I was sitting in Rooster’s Coffee and Cafe in Arab, Alabama (where my wife’s parents live). I was trying to lay out a preaching schedule through the book of Mark for this summer. I opened my Bible (the one with half the book of Revelation and all the concordance falling out) and realized I’d skipped the final event in chapter five.
A man, the ruler of the local synagogue, comes to Jesus with a request that Jesus come and minister to his twelve year old daughter who is deathly ill. On the way Jesus is pressed by the mob. A woman reached out in faith and was healed of a disease she’s suffered with for twelve years. Jesus stopped to minister to her soul and her position in the community, and there are so many lessons in grace, and compassion, and mercy to be gained from their interaction. But while he was ministering life to this woman, news came that the young girl they were headed to see had died.
People came from the synagogue leader’s house. They said to him, “Your daughter is dead. Why bother the Teacher any further?”
I have so been there, haven’t you? I haven’t lost a daughter, but I have seen a long time dream die before my very eyes. I have seen hopes dashed. I have seen confidence and security terminated. You have too, haven’t you?
Some of our most precious things, dearest to our hearts, come to an end and are taken from us unexpectedly. And what advice do we hear? “Let it go. Move on. Get over it.” Without realizing it these advisers diminish the value of our dreams and the value of Jesus and his love for us and the things that are precious to us.
Jesus, however, gloriously does not support these worldly advisers. He says, “Do not fear, only believe.”
At the end of our dreams, in that moment when hope teeters at the edge of the abyss, Jesus offers himself as our eternal hope. “Do not fear, only believe.”
Loss makes us afraid. Loss makes us aware that death lurks in the shadows and nothing we hold in this world can bear the passage with us. Loss makes us afraid not only of its coming, but of its repeated return. So Jesus says, “Do not fear.”
Why? Why, “Do not fear?” Because he is permanent, unchanging, eternal. He won’t get lost and he won’t lose those who trust and believe in him. In Jesus loss no longer threatens, for what is gained through faith cannot be lost. So he says to fear-filled us, “Do not fear, only believe.”
I think it is reasonable to ask, “Believe what?”
It is a question to which Jesus responds, “You believe in God, believe also in me.” Believe in Jesus’ love. Believe in his good intent. Believe in his plan. Believe in his power. Believe in him and let your hope be in him. Believe not merely in what Jesus can do, as you might believe a trip to Walmart will stock the pantry shelves, but believe in him, the Savior, the Son of God, very God in human flesh full of grace and truth and fully committed both to revealing God the Father to us and drawing us through that revelation into the Father who loves us and sent his Son to die for us.
“Do not fear, only believe,” and keep walking in faith. Faith that comes from God. Faith in God. Faith that returns to God Faith to which God responds.
“Do not fear, only believe.”
That’s the essence of the Good News.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer spiritual reflections. This month’s s contributor of The Good News is Pastor Dale McIntire, who has served as pastor of the Cornerstone Community Church in Grand Marais since April of 1995.
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