Sometimes I
say things which seem to damage my street credibility with some people. A while
ago I admitted to someone that I watched Neighbours on television. Their look
of amazement turned to laughter as I confessed I actually recorded it each day
so I didn’t miss it !
Street
credibility was a little knocked ! Also a little while ago I confessed to
rather enjoying economics – it is quite a fascinating subject, though not
particularly good for street credibility again !
Hopefully
the economy is now improving and the results of that improvement will work
their way through to all people in the not too distant future...
But
economies are likely to have good and bad times because they’re often very largely
governed by confidence. Back through the disastrous recession and with banks in
serious problems one of the major root causes was a loss of confidence, and for
all of the complicated and detailed economic arguments one of the most
important factors in a good economy is not method or practice but confidence.
Confidence is what really sustains and
grows an economy, and that’s not really as surprising as it sounds, because
it’s very often confidence or lack of it that governs how we all behave. In
Christian terms we may well call this confidence ‘Hope’.
A man once asked a friend if he had
ever achieved any of his childhood hopes, and the friend replied, ‘Yes, when my
mother used to comb my hair, I often wished I didn’t have any !’... I can
identify with that !
Hopes and expectations are incredibly
important. In our gospel reading today (Mark 5:21-43), this is really
highlighted, and we can perhaps replace the word confidence or hope with
faith....
Jairus was a leader in the synagogue
and yet he fell at the feet of Jesus and begged him to come to his house to
pray for his sick daughter. And Jesus left to go with him.
But while he was on his way, someone
touched his cloak – and even in the middle of a big crowd Jesus noticed. It was
a woman who had been suffering for 12 years and wanted Jesus to heal her – she
believed that just touching his clothes would be enough...
What incredibly powerful stories of
confidence, of hope, of faith...
And Jesus spoke to the woman and said
her faith had made her well, and he went on to the house of Jairus and saved
his daughter...
Confidence, hope and faith change
lives...
Many people today are living tragically
without any hope at all. One night at dinner a man, fascinated his friends by
telling of his experiences in a little town named Flagstaff. The town was to be
flooded, as part of a large lake for which a dam was being built. In the months
before it was to be flooded, all improvements and repairs in the whole town
were stopped. What was the use of painting a house if it were to be covered
with water in six months? Why repair anything when the whole village was to be
wiped out?
So, week by week, the whole town became
more and more dirty and derelict. And then the man added by way of explanation:
"Where there is no faith in the future, there is no power in the
present."
How true that is – to live well today
we need to believe that there is a bright tomorrow – however far in the
distance that tomorrow may seem. People talk of tough times in the church, but
the church has survived and thrived through many more difficult times... if
it’s our church, then we will struggle but when we recognise it’s God’s church,
there will be no struggle... Just confidence, hope and faith...
But sometimes people do hope in things
that are not realistic, sometimes people hedge their bets so finely that
disaster will almost certainly follow at some point. There’s a story of a man
sentenced to death. He obtained a reprieve by assuring the king he would teach
his majesty's horse to fly within a year - on the condition that if he didn't
succeed, he would be put to death at the end of the year. "Within a
year," the man explained later, "the king may die, or I may die, or
the horse may die. Furthermore, in a year, who knows? Maybe the horse will
learn to fly."
But that isn’t anything like the hope
we have in God - that gospel reading offered a totally different picture –
there was the faith and hope of Jairus who begged Jesus to come and help his
daughter, and there was the faith of the woman who believed that even by
touching the clothes of Jesus she could be made well. Their hope was not
misplaced…
The woman was healed and Jairus’
daughter was raised to life when all hope seemed to have gone, and today,
putting our imperfect human hopes in Jesus will be rewarded by the joy and
peace of knowing that in even the darkest of times, we can still look forward
to a better tomorrow.
Some would say our faith is a vain
hope. Some would say it’s just a crutch to get us through, others would say it
has no meaning in a world where we need to help ourselves, but we must point
them in the direction of Jesus– in him we have a secure hope.
He didn’t come with empty promises – he
didn’t come promising wealth or happiness. He came promising peace, he came
offering hope…
He took people with him on his
ministry, and they watched him deliver his promises – he healed, he preached
justice and fairness, he taught people to love, he showed people the futility
of earthly wealth and success and told them of the joys of seeking real success
in life – the ability to help one another, and to be helped, the gift of
compassion and understanding. This is the model we are called to follow – a
model of love and compassion and honesty and prayer and encouragement and
living together as a family... It’s sadly a model so many of us fail to follow
so often...
And it isn’t easy... At times it looked
to many of Jesus’ followers as if the ministry had failed, but Jesus never once
broke his commitment to them – there were times when all seemed lost - he was
followed like a criminal, arrested, tortured, even killed – but there was still
hope because he conquered death and rose again, destroying the power of death
once and for all !
Jesus never broke a promise – he lived the life he said
he would... Today he’s still making promises to each one of us – the promise to
love us, to accept us, to heal us, to challenge us, to move us and to fill us
with his power and his wisdom…
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies
never come to an end; they are new every morning, great is his faithfulness
(Lamentations 3:22) now and always.
Comments