nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.
God created us that we might have life and being. How is it that the history of our world is so marred by death and destruction? Why are there so many women who suffer for years at the hands of doctors, unable to find a cure for what ails them? Why are children taken from their parents before their time has come?
We see that the devil is the source of death. But why did God permit it if he really wanted us to be imperishable? This isn't some dualistic universe where God and the devil are on equal footing. Even if God doesn't directly cause death it can only exist if he allows for the possibility.
Can it be that he doesn't care that much? Perhaps he is happy to love those who serve him but is quick to abandon those who don't and leaves the devil to handle the dirty work. Emphatically, no!
For you know the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that though he was rich, for your sake he became poor,
so that by his poverty you might become rich.
God proves his love when he himself enters our story to reverse the consequences of death.
He took the child by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum,”
which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise!”
His own death and resurrection transform the world and undo the devil's work. Look at the tenderness with which he raises this girl from death. We cannot think Jesus indifferent to suffering.
Yet he still allows people to choose to belong to the devil's company and experience death. If it is not out of indifference it must be because only with such freedom can we truly love. He did not wish us to be automatons programmed to go through the motions of loving. He wanted us to genuinely love no matter the potential cost.
Jesus loves us each too much to leave the consequences of that cost in our own hands even though we have each done much to deserve it. He wants to reverse death and destruction in our own lives. We aren't merely lost in the crowd as part of some bulk rate redemption.
"You see how the crowd is pressing upon you,
and yet you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”
If it seems like nothing can change because we have been suffering for so long there is still hope. If it seems too late, as it does for the girl who dies, it is never too late. In a way, the whole human race is summarized by the hemorrhaging woman and the dead little girl. Death and destruction have been a part of our story for so long that it is hard to hope. Jesus wants to renew our hope this morning. Death need not have the final word. Jesus becomes poor, subject to weakness and death, in order to raise us to the riches of his own immortality. May this love overflow in us so that our hope can enrich others as well.
I will extol you, O LORD, for you drew me clear
and did not let my enemies rejoice over me.
O LORD, you brought me up from the netherworld;
you preserved me from among those going down into the pit.
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