Tag Archives: asleep

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – NEVER TOO LATE

Bible Study, ,

NEVER TOO LATE

21 When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. 22 Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. 23 He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” 24 So Jesus went with him.

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

31 “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’”

32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

35 While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher anymore?”

36 Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”

37 He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. 38 When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. 39 He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” 40 But they laughed at him.

After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. 41 He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”). 42 Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. 43 He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat. Mark 5:21-43

And what of Jairus, the synagogue ruler? What a jumble of emotions must have surged through him in one day! His was such an urgent mission and yet Jesus was in no hurry. Jesus was willing to be interrupted to meet a woman’s chronic need. Impatience, frustration, indignation, annoyance, anguish, anxiety, fears; all these emotions together created a knot in Jairus’ stomach. He was terrified of hearing the news that his little girl was gone. When it came, he must have felt anger, despair, hopelessness, blaming the wretched woman for the delay that cost the child’s life.

Once again Jesus was gentle, reassuring, calm, unfazed by the crisis, applying His yoke of compassion and hope in a desperate situation. Always in control, He moved purposefully towards Jairus’ home, knowing exactly what He would do. He wore the talith, the symbol of the presence of God; the same talith that the sick woman had touched and received her healing.

It was always Jesus in the centre of the need and source of the supply. And today it is no different. It is the same Jesus and the same Holy Spirit who is the source of all the grace and mercy we cry for in our need.

Jairus learned that day that Jesus is never too late. He always has time for everyone. He gives His personal attention to everyone who calls out to Him. He is the talith – God’s name, God’s nature, God’s word, God’s power and God’s presence, and we are honoured to “wear” Him. We are clothed with Christ and enveloped in everything that He is. No situation is out of the reach of His power and goodness.

Did Jairus learn his lesson well? Did he ever forget what Jesus did that day? Scripture does not record the outcome of his encounter with Jesus but, like the restored woman, perhaps he finally came to realise who this miracle worker really was. Every time he looked at his child, growing up to womanhood instead of decaying in a grave, because of Jesus, he believed, he rejoiced and he worshipped with gratitude and love.

These events are the culmination of a story that began twelve years before, bringing together two unconnected people in a drama that was designed to reveal the glory of God’s Messiah.

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – DRUGGED BY GRIEF

Bible Study, ,

DRUGGED BY GRIEF

“He got up from prayer, went back to the disciples and found them asleep, drugged by grief. He said, ‘What business do you have sleeping? Get up. Pray that you won’t give in to temptation.'” Luke 22:45-46.

Even in the midst of His own ordeal, Jesus was teaching His disciples (and us) a powerful life lesson. The words “drugged by grief” in this paraphrase capture the truth He both modelled and communicated to His disciples.

The disciples were in the grip of a “drug” that paralysed their will and robbed them of their ability to know what to do in this predicament. Instead of preparing for the unknown by submitting themselves to the Father and receiving His strength to resist the devil (James 4:7), they copped out by sleeping.

Unlike them, Jesus used the situation to prepare Himself so that, when the temple guards swooped down on Him, He was not taken unawares. He was equipped, through His “reverent submission” (Hebrews 5:8), to accept the entire cross event without resistance or retaliation according to His Father’s will.

Emotions are a powerful and truthful gauge of the thoughts and interpretations of our life experiences. As we have followed Jesus through the Gospel of Luke, we have recognised that His perspective was always God-centred. Time and again He had to correct His disciples’ misunderstanding of their experiences by bringing them back to a God-awareness which gave them a proper understanding of what was happening.

Because they had filtered out of their minds Jesus’ warning that He was going to be arrested and crucified, but that He would rise again, the disciples were caught up in paralysing sorrow. The only way they could handle it was to sleep it off, perhaps hoping that, when they woke up, it would have only been a nightmare!

If we grasp this principle of maintaining our God-awareness , it will save us from unnecessary emotional pain and enable us to live in the inner rest that kept Jesus from falling apart in His time of severe testing. Jesus is our supreme example but there are others in Scripture who exhibited the same attitude to their suffering and came out on top.

Joseph stands out as an Old Testament character that recognised God’s hand in his circumstances, refused to become bitter, gave excellent service to his master in spite of his suffering and emerged a winner because he trusted God instead of collapsing into self-pity. Likewise Daniel centred on God and served Him in Babylon, probably the worst pagan environment of his day. No threats or manipulation could move him from his purpose to obey God, no matter what.

Our emotions are the clue to what we are thinking. If we view our situation as hopeless, we feel despair. We become depressed and our depression becomes the drug that paralyses our desire and ability to live normal lives. Depressed people are so self-absorbed that they shut out the world and retreat into a prison of hopelessness which is the perfect environment for the devil to sow his seeds of self-destruction.

What is the antidote to emotional “drug abuse”? Jesus said, “Pray!” What must we pray? The Apostle Paul gives us the answer in Philippians 4:6-7. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

The key is not that you pray but what you pray. In this instance to “present” implies to reveal – come clean with God about what is really in your heart – anxiety and all its accompanying emotions. Expose them and give them to God, and He will replace them with peace that does not make sense to anyone else but you.

Had the disciples done that, they would have been released from their emotional drugs and in their right minds to face their situation and not give way to fear. God steps in with the grace to go through when we expose to Him what is really going on inside.

THE BOOK OF ACTS – A WALKING MIRACLE

Bible Study, ,

A WALKING MIRACLE!

“They went on ahead and waited for us in Troas. Meanwhile we stayed in Philippi for Passover Week and then set sail. Within five days we were again in Troas and stayed a week.

 We met on Sunday to worship and celebrate the Master’s Supper. Paul addressed the congregation. Our plan was to leave first thing in the morning, but Paul talked on, way past midnight. We were meeting in a well-lighted upper room. A young man named Eutychus was sitting in an open window. As Paul went on and on, Eutychus fell sound asleep and toppled out the third story window. When they picked him up, he was dead.” Acts 20:5-9 (The Message).

This is such a human story! A long-winded preacher and someone falls asleep! Fortunately, not everyone who sleeps in church ends up dead!

Did Paul have a premonition that he was meeting with the church at Troas for the last time? He had so much to share with them that he forgot the time, although the plan was to leave early in the morning. Instead of having an early night, he met with the believers in an upper room, shared the Lord’s Supper with them and poured out the passion of his heart hour after hour.

While most of the congregation stayed awake, there was one who just could not keep his eyes open. Sitting on an upstairs windowsill was a precarious enough perch, but sleeping there was Eutychus’ undoing. One moment he was there and the next he was gone, lying dead on the ground below. Imagine the panic when the crowd tumbled downstairs and someone picked up his lifeless body. What a terrible end to a wonderful day!

“Paul went down, stretched himself on him, and hugged him hard ‘No more crying,’ he said. ‘There’s life in him yet.’ Then Paul got up, and served the Master’s Supper. And went on telling stories of the faith until dawn! On that note, they left — Paul went one way, the congregation another, leading the boy off alive, and full of life themselves.” Acts 20:10-12 (The Message).

Did Paul remember the story of Elisha and a widow’s dead son? What he did next was so matter-of-fact that it seems as though, for Paul, it was all in a day’s (or night’s) work. Eutychus dead? No problem. Just lie on him for a few moments and he’ll live, and that’s exactly what happened. Not even an unexpected death in the congregation made him miss a beat.

How is that for a steadfast purpose! Nothing made Paul deviate from his intention to make and build disciples at every opportunity he had, and he would not allow even a tragic accident to distract him from his mission. It almost seems as though he treated the event as an interruption which he had no problem dealing with so that he could get on with his task.

What did it mean to the small group believers at Troas? What would they remember of Paul’s last visit with them? The hours of preaching and teaching that night? Not likely. The miracle of a dead boy raised to life? O yes! What Paul was sharing with them was a vital part of their understanding of the life they had committed themselves to living with the Lord, but the walking miracle among them was a constant reminder that Jesus was alive, real and powerful for them and in them.

Was the devil in this? Most definitely, because he holds the power of death, but he never has the last word. Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life and through His victory over death, Eutychus woke up to live out his allotted time. His death turned out to be a visual aid of God’s power among them which they would not easily forget. .