Mark 4:35-5:43 is a series of 3 or 4 stories, depending on how you count them. But all of the stories address one common doubt: does God care?
Before Jesus calmed the storm, he was asleep in the stern of the boat. The disciples, experienced fishermen, were afraid. The storm surely had something to do with it, but their real fear was that Jesus didn't care.
After Jesus drove the legion of demons out of the man and into the herd of pigs, the pigs drowned themselves. The people in the town didn't doubt that Jesus had power, but after seeing their economic loss, they did doubt that he cared about them.
The synagogue ruler, Jairus, came to Jesus out of desperation. His daughter was dying. Jesus agreed to go with him, but stopped in the street to find out who touched him. Jesus spent time talking with the woman he had just healed, and meanwhile, Jairus was told that his daughter had died. The text doesn't say what Jairus did or said, but I would certainly have doubted that Jesus really cared if I had been in Jairus's place.
As for the woman that Jesus healed, I would not be at all surprised to discover that she had, at some point in her twelve years of suffering, doubted that God cared about her.
In all of these stories, Jesus showed that he really did care. He calmed the storm, left the worried townspeople alone, healed the woman, and raised Jairus's daughter.
Then again, the woman's story had been twelve years in the making. Mark just wrote about the end of it. The takeaway from our class discussion is that God really is in control of your situation, and that God really does care, even if things are getting worse.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
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