[0:00] In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. In today's Holy Gospel, please be seated, we see the Lord Jesus performing one of his many, many miracles.
[0:16] Miracles that astound us still. Just a week ago, we celebrated the Feast of All Saints, and in that feast we are reminded of the interconnectedness of the faithful in Jesus Christ, the interconnectedness of the Church, that all members in Christ are linked and connected one to another throughout all ages, all places, all times.
[0:42] This will be fulfilled in fullest measure in heaven, when we live in God and in and with each other for all eternity, in the communion of the Blessed Trinity.
[0:53] We were made from love, for love, from God, for God, to live in God and to live with one another. There is an old country song that goes, Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.
[1:10] And that is the theme of today's Gospel. Our Lord deals with the most heartbreaking aspect of the process that leads into heaven, and that is death.
[1:20] It is death of those we love, and the sadness and the grief and the pain that we experience when we lose the people that we love to death.
[1:32] Our Lord Jesus Christ is going about in today's Gospel, and the local vestryman approaches him and tells him that his daughter has died. But he believes that if Jesus comes to his home, his daughter will be resurrected and saved.
[1:48] And so he and the disciples go together immediately to the home. On his way, there is a woman who has a hemorrhage of 12 years' duration, who, seeing the Lord Jesus, believes in him.
[2:02] And she reaches out to him and grabs the hem of his garment, believing that she will be healed even if she touches his clothing. You see, she doesn't want the Lord Jesus to know her face to face, because she is ritually unclean.
[2:18] And if Jesus knows that she is, in fact, in this state, and touches her, he too would be ritually unclean. And so the woman reaches out, touches the hem of his garment, and is instantly healed.
[2:32] Our Lord turns to her and says, Our Lord continues on his path with the disciples to the vestryman's home.
[2:51] And arriving there, he encounters all of the traditional forms of Jewish mourning. There are paid criers, paid mourners, who are weeping and moaning and wailing.
[3:03] There are flute players playing dirges and sad songs. And the family is without crying and mourning for the loss of the child. Our Lord says to everybody, You can go home now. She's only sleeping. She's fine.
[3:20] And the people laugh him to scorn. After they finish ridiculing him for saying this, the Lord Jesus goes into the house, finds the young girl on the bed, takes her by the hand, and raises her up.
[3:35] She is resurrected from the dead. Christ has restored her life. The most important resurrection, of course, is the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
[3:47] First and foremost on Easter Day, three days after Christ's passion and suffering began on Monday, Thursday, We profess that the Lord Jesus was crucified on Calvary, died and was buried, and on the third day, he rose again from the dead to live forever in the glory of his Father's kingdom.
[4:09] During his earthly life, the Lord Jesus performed three miracles of resurrection. The one that we hear this morning, the raising of Jairus' daughter, he has a name mentioned in the other Gospels, and the boy from Nain and Lazarus.
[4:25] These three resurrection miracles of Christ are different from his own. When our Lord rose from the dead, his resurrection was forever, for all eternity.
[4:36] These three people who were raised from death died again, more permanently, at a more natural stage at the end of their earthly life. They were raised from death, but it was a natural restoration, and they will indeed in time return to death, as we all must.
[4:57] But Jesus uses these miracles to point to himself. First of all, we see in the resurrection miracles of Christ that he has the power to raise the dead, and that is an awareness, a preview of his own resurrection.
[5:14] And beyond that, Jesus is stronger than death. Jesus is more powerful than death. And he demonstrates that in these miracles.
[5:26] Notice also that the Lord Jesus is the God of compassion. Why does he perform these three miracles of which we read in the New Testament? We read of them because he has mercy and compassion on those who grieve.
[5:41] For the father who loses his daughter and is in anguish and pain. For the single childless mother of name who loses her only son.
[5:53] And because of the grief and the torment suffered by Mary and Martha at Bethany when they lose their brother Lazarus. It is never mentioned that Christ restored these people to life for their own sake.
[6:07] He restored them to life for the sake of those who mourn. This is the sign of our Lord's compassion. Two powerful messages come through today, shown by the miracle of Christ's raising of those who were dead from death.
[6:24] The first is, we don't have to be sorry for those who die in Christ. They are sleeping. They do not find themselves obliterated or eliminated.
[6:35] They are alive in the Lord. This is why in the burial service in the Book of Common Prayer, we quote from the Revelator St. John, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, even so saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labors.
[6:52] Those who die in Christ are at rest, and they don't want to be bothered in particular. For the first time ever, they have real rest, and we should take hope in that truth.
[7:06] Those who die in the Lord are alive to Him and rest in the Lord Jesus. The second message is, very plainly, we are all connected, and as much as we sorrow for those we lose who die, we know we will see them again.
[7:23] And so we should not fall into despair when we bury the ones that we love, when we bury those who are closest to us, because Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.
[7:36] He is the resurrection and the life, and He has promised that in Him, all who die will be made one and will be made fully alive. At the end of the world, at the consummation of all things, at the final judgment, at the general resurrection, all human relationships are going to be put back together again.
[7:59] All human relationships will be restored. And this is the message of the Lord Jesus to us when He performs these miracles of resurrection.
[8:10] Finally, we can take note of the example of the dead girl's father and the woman who had the hemorrhage of blood, in that they trusted that Jesus would save them and hear their prayer.
[8:24] They believed that Jesus Christ had the power to do for them what they wanted. And God uses that example for us today as an example of faith.
[8:36] When we pray, we should have confidence in God. This moves us merely from positive thinking into the reality that God wills what is good for us.
[8:48] God wants us to have openness and acceptance of His will. But if we don't ask questions, God will not answer them. If we do not ask, we do not know what power God will unleash.
[9:02] God wants us to have the kind of faith that expects good blessings from Him. Yes, God's will in all things is perfect and righteous and acceptable.
[9:14] And above all things, He wants us to confirm and conform ourselves to Him. When we pray, let us have confidence that God, who surely loves us and intends what is best for us, can do what is most needful.
[9:31] God never allows anything to happen to us in this life that is not geared to our salvation. And with that in mind, we should pray with faith, with trust, and confidence.
[9:44] in the words of St. James in his epistle in the New Testament, have faith, nothing wavering.
[9:54] In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. The Lord be with you.
[10:09] And with that in your spirit. Out of the deep, I lie called unto thee, O Lord. Okay. Amen.
[10:23] Thank you. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Random точchaft, a man, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[10:35] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.