A Lifetime of Receiving His Kingdom

Funeral of Rosetta Petersen

August 18, 2015

Matthew 6:33

A Lifetime of Receiving His Kingdom

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

In the springtime of 1935 a young lady in Wilton, Iowa, received words from her pastor that encouraged her for the rest of her life.

But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:33)

These words spoken by Christ Jesus called Rosetta to seek and receive His kingdom and His righteousness. And she promptly did so. She received Christ's kingdom through His kingly gifts, more precious than gold or frankincense or myrrh; she received the Lord's true body and blood for the forgiveness of her sins.

And for the rest of her life, even when she was unable to come to God's house, she sought and received the gifts of His kingdom, His word, body, and blood. These divine gifts made Rosetta righteous in her Savior's sight.

This is why she insisted on putting her time at church and Sunday school on the record. She wanted this written down and remembered so that her children and grandchildren, whom she dearly loved, and all those who knew and cherished her, would know why she is still alive. Church and Sunday school, both as a girl and a grown woman, is where she gathered with fellow hungry sinners and was fed with the bread of life. Jesus said,

“I am the bread of life. No one who comes to Me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in Me will ever be thirsty again.” (John 6:35)

Our perfect Savior-King used bread to describe Himself. Exactly right! Man cannot live without bread, without food; sinners cannot survive without Jesus. Rosetta appreciated a good bread, a good meal. It was rare to leave her table hungry. She loved food, but she cherished and adored the Bread of Life. And so she went to church and received His kingdom and His righteousness, as she heard Christ's words voiced by her pastors:

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? (Matthew 6:26)

One drop of Christ's blood is valuable. If the I-74 bridge was packed with 18-wheelers in both directions, each trailer filled with gold, what would you do? You'd take a different bridge, because a bridge jammed with gold won't get you anywhere. One drop of Christ's holy precious blood fills sinners with His kingdom and His righteousness. How many drops, how many cups, of His priceless blood did Christ pour into Rosetta's mouth over the years? How many words did Christ speak into Rosetta's ears over her almost 95 years? How much? Her cup runneth over.

Let us encourage each other with the holy promise of Christ that this beloved saint received 80 years ago. Seek His kingdom and His righteousness by going to where He laid down His life for you. Seek ye first His cross where He shed His blood for the sin of the world and seek ye first His body and blood shed for your sin.

Rosetta received His kingdom and righteousness. And she had many gifts added to her as well. Her marriage. Her family. Her fellow believers. And a piano. 53 Christmases ago Ed bought her a piano. (You can now see that very piano upstairs.) It would have been their 20th Christmas together as man and wife. I wonder what the first song played on that piano was. Maybe one of you remembers. For a lifetime that piano was used to bring the words of Christ through song into their home.

And for all eternity her King, who rules by dying like a little lamb, will receive the song of the sainted choir:

"Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise! . . . To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!" (Revelation 5:12-13)

Rosetta has joined the eternal choir. Her voice will never diminish because His kingdom and His righteousness will endure forever.

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. Alleluia! Amen!

The Small Sliver of Sloth

Pentecost 12

August 16, 2015

Hebrews 5:11-14

The Small Sliver of Sloth

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Everyone gets slivers, those little pieces of wood that get stuck in your skin. The strange thing about slivers is that the bigger the sliver is, the easier they are to find and take out. On the other hand, when a sliver is small, it's much harder to spot and to take out.

This fact makes slivers a useful picture of our own sins. Someone who's a drunk or a drug addict usually knows what they are. They may or may not do anything about it, but their sin is a very big sliver indeed. We could picture it as a plank stuck in their own eye. That's an uncomfortable image, but again, someone is that situation knows it and so does everybody else.

Some of us do struggle with booze and drugs. Or perhaps it's a big temper. Big slivers that everyone can see. But for many of us our slivers are small and hard to spot. For many of us laziness is our most deadly sliver, our most deadly sin. The writer to the Hebrews mentioned this sliver in chapter five.

We have a great deal to say about this, and it’s difficult to explain, since you have become too lazy to understand. (Hebrews 5:11)

Slivers are usually sharp, but this laziness is a dullness that surrounds us and is inside of us. This sin isn't fatigue or being tired. It is a dullness or a laziness of such a kind that a person knows what is right and true and good, but does not pursue it as it deserves to be pursued. The person afflicted with this laziness tries to be good only halfheartedly, causally, in a bored and uninterested way.

In olden times this laziness was called sloth. It was listed among the seven deadly sins. Luther railed against this laziness in the Large Catechism.

Likewise, those fussy spirits are to be rebuked who, after they have heard a sermon or two, find hearing more sermons to be tedious and dull. They think that they know all that well enough and need no more instruction. For that is exactly the sin that was previously counted among mortal sins and is called acidia (apathy). This is a malignant, dangerous plague with which the devil bewitches and deceives the hearts of many so that he may surprise us and secretly take God’s Word from us. (Martin Luther, Large Catechism, Third Commandment, 99)

This apathy toward God's Word is seen in Jesus' parables. For example, in one story, a master gives money (minas) to three servants before leaving for a trip. When he comes back, he finds that the first two servants had been faithful with their minas. But the third servant was lazy.

Another came, saying, ‘Master, here is your mina, which I kept put away in a handkerchief; for I was afraid of you, because you are an exacting man; you take up what you did not lay down and reap what you did not sow.’ He said to him, ‘By your own words I will judge you, you worthless slave. Did you know that I am an exacting man, taking up what I did not lay down and reaping what I did not sow? Then why did you not put my money in the bank, and having come, I would have collected it with interest?’ Then he said to the bystanders, ‘Take the mina away from him and give it to the one who has the ten minas.’ (Luke 19:20-24)

Many people who have been given Baptism as their inheritance hide away God's Word. Too many of our Bibles from our first Communions and confirmations are in mint condition, but our screens, big & flat and small & bright, burn out from tens of thousands of hours of use. You discuss and research how big your next TV will be and what room to put it in and how to get a good deal. You study up on your work breaks and after getting home. Good. How about researching what kind of big Bible you'll get and where to put it? Your TV gets a mounting bracket that you use every day; how about a wooden stand or altar for your Bible where you can read it everyday? Pretty cool, yes? To our lazy ears all that just sounds weird or maybe makes you feel guilty.

We should feel guilty, because we are. But instead of trying to write off our sins, our slivers, our laziness, Christians repent and turn to Christ and receive His forgiveness.

The materialism of our day―our love of stuff―makes laziness, our sloth, easy to fall into. We have a lot of stuff that keeps us from letting the Word of God be the main thing of life. The Gospel of Christ occupies only one of the many cubbyholes in our minds and souls; work, pleasure, family, friends, even the sports page may have bigger cubbyholes. The gifts of God intended to remind us of His goodness end up being more important than the Giver; in our laziness our love of stuff stop us from gratefully adoring God and His Word. This laziness is seen in the words of the crowd that carelessly demanded stuff from Jesus.

Therefore the Jews started complaining about Him because He said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They were saying, “Isn’t this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can He now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” (John 6:41-42)

Like the crowd, we naturally don't want Jesus. We just want the stuff He gives to us. We even take His greatest gift, the Gospel, and use it as an excuse to keep on being lazy. You know that every sermon will end with Pastor proclaiming the forgiveness of Christ. We are so lazy we view the wonderfully inevitable Gospel as old hat, "This sermon is boring. Pastor says that we are forgiven every week." And so we continue in our laziness, holding on to our laziness that we love.

There are many who are lazy who don't even bother with coming to church. And if and when the Pastor urges them to come, well, he just don't understand. Doesn't Pastor know that you can be a Christian without going to church?

Actually he doesn't know that because it is a sharp lazy lie of the Devil. And the lazy souls who know that what is right and good and true, who know that they need to go to church, just aren't interested. And after many months and even years when they are removed from the spiritual care of the pastor and congregation (since they don't want any spiritual care from anybody), they aren't the problem. It's that mean Pastor: "Doesn't he know about forgiveness?!"

Yes, he does. Yes, I do. I am a wretched sinner covered in slivers and so are you. That's why we're here. To have Christ forgive our slivers. He doesn't remove them; He'll do that when He calls us home.

Until then, He calls us through Baptism, Preaching, and Communion to leave behind our casual halfhearted way of living. He said:

“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. Because you say, ‘I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,’ and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.” (Revelation 3:15-19)

Be zealous and stop ignoring your slivers and repent. Trying to take out a sharp little sliver can hurt more than the leaving the sliver in. So we live in pain, bearing the cross, all the while receiving gold and white garments and eye salve from the Lord Jesus. Or as Jesus said in John 6, receiving Himself, the bread of life.

I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.” (John 6:51)

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. Alleluia! Amen!

Wonder Bread and He Even Better

Pentecost 11

August 9, 2015

John 6:24-35

Wonder Bread and He Even Better

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Wheat flour, water, high fructose corn syrup, yeast, soybean oil, barley malt, wheat gluten, salt, calcium carbonate, sodium stearoyl lactylate, vitamin D3, vinegar, glycerides, calcium sulfate, monocalcium phosphate, enzymes, and several other things.* Put these ingredients together in the right amounts, bake it, and viola! Wonder Bread.

Maybe you love Wonder Bread; maybe you don't. Maybe you don't eat bread at all. But whether you eat the Bread with the colorful dots on the bag or bologna or fish sticks or filet mignon, you always get hungry again. Even the barley bread that Jesus provided for the 5,000, only stuffed them for a few hours. And then they were hungry again. The wondrous bread that God sent to Moses and the Jews in the desert only lasted a day.

So we need our bread daily. And Jesus gives us the food that we need, sometimes so much food that we can easily stuff ourselves. And for His people, this daily bread points us to the Bread of Life. What is the Bread of Life? Jesus told us who the Bread of Life is.

“I am the bread of life. No one who comes to Me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in Me will ever be thirsty again. (John 6:35)

When it comes to Wonder Bread and Bologna sandwiches, less is more. When it comes to the Bread of Life—Jesus Christ Himself—more is more. And Jesus is talking about both kinds of food here.

When it comes to mouth and stomach food, Jesus reminds us to be alert about where food comes from. David prayed in Psalm 145:

The eyes of all look to You, O Lord, and You give them their food at the proper time. You open Your hand, and satisfy the desires of every living thing. . . . My mouth will speak in praise of the Lord. Let every creature praise His holy name for ever and ever. (Psalm 145:15-16, 21)

If you give half of your sandwich to a beggar on the side of I-74 exit, you expect him to say thank you. If he doesn't say thank you, you're might be tempted to not share your bread with him the next time.

Kids, when you eat, what do you do before you pick up your fork and spoon? You pray, "Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest and let these gifts to us be blessed. O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, and His mercy endures forever. Amen."

But have you noticed that when you go out to eat, most people just put food into their mouths without saying thank you. Why is that? Kids, why don't they say thank you to Jesus for their food?

Some of these people might be praying quietly. But many people just don't care about how they get their food, as long as they get their food. When the crowd of people, who ate from the five barley loaves and two fish, found Jesus, we never hear them say thank you. All they wanted was seconds.

When it comes to food that spoils and passes through us, we can't get enough. But when it comes to the food that remains to life everlasting, we are tempted to treat Him with a second thought.

For example, compare how you look forward to the Sunday morning service and how you look forward to Sunday lunch. Both are important; both are from Jesus our Lord. Yet only one offers food that lasts. Only one offers Jesus Himself. The crowd in Capernaum cared about lunch. What about you? Which food do you care about? Wonder Bread or the Bread of Life?

“I am the bread of life. No one who comes to Me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in Me will ever be thirsty again. (John 6:35)

Let us do the work of God. Let us come to Christ Jesus to receive His Body and His Blood more and more, Sunday after Sunday. Let us come to Christ to receive His Words into our ears, day after day, more and more.

Too much Wonder Bread is just too much. But too much Bread of Life, too much Jesus, is never enough and is always enough. We will never be hungry again and we will never be thirsty again because He has given Himself to us.

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. Alleluia! Amen!

*theysmell.com/wonder-bread-ingredients (accessed August 5, 2015)

Every Grace Overflowing

Pentecost 10

August 2, 2015

2 Corinthians 9:8

Every Grace Overflowing

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Usually if something is overflowing, it's not good. If your glass is overflowing, it's not good. If the bathtub is overflowing, it's not good. If the Mississippi is overflowing, it's not good.

An evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. (Luke 6:45)

When water overflows, you can maybe contain it. But you can't contain up sin. When sin overflows from your angry heart, you can't clean it up.

This little babe, my daughter Elizabeth, before you this morning has evil stored up in her heart. She was conceived and born in sin. Her heart is filled up with sin and hates God. By the nature she has inherited from me, she hates what Christ wants for her. Paul wrote the following about everyone, including Elizabeth and me and you.

For the mind-set of the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit itself to God’s law, for it is unable to do so. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:7-8)

Elizabeth can't overflow with hostility toward God or you, yet. She can't steal $20 out of your purse. She can't gossip about you. So it's easy to think to dismiss the truth that she was born evil. To say that she is unpleasing to God as she is by nature, is offensive to our ears.

Dear friends, this evil Elizabeth has to be killed. Paul wrote:

Don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin―because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. (Romans 6:3-9)

He's talking about you and about Elizabeth. You were overflowing with hatred and slaves to evil. So Christ was killed on the cross and then He killed Elizabeth just moments ago in Baptism. By uniting her to His death, He guarantees that she will live. Christ used the hands and mouth of His pastor to wash and speak forgiveness and life into Elizabeth. For all of you baptized, He has done the same for you. You were overflowing with evil, and instead of trying to contain it, He killed you and resurrected you to be a new person.

This is how God overflows you with grace.

And God is able to make every grace overflow to you, so that in every way, always having everything you need, you overflow in every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:8)

Elizabeth is rather limited in what she can say and do. This is good and bad. She can't draw with markers on anyone's wall or refuse to share a playground swing. But she also can't lend you any money or say thank you after a good meal. But she will. She'll do all these things. She's still a sinner, and she'll prove it. But now she's is a saint in the judgment of Christ Himself and she'll prove that, too, by receiving what He gives us. Her new life has begun by receiving water and His word. Jesus overflows grace to Elizabeth and you, and in His overflowing, you overflow in every good work as you receive and do what He gives you.

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. Alleluia! Amen!

Sent Out to Save Where He "Failed"

Pentecost 8

July 19, 2015

Mark 6:7-13

Sent Out to Save Where He "Failed"

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus sent out the Twelve to save souls from sin and death, just after He had failed to do so Himself. He had just been rejected in His own hometown. It must have been humiliating to be pushed away by the people who grew up with Him and should have known Him.

And this is the time He chose to send out the Twelve to save souls?

From our point of view, there would been much better times to send them out:

after feeding the 5,000, for example, just after He had performed a powerful miracle. Or perhaps after He had walked on water.

But Jesus chose a moment when there could be no mistake about what save souls:

not His power, but His Word.

This helps to explain His instructions to those men going out two by two.

Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra tunic.

(Mark 6:8-9)

Don't take anything extra for the trip, Jesus said. Learn to depend on Me for everything that you need.

And so the disciples by God's grace listened and they went out with His Word. And when they returned, they had learned to rely simply on His Word. They healed the sick and cast out demons. And by God's Word souls were saved.

Today we have this same promise from Christ. He gives us all that we need for life. Try and think of something you have that He didn't give you.

And of all His gifts, His greatest treasure to you is His Word.

Just like Jesus after His humiliation in Nazareth, we often hear His Word most clearly after we have been brought low with grief or pain. We give thanks for the good days, but often it is the bad times that we are most aware of Christ's promise to forgive us and be near us.

If Jesus had sent out the Twelve right away after feeding the 5,000 or walking on water, what do you think the Twelve would have talked about most? Crosses and suffering? Or glory and food and miracles that defied the laws of nature?

Thanks be to Jesus that He used His own lowliness and humiliation to teach us that even where He seemed to fail, He still gives us His simple Word that breaks and kills our own hardest souls and leaves us with souls filled with joy and gladness.

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. Alleluia! Amen!

Of All the People in the Whole World . . .

Pentecost 7

July 12, 2015

Mark 6:1-6

Of All the People in the Whole World . . .

☩

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Of all the people in the whole world, they should have listened to Him. They had known Him their whole lives. He was a good son. He obeyed Mary and Joseph. He was a good man, respected and favored by those who knew Him. Luke tells us exactly that after the twelve-year old Jesus came home with Joseph and Mary:

Then He went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men. (Luke 2:51-52)

Of all the people in the whole world, they should have listened to Him. But they did the opposite: they were offended by Him and rejected Him. Why?

Because they only looked at the outside. They only looked at the things they could count and record and observe. He was a carpenter. He was from an ordinary family, perhaps even a poor lowly family. (His cousin was John the Forerunner, but he was far away and probably in jail by this time. And if people did know about John, they perhaps viewed him as a troublemaker.)

And this is all the mattered to them. They observed His wise words and said that He was wise. They acknowledged this. But that didn't matter. Just what was on the outside.

We look back and are offended by their collective rejection of Jesus. But consider that Jesus knew them all by name. He grew up with them and cared for them. Of all the people in the whole world, they should have listened to Him. But they plugged their ears instead.

And Jesus, who is truly and fully a man, is astonished at their unbelief.

We share His astonishment when those who should know Jesus best, plug up their ears. We know many who have grown up going to church and praying with their parents at home, who now abandon what Christ has given them.

And then there are the young people who walk away from Christ and His body and blood.

And then there is us, who all too often doubt Jesus and His promises. In our lives we all too often focus on the outward appearance of things. Astonishing, after all the gifts that Jesus gives us.

So where does this leave us? Well, He doesn't. It's almost funny how Mark concludes this incident by saying that Jesus didn't do any miracles there. But He did.

He could not do any miracles there, except lay His hands on a few sick people and heal them. (Mark 6:5)

All our doubt. All our unbelief. All our trust in what we can see. Jesus has compassion on us and remains with us. Where does He leave us? He leaves us with His Word.

He refused to do lots of miracles there, because His hometown crowd would have missed the point. They would have trusted in the power that they could see, and still refuse to trust Christ at His Word. So He refused to do miracles there (but in His mercy still healed some).

Of all the people in the whole world, the Nazarenes should have listened to Jesus and ignored what they could see, because they grew up with Him.

We grew up with Jesus, too. And like the Nazarenes, we are often ignore what He says to us and fixate only on what we can see. It is only by His grace through the Gospel Sacraments that we don't drive Him away. It is only by His grace that we are drawn again and again to receive His Word. Of all the people in the whole world, we are truly blessed.

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. Alleluia! Amen!

Redeeming Words Rebuke Our Reason

Pentecost 6

July 5, 2015

Mark 5:21-43

Redeeming Words Rebuke Our Reason

In the name of the Father and of † the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

It's not hard to understand Jairus' urgent advice to Jesus:

Mark 5:23

My little daughter is at the point of death; please come and lay Your hands on her, so that she will get well and live.

His daughter was near death and Jairus had heard that Jesus healed people. And since Jairus had never heard of Jesus raising the dead, he really wanted Jesus to get to her sickbed before it became a deathbed. Jairus was in a hurry.

Now you might run the red light at Kimberly and Elmore at 80 miles an hour if Jesus was in your back seat and your kid was at Trinity near death. But if Jesus suddenly asked you to stop the car so that He could talk to an old lady, you might be bewildered. And as the chat with the old lady dragged on, you might become frantic.

On His way with Jairus, Jesus did stop and talked to an old lady. This is the middle chunk of the incident that our reading earlier left out.

Mark 5:24-35

And He went off with him; and a large crowd was following Him and pressing in on Him. A woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years, and had endured much at the hands of many physicians, and had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse—after hearing about Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind Him and touched His cloak. For she thought, “If I just touch His garments, I will get well.” Immediately the flow of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. Immediately Jesus, perceiving in Himself that the power proceeding from Him had gone forth, turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched My garments?” And His disciples said to Him, “You see the crowd pressing in on You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’” And He looked around to see the woman who had done this. But the woman fearing and trembling, aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth. And He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your affliction.” While He was still speaking,, they came from the house of the synagogue official, saying, “Your daughter has died; why trouble the Teacher anymore?”

And so goes the rest of the story. Jairus and the old woman desperately needed help, both for 12-year old problems. One for her 12 years of chronic bleeding; the other for his 12-year old daughter. Which one was more important? Which one was more important to Jesus?

They both were! Jesus takes His time with both of them.

In His compassion He allows Jairus to give Him advice on how to heal his daughter.

In His compassion He allows the woman to go on and tell Him the whole truth: 12 years of disappointment and loneliness and poverty. It probably took her a while to tell Him the whole story.

And what do you know? The very thing that Jairus was terrified of, happened. They took too much time and his daughter died. Why did He stop? Why did He take so much time? Why didn't Jesus treat this life-and-death situation seriously? Isn't my little girl more important than that old lady? Why didn't I leave earlier to find Jesus? Oh, why and what if?!

What did Jesus say to Jairus?

Mark 5:36

Do not be afraid any longer, only believe.

And Jesus went to the house and quietly got Jairus' daughter up from death to life.

Pay close to attention to what Jesus never said to Jairus both when they began their journey and then resumed it. He never promised Jairus that He would save his daughter. He simply said, "Only believe." Believe what?

And the answer is Himself, Christ Himself. Believe and trust Jesus Christ is the answer to suffering and death.

By God's grace the old woman believed. She had faith in Him and she lived, not just without bleeding, oh wonderful joy!, but with the Word of Christ.

By God's grace Jairus believed and witnessed a profound victory on that day, not just without his daughter, oh wonderful joy!, but with the Word of Christ.

Dear friends, some of our dearly beloved are dying today. Jesus may come and restore health to them, but He probably won't. But His promise comfort us in death and in life. He can raise a dead body to life more easily than a parent can roust a sleepy child from bed. He's that good. He's that powerful. He's that caring.

Even when our reason says that Jesus isn't any of those things, good, powerful, caring, His words redeem us every day. Honestly, our opinion of Jesus isn't important. Rather, we listen to our Redeemer and marvel at what He says and what He does. He says He cares for the lowly, and He listens to the lowly, and He heals the lowly in body and soul. The old woman and Jairus' daughter are so lowly we don't even know their names. But Jesus does. And He knows yours, too.

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. Alleluia! Amen!

This preaching of Christ is indebted to the wisdom of Prof. Deutschlander's commentary on the Gospel of Mark. 
Please listen to his thoughts here: http://welswwd.weebly.com/deutschlander-seminars.html