Sunday Worship Service Respect for the Aged Service Sep.15, 2024

Prelude
Call to Worship Psalm 73:26
Hymn JBC # 125 All creatures of our God and King
The Lord’s Prayer
Hymn JBC # 2 Come, Thou almighty King
Offering
Scripture Matthew 9:18～26
Prayer
Sermon “Your faith Has saved you”
Prayer
Hymn JBC # 519 My faith, it is an oaken staff
Doxology JBC # 679
Benediction
Postlude

In today's passage, a leader comes to Jesus whose daughter has apparently died.
The leader comes to Jesus, bows down, and says, “ My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live.”
　Essentially the same story is told in the Gospels of Mark and Luke. In the same story in the Gospels of Mark and Luke, this leader is described as “a synagogue leader”.
　The glossary at the end of the New Interconfessional Translation Bible gives the following explanation of a synagogue leader.
“A person who is in charge of the worship services in a synagogue and has the responsibility of managing the building and facilities.”
Thus, the head of the synagogue was a person who presided over the worship service, that is, led and facilitated the worship service and was responsible for the entire synagogue. He was a man of faith and in a position of leadership.

　　And this man was faced with a very sad event: the death of his daughter. According to other gospels, she was 12 years old.
With great sadness and shock in his heart, this leader came to Jesus. And he bowed down to Jesus.
Since this person was in a leadership position in the synagogue, I imagine that others greeted and respected him (if not prostrated before him).
Normally, other people undergoing sorrow and suffering would have come to this leader and asked for advice.
But now he himself, the leader (head of the synagogue), was facing a great sadness, the loss of his daughter. And he went to Jesus.
This leader's going to Jesus and bowing down to Him shows that our true leader is Jesus, no matter who we are, whether we are leaders or ordinary believers.

Anyone can come to our true leader, Jesus Christ, and bow down to him and worship him.
I imagine it was quite eye-catching to see a leader prostrating himself. But in the face of grief over the loss of his daughter, and in the presence of God, i.e. Jesus Christ, his social position as a “leader”was irrelevant.
He was able to come before God just as a human being, weak and vulnerable, to ask whatever he wished.
It is the same for us. Regardless of our position, social responsibility, status, occupation, gender, race, etc., we are all able to approach God and worship Him.

The church is the place where we can receive that joy. Everyone knows the true God, everyone is equal before Him, everyone can approach Him, receive His love, and worship Him.
Let us all receive that joy and grace ourselves, and pass it on to the rest of the world.
　With the words, “My daughter has just died,” the leader accepted the painful and sad reality of the situation. He confides his pain and sorrow to Jesus.
　Jesus is the one who accepts the reality of all our suffering and sorrow. Jesus Christ understands the pain and sorrow that others do not understand (or do not understand completely).
　This leader says “My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live.”

　　What would you all think upon hearing the request of this leader? Would we think he is asking for unrealistic things?
　We can voice all our sincere desires to God in prayer in this way.
“My daughter has died. But if you come and lay your hands on her, she will come back to life.” (Please do this for me!)
Who can we say this to? (We cannot say this to just anyone.)
　But we can ask God for our deepest desires, even to bring a dead daughter back to life. And God will surely accept that person's wish.
　We can bring all of our desires to God. And it is up to God to decide how He will fulfill those desires.
　But we can trust through the Bible, through Jesus Christ, that our God knows what is best for us and will work out everything according to His plan.
　Let us live our lives with faith, trusting God to do what is best.

When Jesus heard the leader's request, he got up and followed him (v. 19).
　Then a woman who had been sick and bleeding for 12 years approached Jesus and touched the tassel of his garment from behind (v. 20).
　The woman believed that she would be healed as long as she touched his clothes. And true to her faith, the woman came up behind Jesus and touched his clothes.
Why did this woman come from behind Jesus and gently touch his clothes? Couldn't she have gone to Jesus directly, prostrated herself, and make her desire known like that leader did?
　According to Old Testament law, a person with a discharge of blood was not allowed to approach others because they were ceremonially unclean (as recorded in Leviticus 15, for example).
　Therefore, this woman approached Jesus from behind (probably hoping to remain unnoticed) and touched His clothes.

　　This person firmly believed in the power of Jesus, that as long as she touched his clothes, she would be healed.
She had been suffering from the same illness for 12 years, but she had not lost her faith in God and her reliance on Him.
　Even in the midst of the sadness and despair of his daughter's death, the leader still had faith enough to ask Jesus for help.
This woman, too, still had faith enough to seek God in spite of her long illness.
By maintaining a relationship with God through His Word and prayer on a daily basis, one can receive faith that never waivers, even in times of crisis.
Let us cherish the intimate relationship with God that is nourished and given to us daily through prayer and the Word of God.

Jesus noticed that the woman touched him from behind. The Gospel of Mark says, “Jesus realized that power had gone out from him” (Mark 5:30).
All this woman could do was quietly approach Jesus from behind and touch his clothes. And Jesus knew all about her sufferings.
Jesus does not reject anyone who comes to Him for help. He always gives them what they need.
Jesus looked at the woman and said to her, “Take heart, daughter, your faith has healed you.”
Jesus' kind words are also meant for us today as well.
“Take heart, son/daughter. Your faith has healed you.”

Jesus is telling this to each and every one of us today. We hear this voice of Jesus during church.
Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has healed you.” Was this faith something that the woman had from the beginning?
Not at all. Faith in God and the belief that all she had to do was touch His clothes to be healed was given to the woman by God.
The basis of the Christian faith is that faith is not won by human effort or experience.
Faith is something freely given by Jesus Christ as a gift of grace. Nevertheless, Jesus calls it “your faith” after giving it to us.
It was through the profound love and compassion of Jesus Christ that the woman was healed. Yet, Jesus does not merely heal our ailments; He shares His divine glory and power and bestows upon us as the incomparable gift of faith, declaring “This is yours.”
　Having received this priceless gift of faith in Jesus Christ, let us cherish it, and receive strength and hope for our daily walk through this faith.

　After Jesus healed the woman, he went to the leader's house. At the leader's house, the funeral had already begun.
The noisy crowd people and those playing pipes in verse 23 refers to the Jewish customs of the time, in which people expressed their grief for the dead at funerals through music, loud voices, and weeping.
　　Jesus said to the people, “Go away. The girl is not dead but is asleep.” And then the crowd laughed at him.
　They laughed at Jesus. The crowd laughed at Jesus, saying, “The leader's daughter is dead. She is not sleeping. What is this man talking about?”
　However, Jesus did not mind being laughed at by the crowd at all. Jesus knew what He was going to do, namely bringing the girl back to life.
　And He knew that there was at least one person there (the synagogue leader) who believed that He has the power to do so.
Jesus also knew of the faith of the woman who came to Him in desperation, believing that if she only touched His clothes, she would surely be healed of her long illness.

　　In today's passage, the leader and the woman may have been the only two people who believed in Jesus. Many of the others in the crowd did not believe in Jesus. They ridiculed Him.
But even when few in number, the sincere faith of the few manifests itself as a miracle of God's grace.
　Jesus took the hand of the daughter of their leader and caused her to rise (come to life). The faith of a single believer in Jesus Christ made such a work of God possible.
　It is said that we Christians are a very small minority in the country of Japan, that only about 1% of the population are Christians. In reality, it is probably even less.
　But I do not believe that we should be discouraged by that number; if everyone of that 1% earnestly believes that God can do anything, then 1% is enough for us to see miracles.
　There is the God of Jesus Christ who gave us a powerful faith that was in essential His own, saying “Your faith has saved you.”
Believing in the love and mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ and in His infinite power, let us walk daily in faith and trust.