Good morning, Church. I'd like for you to turn with me to Mark chapter 5, verses 21 through 43.
This passage contains an account about an extraordinary day in Jesus' life.
And it's extraordinary not so much because of the miracles that Jesus worked,
but because on this day, Mark lets us see Jesus on what you and I would normally call a very bad day.
This passage shows Jesus when he's tired, when he's surrounded by chaos,
when everything seems to be going wrong, when he's rejected, when he's questioned,
and even when he's laughed at.
And you know, I think that we've all had a lot of days like this recently with this pandemic going on
when it seems like everything's going wrong.
And so while we're looking at Jesus this morning,
I want you to be asking yourself some questions.
Questions like,
How do I handle difficulties like Jesus faced?
How do I react on bad days?
What do I do when I'm slighted or when I'm wronged?
How do I treat others when I'm tired and exhausted?
Do I respond with love like Jesus does?
Do I respond with compassion?
Do I come to Jesus in humility when I'm having a tough time?
Do I need to come to Jesus today?
Let's pray and ask our Lord Jesus to bless our time in his word.
Oh Lord, we come to you and we just fall before you.
We ask you, Lord, illuminate us in this hour.
Comfort those who are worried, Lord.
Calm those who are afraid.
I pray, Lord, that you would help us to seek you out when things go wrong,
to trust in you and to love others like you did when you walked on this earth.
Lord, open our ears.
Open our ears by your spirit to hear your word
and plant it in our hearts this morning.
And we pray all of this in the mighty name of Jesus.
Amen.
Now instead of reading the whole passage straight through,
I think it will be helpful for us if we go verse by verse
because in this case I think it will help us encounter Jesus more personally.
And before we start on the passage, I want to give you a little background to it
because like most bad days, the one that we're going to read about really started the night before
with a bad night's sleep.
In the chapter previous to the one we're going to be looking at, in chapter 4,
Mark tells us that the night before our passage begins,
Jesus and his disciples had spent the night sailing across the Sea of Galilee.
And Jesus was forced to sleep in the boat.
Now this boat was probably just a regular old fishing vessel,
and so no doubt it would have been uncomfortable for Jesus.
But to make matters worse, a terrible storm suddenly arose.
The ship started sinking.
The disciples are terrified.
They wake Jesus up and they ask him.
In fact, they almost accuse him.
They say,
Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?
And then Jesus miraculously calms the storm.
The boat makes it to shore.
Remember, immediately Jesus is confronted by a man who is terribly demonized with a horde of demons.
He casts them out.
He delivers the man.
He has mercy on him.
But as soon as the people of the country gather around him
and they see that he delivered a man from demons,
they reject him.
And they ask him to leave.
Now how would you like to start your day off that way?
You wake in the middle of the night with your boat sinking
and your disciples making unfounded accusations about you.
And then later when you work a miracle, you get rejected because of it.
So Jesus has to get right back in his boat
and sail right back across the Sea of Galilee.
And this is where we begin our passage in Mark chapter 5, verse 21.
Mark writes,
If you read the Gospels, you'll see that whenever crowds gather around Jesus by the seashore,
he doesn't just hang out and relax.
He's always teaching them.
And I think we can be pretty sure that this is exactly what Jesus is doing here.
So it's been a mixed bag for Jesus so far.
He was rejected by one crowd across the Sea of Galilee.
Here we see him being accepted by another crowd.
But one thing we can know for sure is that Jesus is definitely tired.
But instead of packing it in and going home,
he seems to be doing what he always does,
continuing with his ministry and teaching the crowd.
Now, if Jesus is like me, he's probably looking forward to getting some rest.
But this day is about to get a lot more difficult for Jesus
because we all know what tends to happen on bad days.
They tend to get worse.
Unexpected things happen.
Crises emerge.
This always happens, it seems, when we're least prepared for it, doesn't it?
And this is just what happens to Jesus in verse 22.
Mark says,
So there comes along a synagogue official named Jairus.
Now, Jairus would have been an important man in his day, in his community,
far more important than Jesus was at that time.
But what does he do?
Jairus humbles himself.
He falls before Jesus right in front of the crowd.
And he begs him to heal his daughter.
This would have made a striking picture to see a man of this standing falling before Jesus.
And notice what Jairus says.
He calls his daughter, my little daughter.
In the Greek, he uses what we would call the diminutive form of the word daughter.
It's a term of endearment.
It means that he loves her.
Now, we're reading here from the Gospel of Mark.
But Luke has the very same story.
And he adds that this little daughter was also Jairus' only daughter.
And we know from these two accounts, if we put them together,
that Jairus' only daughter is at the point of death.
And her father loves her.
And we can assume that Jairus saw that she was dying.
He heard that Jesus was about.
And he must have said to himself,
If only I can get to Jesus.
And so, in faith, he left his daughter's side.
He humbled himself publicly before Jesus.
And he asked him to heal her.
In difficult times, do you come to Jesus like Jairus did?
Have you ever experienced a crisis?
Have you ever been confronted by something awful?
Have you been faced with a situation so terrible you knew no human power could help?
And when confronted by these things, have you sought out our great healer, Jesus?
Have you humbled yourself before him and asked him to heal and to rescue and to save?
There are many people in our world and in our community right now who, in the midst of this pandemic,
are facing situations exactly like Jairus faced right now.
And Scripture teaches us that Jesus is the good doctor.
And that if we come to him in humility like this man Jairus did,
then his delight is to heal and to save.
My friends, if you're suffering right now or if you have a loved one who is,
I want you to follow the example of Jairus and go to Jesus in humbleness
and call upon the one who is the healer of our souls.
And he will come to your aid.
And this is exactly what Jesus did in the next verse.
In verse 24, we read simply,
And he went with him.
But something else goes with Jesus too, because verse 24 doesn't end there.
Mark also adds these words,
And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him.
So Jesus is trying to get to that little girl and the crowd is jostling him.
They're pressing him.
They're thronging him.
They're trying to get close to him, trying to see him, trying to touch him.
We see this all throughout the Gospels.
The crowds gather around Jesus and they press in on him and they get in the way of his ministry.
The Gospels tell us that the crowds could be so bad sometimes
that Jesus and his disciples could not even find time to eat.
But here we have a bigger problem.
There's an emergency.
There's a crisis.
This little girl is dying and the crowd is getting in Jesus' way.
Do you sense the tension and the stress growing as this day goes on for Jesus?
But things are about to ratchet up a bit more for Jesus.
Mark tells us in the next three verses, 25 through 27,
he says,
There was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years
and who had suffered much under many physicians.
And she had spent all that she had and was no better but rather grew worse.
She heard the reports about Jesus and she came up behind him in the crowd
and she touched his garment.
Now, do you see what's happening here?
She, just like the crowd, is pressing in on Jesus.
Everyone's trying to get a piece of him.
Here we have a woman who was constantly bleeding for 12 years
and she wanted to be healed.
And understandably, she came and she reached out to Jesus.
But I want to know something.
I want to know what she was thinking of getting in the way of Jesus
at a time like this during an emergency.
Well, Mark tells us in verse 28, he says,
For the woman said,
If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.
And immediately the flow of blood dried up
and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.
Do you see the power of Jesus, my friends?
Just by touching his garments, she's healed.
This is the power of a wonderful Jesus.
But I want to know something else.
I want to know how Jesus will react
to something that many of us might think
is rude and presumptuous
to just reach out and grab someone
without their permission.
Mark says in verse 30,
And Jesus, perceiving in himself
that power had gone out from him,
immediately turned about in the crowd.
And he said,
Who touched my garments?
Now imagine this scene in your mind's eye.
Jesus is going to heal this dying little girl.
There's not much time.
He's fighting through a crowd
who's thronging around him.
This poor woman who suffered so much
and is in poverty pushes her way through.
She reaches, she stretches,
she touches Jesus' garment,
and she's healed.
But straight away, Jesus turns around
and he says,
Who touched my garments?
And listen to verse 31, the next verse.
Listen to how the disciples react to this.
His disciples say to him,
you see the crowd pressing around you
and yet you say,
Who touched me?
You know what's happening here.
The disciples are questioning Jesus
once again,
just like they did in the boat
the previous night.
They think that Jesus
is not making any sense.
They think, in fact,
what most of us would be thinking
in this situation,
they would be thinking,
What do you mean who touched me, Jesus?
You see the crowd pressing around you.
Everyone is touching you.
And why are you wasting time?
This little girl is at the brink of death.
The disciples are doubting Jesus.
Only this time,
they're doubting him publicly.
But look what happens in verse 32 and 33.
And Jesus looked around to see who had done it.
But the woman,
knowing what had happened to her,
came in fear and trembling
and fell down before him
and told him the whole truth.
Why is this woman so scared?
Why is she fearful?
Why is she trembling?
Why is she falling down
in fear before the man who just healed her?
For one thing,
she may be afraid
because, like I said,
it's a bit rude to just grab someone.
She might be afraid also
because she knows she's holding Jesus up
from an urgent task.
But there's another reason why,
according to the Old Testament law,
she was not supposed to be touching Jesus.
The Old Testament law stipulated
in no uncertain terms
that anyone who had any kind of bodily discharge,
like a flow of blood,
was considered to be unclean.
And so this woman was ceremonially unclean.
And Leviticus 15, 25 through 27,
specifically states
that if someone is unclean
and they touch another person
or they touch another garment,
then that person or that garment
becomes unclean also.
And so by touching Jesus' garments,
this woman has just made him
or at least his garments unclean.
That's why she's afraid
and why she's trembling.
She knows she wasn't supposed
to be touching Jesus.
She knows she made him unclean.
And by telling Jesus what happened,
she's also telling him
that she has presumptuously
made him unclean
without his permission.
But what does Jesus say?
How will he respond?
In verse 34,
he says to her,
daughter,
your faith has made you well.
Go in peace
and be healed of your disease.
When someone makes you unclean,
do you react in this way?
When you are slighted
or taken advantage of
by a desperate person,
do you respond with love
like how Jesus does?
Close your eyes for a moment.
Do you see Jesus
in this gospel story?
He is in an ocean of chaos.
The crowd is pressing in on him.
His disciples are publicly
questioning him.
And this woman gets in his way
and makes him ritualistically impure
all while he's trying
to reach a dying girl.
But what does Jesus see?
Jesus looks past all these things
and instead he sees
a desperate woman.
He sees a woman
who may not have been touched
by another person in years.
He sees a woman
who had suffered much
at the hands of many
and who was in poverty
and in the pandemonium.
In the midst of a crisis,
he recognizes her faith.
He pauses.
He speaks to her.
And despite everything going on,
he comforts her
and he blesses her.
My friends,
this is how Jesus
also sees you
no matter how unclean
you are.
Despite whatever impurity
you have,
despite all your sins,
all your shame,
whatever failure,
whatever darkness
might be in you,
if you reach out to Jesus,
if you say,
if only I touch his garments,
I will be made well,
then just as with this woman,
Jesus will be unashamed
to be called your healer
and your redeemer.
And he will heal
and forgive you.
And this is what Jesus
also commands you
to do for others.
This woman,
whom we're reading about,
was an outcast.
She was ritualistically
unclean for 12 years.
She suffered much
through life.
And so in her,
Jesus saw not just a woman
who needed a miracle cure
for a physical malady.
He also saw a woman
who was lonely
and who was afraid
and who was ashamed.
And despite all of the bedlam,
all of the pressure,
all the tension
Jesus is facing,
he stops to help her.
He touches her soul.
He comforts her.
He restores her
from her shame
and from her loneliness.
Do you love others
like how Jesus
loved this woman?
Do you love others
how Jesus has loved you?
Are you full of compassion
and mercy
when you're tired
and overworked?
Are you patient
when wronged?
Are you gentle
when others are harsh?
Or instead,
do you pay back
evil for evil
and anger for anger,
slight for slight
and shame for shame?
Do you get swept up
in the crowd?
Are you carried away
by worldly concerns
about how unclean
you might look
to others?
Or do you cling
to the rock of Christ?
Jesus here
is showing us
not only how
he reaches out
to us,
but also how
we must reach out
to others.
If we return
to our gospel passage
in verse 35,
we see that
while Jesus
is comforting
this woman,
something terrible
happens.
While he was still
speaking,
there came from
the ruler's house
some who said,
your daughter
is dead.
Why trouble
the teacher
any further?
Jairus,
the synagogue ruler,
has just heard
the most terrible
news a parent
could ever hear.
The crowd
is pushing in
on Jesus.
This little girl's
life is hanging
heavy over everyone.
Jesus is juggling
several conversations.
His disciples
are squabbling
with him.
He's comforting
a desperate woman
and now this
terrible news
from messengers
who from the
sound of it
doubt that
Jesus can
raise the dead.
Why trouble
the teacher
anymore,
they say.
What does
Jesus do?
Remember that
some of the
disciples had
just been
criticizing Jesus
for stopping
and trying to
figure out
who touched
him.
And they just
saw that an
unclean woman
made Jesus
unclean also
and now they
hear the news
that they didn't
get to this
little girl in
time.
By many worldly
standards,
Jesus' decisions
are not looking
all that smart
right now.
And this is
precisely
where many
of us
would snap.
Where we would
throw our hands
in the air,
we would give up,
we would be
exasperated,
we would chew
out the crowd,
we would yell
at our children
or our family
or our workers
or our subordinates
for not trusting
us and for
questioning our
decisions.
But not Jesus.
In verse 36,
but overhearing
what they said,
Jesus said to
the ruler of
the synagogue,
let's wait for a
moment and let
that siren pass.
But overhearing
what they said,
Jesus said to
the ruler of
the synagogue,
do not fear,
only believe.
Jesus pivots
right from
comforting a
desperate woman
to comforting
a desperate,
shattered man.
Jesus knows
that Jairus is
overwhelmed with
grief and despair
at hearing that
his little daughter
has died.
And so Jesus'
number one
concern is not
his reputation,
is not what
people think of
him.
His concern is
for Jairus.
And so he says
to him,
do not be
afraid.
In all this
chaos,
Jesus is still
concerned about
the synagogue
official.
He knows what
the man is
going through.
And just like
he cared for
that woman
with a flow
of blood,
he's also
caring for
Jairus.
In the next
few verses,
Mark tells us,
and Jesus
allowed no one
to follow him
except Peter
and James
and John,
the brother
of Jesus.
And they
came to the
house of the
ruler of the
synagogue.
And Jesus
saw a
commotion,
people weeping
and wailing
loudly.
And when he
had entered,
he said to
them,
why are you
making a
commotion and
weeping?
The child is
not dead,
but sleeping.
Jesus and a
few of the
disciples are
inside the
house now.
They find
another crowd.
The crowd is
weeping,
the crowd is
wailing,
but Jesus
says,
why are you
doing this?
The child
isn't dead,
she's asleep.
Now,
why does
Jesus say
this?
What does
he mean by
this?
Why is he
saying that
the girl
is not
dead when
we know
that she's
dead?
My friends,
Jesus here
is pointing
out that
death is
nothing to
the Lord
of life.
For Jesus,
physical death
is as easy
to cure as
waking someone
up from a
nap.
Jesus said
the very same
thing when
his friend
Lazarus had
died.
In the
Gospel of
John,
chapter 11,
verse 11,
our friend
Lazarus,
Jesus said,
has fallen
asleep,
but I go
to awaken
him.
With both
Lazarus and
this little
girl,
Jesus makes
the profound
point that
he is the
author of
life.
I am the
resurrection
and the
life,
he says,
when Lazarus
died.
God,
and like
Jesus does
with many
of his
most profound
teachings,
he doesn't
just come
out and
say this
plainly.
He puts
it in the
form of a
parable or
a puzzle,
and he
doesn't do
this to
trick people
and test
how smart
they are.
He does
this to
test their
humility,
to see if
they're willing
to humbly
listen to
his words
and to
think on
them and
dwell on
them and
contemplate
them,
and then if
they still
do not
understand,
to humbly
come to
Jesus and
seek him
out for
help in
deciphering
them.
This is
why Jesus
spoke in
parables,
because parables
are like
self-sorting
mechanisms.
They reveal
themselves only
to the
humble,
and they
shut out
the proud.
Therefore,
what Jesus
is saying to
the crowd is
that because
he is here,
this little
girl has not
really died,
she hasn't
really been
lost,
because Jesus
is going
to raise
her up,
he's going
to wake
her up,
and so the
crowd should
not weep,
they should
be rejoicing,
the healer
is here,
the author
of life
has arrived.
But how
will the
crowd respond?
In verse
40,
Mark says,
and they
laughed
at him.
This is
the fifth
time on
this day
that Jesus
has been
questioned
or scorned,
first he
was accused
by his
disciples
when their
boat was
sinking,
then he
was rejected
by the
crowd for
delivering a
demonized
man,
then he
was questioned
by the
disciples again
after healing
a woman in
the crowd,
then messengers
doubted that
he could raise
the dead,
and now when
he in fact is
about to raise
the dead,
people are
laughing at
him.
So what
does he do?
Verse 40
continues,
but he
put them
all outside.
We should
be careful
not to
laugh at
Jesus,
or we'll
miss out
on what
Jesus is
going to
do,
because there's
a dead
little girl
in that
other room,
and even
if you've
never heard
this story
before,
you know
what's
coming,
you know
what Jesus
is going
to do
when our
healer sees
that little
girl and
when his
grace and
his power
washes over
her.
Listen to
what happens.
And Jesus
took the
child's father
and mother
and those
who were
with him
and went
in where
the child
was,
and taking
her by
the hand,
he said
to her,
Talitha
kum,
which means
little girl,
I say to
you,
arise,
and immediately
the girl
got up
and began
walking,
for she
was 12
years of
age,
and they
were immediately
overcome
with amazement.
What a
beautiful
description
Mark gives
us here.
Jesus takes
that little
girl by the
hand,
and he
says,
Mark quotes
the original
Aramaic of
Jesus,
Talitha kum,
which means
little one,
arise.
Can you
imagine
being that
little girl,
being in
the dead,
being dead
in the shadow
of death,
when all of a
sudden you
wake up in
the land of
the living
to those
beautiful
words?
Little girl,
I say to
you,
arise.
And then
most wonderful
of all,
you find
yourself looking
into the
eyes of the
savior of
the world,
who is
holding your
hand in
his own.
Just picture
that scene
in your
mind.
But Mark
hides another
little gem
here for
us.
You see,
when our
gentle Jesus
took that
little girl's
hand in
his own,
he sent
us a
message about
what he's
here to do
on earth
and what
we are to
do as
well.
When he
held that
little girl's
hand,
according to
the Old
Testament law,
Jesus made
himself
unclean
once again.
All dead
bodies back
then were
unclean,
according to
Old Testament
law,
and according
to Numbers
1911,
anyone who
touched a
dead body
became unclean
also.
Now,
Jesus could
have just
spoken the
words,
he could
have just
raised her
up with a
mere word
like he did
with so many
other miracles,
but he
didn't do
that here.
His kindness
and his
compassion were
too much to
worry about
being unclean
in the sight
of others
when he
saw that
helpless
little girl
lying there
with her
parents weeping
by her side.
And do you
know what?
Jesus does
this for
each one
of you.
He comes
to you
when you're
unclean.
He comes
to you
when you're
dead in
your sins,
when you're
chained in
the shadow
of death,
and he
takes you
by your
hand,
and he
says,
little one,
I say
to you,
arise.
I remember
when Jesus
did this
to me
19 years
ago when
I was
wandering
in darkness,
and all
of a sudden
Jesus took
me by my
hand and
said,
arise.
And my
friends,
if Jesus
hasn't done
this for
you yet,
if he
hasn't taken
you by
your hand
and raised
you up
from the
shadow
of death,
I want
to tell
you that
he's
standing at
your door
ready to
come in.
he's
waiting
just
outside,
as the
scriptures
say,
as Jesus
himself
said,
I stand
at the
door
and
knock.
Will
you let
him
in?
It
is not
the
healthy
who
need a
doctor,
but the
sick,
Jesus
said,
I did
not
come to
call
the
righteous,
but
sinners
to
repentance.
Jesus
sees
all your
failure,
all your
weakness,
all your
shame,
all your
uncleanness,
all your
sins,
he sees
all these
things,
and he
loves
you
anyway.
Awake,
O sleeper,
says
scripture,
and arise
from the
dead,
and Christ
will shine
on you.
You know,
I think in a
very real
sense,
this is
exactly what
the psalmist
sung about
in that
reading we
heard earlier
from Psalm
73.
When my
soul was
embittered,
when I was
pricked in
heart,
I was
brutish and
ignorant
before you,
I was
like a
beast
towards you,
nevertheless,
I am
continually
with you.
You
hold me
by my
right hand,
you guide
me with
your
counsel,
and afterward
you will
receive me
into glory.
Whom have
I in
heaven but
you,
and there
is nothing
on earth
that I
desire
besides
you.
My
flesh
and my
heart
may fail,
but God
is the
strength
of my
heart
and my
portion
forever.
Hallelujah.
If we
return to
our passage,
we see that
Jesus wasn't
done with
this little
girl yet.
In verse
43,
and he
strictly
charged them
that no
one should
know this
and told
them to
give her
something
to eat.
Notice
that Jesus
is still
concerned
about that
little
girl like
a good
doctor with
his patient.
He doesn't
just cure
her and
walk away.
He wants
to make
sure she's
totally
healthy.
He knows
she's had
a big
day and
he wants
to give
her something
to eat.
Isn't
that so
beautiful of
our Jesus?
And Jesus
does the
same thing
for us at
the beginning
of our new
life in
Christ.
He cares
about how
we grow
and flourish
in Christ.
Christ,
and this
is just
what he
does with
you when
he raises
you up
from the
dead.
He doesn't
just walk
away,
but he
stays by
your side
and he
nourishes
and feeds
your spirit.
Now,
we're still
not done
with this
little girl
yet.
This may
not be
all we
know
about her
and her
life.
The Bible
doesn't have
any more
information
about her,
but 95
years or so
after this
miracle occurred,
in 125
AD,
a Christian
named
Quadratus
wrote something
very interesting
about the
miracles of
Jesus and
perhaps also
about this
little girl.
And I want
you to hear
what he had
to say.
Quadratus
said this,
but the
works of our
Savior were
always present
for they were
genuine.
Those that
were healed
and those
that were
raised from
the dead
were seen
not only
when they
were healed
and when
they were
raised,
but were
also always
present,
not merely
while the
Savior was
on earth,
but also
after his
death,
they were
alive for
quite a
while so
that some
of them
lived even
to our
day.
Quadratus
wrote that
in 125
AD and he
says that
there were
some whom
Jesus raised
from the
dead who
lived long
enough so
that he
could remember
them in
125 AD.
Now if we
do some
basic math
and we
think
Quadratus
was 40
years old
or more
when he
wrote those
words,
it means
that at
least some
people whom
Jesus raised
from the
dead lived
a long
time
afterwards,
60 or
70 years,
and that
means these
folks were
probably
children when
Jesus raised
from the
dead for
them to
live so
many years
afterwards so
that Quadratus
could remember
them and
if we go
through all
the miracle
accounts in
the Gospels,
we find
only one
child whom
Jesus raised
from the
dead,
this little
girl.
And while
we can't be
sure, we
know that
Jesus did
many miracles
that are not
recorded,
it certainly
seems probable
that this
little girl
lived a long
life and
she spent
it as a
witness,
telling everybody
about that
day when
she died,
and how
tired Jesus
was,
and how
he was
rejected,
and questioned,
and laughed
at, but how
much he loved
her despite
it all.
And I don't
think she
would have
thought of
that day as
a bad day
for Jesus.
I think she
probably would
have thought
of it as
one of his
best.
Oh,
church,
let us
love like
Jesus loves.
Be unafraid of
those who
are unclean.
Don't give
up on those
everyone else
has written
off for dead.
Don't worry
when people
criticize you
or question
you for
following Jesus.
Don't be like
the crowd and
laugh at
Jesus when
he says he's
going to wake
someone up.
Instead,
follow the
path of our
Lord Jesus.
Make the
unclean pure.
Restore
those who are
ashamed.
Forgive those
who have
sinned.
Be compassionate.
Be merciful.
Comfort the
brokenhearted.
And when you
stumble,
cling to
Jesus and
he will do
the same for
you.
Let's pray
together.
Oh,
Father in
heaven,
we thank you
that you
sent your
Lord Jesus
to walk on
this earth
so many
years ago.
We thank
you for
his miracles,
but we
thank you for
his compassion
and his mercy
on the weak
and the
downtrodden.
And we
thank you for
his mercy
on us.
And Father,
I pray that
if there's
any here
who are
afflicted,
who are
suffering,
who are
doubting,
who are
scared,
that they
would feel
your comfort,
they would
feel you,
take you,
take them
by your
hand.
Father,
we thank
you for
your mercy,
for the
life and
death and
resurrection of
your son,
Jesus,
and it's in
his mighty
name that
we pray.
Amen.