lord is able to do through this situation that even includes a very disruptive interruption? Let's be careful about how we interpret the interruptions of our days.

Maybe the Lord would have a great blessing come our way through it. Our Father and our God, give us that kind of perspective where we can trust your providential direction and leading, even to the point of looking at interruptions differently.

Help us with that, we pray, in Jesus' name and for his sake. Alright, listen, have a good rest of your Wednesday. Interruptions and all. May God bless you in it.