Conqueror of Death
Elaine Poproski Download: Audio
Scripture: Mark 5:21 – 43
When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around Him; and He was by the sea. Read more…
Looking to Sunday
by Elaine Poproski
A man’s daughter was dying. He’d heard about a traveling teacher who was healing people. So He found the man, fought through the crowd that pressed in on Him, and pleaded for help.
Meanwhile, a desperate woman braved the same crowd to get near the teacher and maybe be healed herself. She reached out, touched his cloak, and knew immediately that she was well. The teacher stopped, scanned the crowd, and asked who had touched Him. It was a ridiculous question given the crowd pushing in on all sides. But He knew power had gone out of Him; He knew someone’s touch was different than the press of the crowd.
This interruption slowed the teacher’s progress toward the dying daughter. He was too late. She was dead.
If you’re familiar with this story from Mark 5:21-43, you know how it ends. You know there’s a happily ever after. But pretend for a moment that you don’t know how it ends. Hit the ‘pause’ button at that moment when messengers came and told the father it was too late, his daughter was dead.
This father had done everything for his daughter. Of course he did. That’s what father’s do. But it was all to no avail. His daughter was dead.
Some of us know what it is to have our prayers unanswered, our hopes unfulfilled, our desperate pleas for help unheeded. Some of us know this kind of despair. Some of us know that sometimes no amount of persistence or perseverance is enough. We know the pain of a father who was too late bringing the healer to a daughter.
On Sunday we will read two stories about people desperate for healing. In both cases, even in the case of the girl who died, the stories end with miraculous healing. I think sometimes we rush too fast to the end of the stories. We leap over the years of desperation and despair. “Where’s my healing?” we cry out. “What about my loved one?” we lament. But when we pause in the middle of the story, we are perhaps reminded that maybe our story isn’t over yet. Maybe our story’s miraculous ending has yet to be written.
As you prepare for Sunday, perhaps spend some time considering that moment before the miracle. What might it have been like for the father that moment when the messengers arrived with news of his daughter’s death? That’s a message some of you have experienced in real life. You know exactly what it was like. Are there things for which you have been praying, that God has not provided yet? Are you familiar with God’s silence? With God’s absence? With unanswered prayer? As you step out of that moment before the miracle and hear that Jesus raised the man’s daughter from the dead, does it give you hope? Does it give you strength to keep praying, to keep asking, to keep pounding on heaven’s door for a miracle of your own?
Who is this Jesus who was too late to heal a little girl, but who was powerful enough that her death was not an obstacle? What does it mean to be His disciple? What does it mean to follow Him?