Grace to you and peace from God
our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the
Gospel for this morning.
You’ve probably heard the
seemingly Biblical wisdom shared before: “God will never give you more than you
can handle.” It’s used all the time, spoken to someone who just lost their job,
or who received a difficult medical diagnosis, or who had a relationship
break-up, and to someone whose beloved just passed. “God will never give you
more than you can handle.” It’s always spoken with piety, dignity and reverence,
as if St. Paul himself were speaking in the moment. And, because it sounds
Biblical – in fact, it is sometimes even prefaced with something like,
“Remember, the Bible says” – we take it as (literally) Gospel.
Take that sentence and speak it
into this morning’s Gospel lesson. Let’s see what it would look like. There
stands Jairus whose daughter is dying. “Brother, God’s not going to give you
more than you can handle.” Couldn’t you hear Jairus think, “Oh, really? Who is
this God who going to make my child die because he thinks I can handle it?” Or,
speak it to the woman who struggled with twelve years of blood loss, anemia,
and embarrassment; who spent everything she had to try to find a cure with no
success. Do you really think giving her those words of counsel will offer her
any hope, any help? Do you think she would rejoice at this statement? Here
these two people are, one with his daughter literally at the point of death,
the other in the depths of medical and social misery, and the best that can be
said is God won’t give you more than you can handle? Can Jairus handle his
daughter’s death? Can this woman endure any more? It’s not our place to say, of
course, but the actions of the father or the woman lead us to believe they are
hanging on by much more than a thread and that thread is fraying fast. I would suggest they can’t handle their
situation at all. If they could handle it, neither would need Jesus.
Now, to be fair, no one in this
text makes this statement. I’m importing a modern phrase into the ancient
narrative. But, I am doing so with the purpose of wanting you to think
Biblically, Scripturally about the world in which you live and in the context
of your lives as Christians in this world. I want you to develop a Biblical worldview,
a Biblical lens, if you will, through which you see and hear and think about
the things going on and being said around you.
Let me explain. For the record, I do have Christopher’s
permission to share this with you. As most of you know, the last few weeks have
been rather tense for my family. Perhaps some of you know the emptiness of
having a child who has something medically wrong but we’re not quite sure what
it is. Perhaps you know the helplessness of not being able to fix it yourself.
Perhaps you know the anxiety of being told that the Xrays and MRIs showed a
shadowy area, but were inconclusive, and a biopsy is needed to see what is
wrong; of seeing your child cry in fear while wiping away your own tears; of
being told a biopsy revealed decaying bone, which was given a multi-syllable
word that ended in -oma; and fearing the worst while waiting 40 of the slowest
hours ever recorded. Do you know that 40 hours is 2,400 minutes, or almost
200,000 heartbeats? I felt every one as I was standing in the same path as
Jairus: a father who was afraid for his son, not because he was dying (I’m not
trying to overstate my story) but not knowing what was about to happen.
A well-intended visitor – I can’t
remember who it was, but it doesn’t really matter - looked at me and said those
mystic words, “Remember, God will never give you more than you can handle.”
I was so emotionally flooded that
I was unable to respond. I wasn’t angry at the speaker. When people make
comments like this, I think it’s usually because they are in an uncomfortable
place in unfamiliar waters. Rather than sitting in silence with the suffering
and grieving and fearing, they feel the need to speak. And, needing to speak, they say what comes to
mind and, somehow, this pithy ditty keeps coming to people’s minds and mouths,
as they think it’s Holy Writ. I wasn’t angry at the speaker but I remember
feeling sad – sad that the speaker, presumably, believed this.
The problem is that this
statement isn’t Gospel. Gospel points you to Jesus. This verse reverts the
hearer back to him or herself – He won’t give you more than *you* can handle.
It’s Law. Worse, it’s not God’s Law. It was never spoken by St. Paul, or Peter
or Isaiah or any of the other Biblical writers, either. It’s not even in the
Bible. It is a mis-statement of what St. Paul really did say in 1 Cor. 10:13,
“God is faithful, He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with
temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to
endure it.” Hardly the same thing as our modern invention, “He’ll never give
you more than you can handle.” It’s not a misinterpretation, it’s a flat-out
misstatement. Don’t take my word for it – look it up this afternoon, 1 Cor.
10:13. We accept misstatements like this because we are a biblically illiterate
culture and society. God’s words are bent, folded, spindled and twisted into
something that he never meant to say. We are so far removed from our Bibles,
anymore, that anyone who speaks with pithy, Bible-esque statements gets more
credit than the sacred texts themselves.
As a result, people are led away
and, unfortunately, even led into despair because the reality is that we cannot
bear our burdens by ourselves and it turns God into a sadist who seems to love
pushing His people to the edge.
The fact is that we live in a
world, quite fallen, that is always dealing us a worse hand than we can handle. Whether it is illness or unemployment,
relationship dissolution or accident, natural disasters or the sinful desires
of men, we experience it all.
When you experience these things,
the fallenness of this world - and you will! - then follow in the footsteps of
Jairus and the woman and look to Jesus. Neither he nor she would turn you back
to yourself. They know what it means to not be able to do it yourself. They
would turn you to Jesus, in faith, trusting His goodness, love and mercy for
you, His dearly beloved. They would turn you to Jesus who emptied Himself fully
and completely to the point of death on the cross, carrying the suffering of all
of humanity in Himself. They would point you to Jesus who rose from the dead. As
witnesses of Christ’s power, they would point you to Jesus and say, “Trust Him.” He takes your fears, your anxieties, your worries, your concerns, all of it and He drug it into the grave with Him.
God allows you more than you can
handle so that all you can do is trust Jesus. You can’t hang on, you can’t
endure, you can’t bear one more thing, so turn to Jesus. Don’t carry it
yourself – for that matter, don’t even try. Repent of any foolish idea that you
can. Don’t try to be your own Savior. That’s what Jesus came to do – don’t put
him out of work. Jairus “fell at [Jesus’] feet and implored Him earnestly.”
Instead of trying to bear your burden, let go, put your hands together and pray
for Christ’s mercy, grace, strength, and faith. The woman reached out and touched
Jesus’ robe as he passed by. Reach out your hands and touch Christ’s body and
His blood, given and shed for you – not only for the forgiveness of your sins,
but also for the strengthening of faith in Him as the one who can and will
rescue.
You notice what Jesus does, for both Jairus
and the woman: He commends their faith. Remember, faith doesn’t do. Faith
receives. Faith is the beggar with the empty sack standing in front of God and
saying, “I have been baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection. You made me
your child in holy Baptism. I trust you will fill my sack with all good things.”
And God does that, more abundantly that we could ever ask or imagine. He fills
the sack to the top. And when the sack is emptied, because of our sinfulness or
the sinfulness of the world, we stand in front of Him again, in repentant faith,
and He fills the sack again, never counting the times we return to Him. He lovingly
fills us up.
This might seem strange, but I
generally enjoy – as much as it is possible – making hospital calls and
speaking the Word of God to a hurting, frightened soul, offering prayers and
blessing to him or her in a time of crisis and need. It’s a whole different
ballgame when it’s your own family member lying in that bed, let me tell you. I
didn’t enjoy that at all. Nor did I enjoy listening to the children crying
because they were hurt or scared. I could never be a chaplain in a children’s hospital.
I knew this lesson was coming up, so I had plenty of time to contemplate it
over and against what I was seeing and experiencing. In this Gospel text, Jesus
miraculously heals both Jairus’ daughter and the woman. And there was much
healing that took place in Dell Children’s hospital. I am very grateful to say
that my son is one of those whom the Lord is healing through the hands of a
skilled surgical team and phenomenal nurses. But I have to tell you, during
those difficult hours of uncertainty, I was turning to Jesus because it was way
more than I could handle. While I prayed with the fervor of Jairus that this
thing wasn’t – you know, the Big C – I was also holding on to Jesus robe like
the woman and I was reminding Jesus of His baptismal promise to my son, that
Christopher carried Christ’s own name – Christian – and that there was a space
reserved for him into eternity. We, as Christians, tend to be very nearsighted:
we see the here and now. God is eternally farsighted. I was trying to see
things through His eyes. I could see it - just a glimmer, but it was there. When it's more than you can handle, there is Jesus.
I’m still trying to see things
through His eyes. I’ll be the first to admit, it’s much easier today than it
was two weeks ago, yesterday, while we were still waiting. But, that’s what we
are all doing, isn’t it? We’re waiting for His return. So, let’s wait with a
Biblical worldview. Look with me – look past today and tomorrow and tomorrow’s
tomorrow. Look into the eschaton with me, look into eternity. Do you see it?
There it is! There will be a day
of great rejoicing when all of the tears of this world will be wiped away, the
pain and sorrow that goes with it will all cease. On that great day of Christ’s
return, you, too, will hear Jesus’ own words, “My child, arise,” and you shall
be raised. And with a resurrected hand, you will reach out and touch His robe –
not to be healed of illness, because that will already be left behind – but in
rejoicing because you will be healed into eternity.
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