Saint James UCC of Hamburg, NY

John 8:1-11, Matthew 9:18-26

Preached by Rev. Robert Matlack
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There's a wonderful story in our text from the gospel of Matthew. Jesus has been asked by a Jewish official to come and heal his daughter who has just died. This request is one of desperation, one of faith - come and do what no one else can do. So Jesus gets up and goes with him. On the way there, something else happens, a woman who has been suffering from bleeding for twelve years comes up behind Jesus and touches His cloak, feeling that if only she can do that she will finally be healed.

The first impression we get from this passage is one of wonder. What faith these people have! What an impression Jesus has made that they come to Him expecting what would be impossible for anyone else.

You know the rest of the story - the woman is healed when she touches Jesus' cloak, and in fact Jesus says to her, "Your faith has made you well". The daughter is brought back to life. Two miracles have happened, and the news spreads quickly through the land.

What a dilemma it must have been for Jesus. He had this gift, this power to heal and even to raise the dead. People would come from all over, begging Him to use His power to help them. Yet, His job was far more important. More important? What could be more important? We ask. We know what it is like to face pain and suffering, to see a loved one die. If Jesus could alleviate the suffering of others, what could be more important?

But something is! We tend to focus on the physical pain, particularly when it's our pain. We feel the hurt, the sense of loss, the tragedy, but Jesus' mission was to go deeper, reaching into our very spirits. Oh yes, He could have spent all of His time healing the sick and raising the dead. I have no doubt that there was more of that to do than He could have accomplished even given 48 hour days or 14 day weeks. The result would have been many grateful people, but their allegiance to Christ would only be as strong as His next miracle. As soon as He quit healing, they would look to someone else.

God had given Jesus a far more important task! For reasons that none of us fully understand, pain, suffering and tragedy are a part of life. They are real as we are reminded time after time after time - in the plane crash in Spain, in the fighting in Georgia, in the deaths in hurricane Faye, in the illness of a friend or loved one...

Things like that happen. They are tragic and sometimes there is nothing that any of us can do to prevent them from happening.

Jesus didn't come to make our lives easy and to take away all the pain and tragedy that exists, rather, He came to give us the gift of faith. To let us really know that God loves us and is with us, for He knew that with these gifts we can face pain and suffering, and even tragedy.

When the woman touched Jesus' cloak He said, "Your faith has made you well." That was the greatest gift that she had received - the gift of faith. Oh yes, she was certainly excited that she was no longer bleeding, that that burden had been lifted from her. But the greater healing was the one that took place inside, the healing of her spirit, as she truly acknowledged Jesus as her Savior, and turned to God as the source of salvation. With that gift of faith she could face anything that lay ahead.

It's probably amazing that Jesus healed as many people as He did. Certainly there were no lack of requests. But Jesus had other more important work to do, and He knew the danger of becoming a spectacle, a person who people only followed because He did spectacular things that no one else could do.

I think that Jesus healed as many people as He did, because of the love and compassion which just flowed out of Him. He felt the pain of others, and He responded to them with love.

It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking, well if Jesus could bring back the daughter of the Jewish official, why won't He bring back my husband or mother or child or friend who has died? It's a natural question. When something happens once, anywhere, and it's what we want, we wonder why we can't have it.

Jesus came so that we can, but as with many of God's gifts it comes in a different form than what we're looking for. We like the idea of Jesus putting his hands on the daughter of the Jewish official, bringing her suddenly back to life, and that's how we insist that it should happen for us.

Instead, Jesus died on a cross, and then rose from the dead. In that amazing miraculous event we are promised that death has been overcome. The beast that people have always feared will not conquer us. Oh yes, our bodies will die, but that which is more important about us will live on, finding new life in Christ. Jesus's compassion was so great that He has freed all of us from our bondage to sin and death, freed us to believe, freed us to know God's love today and everyday, freed us to live faithfully and fully as God wants us to live. What could be a greater demonstration of compassion than this. In love, through Jesus Christ God has given us what we need to face the difficulties in life.

One of my favorite stories of compassion is the one that I read earlier from the gospel of John. A woman has been caught in adultery. Now Jewish law clearly said that the punishment for adultery was death. Today we look at that law and react to it's cruelty or it's unfairness. We know that it takes two to commit adultery, but only the woman was to be punished. We have a variety of negative reactions to that law, and we should. But we also know that two thousand years ago most of the people accepted that law as good and valid. It was the law. It was their law, and the law was very clear about this kind of situation.

The Pharisees were legally correct in their insistence that the law said that she should be stoned to death. When they confronted Jesus and asked Him what He thought should be done, it was a well constructed trap. Would He opposed the law? Or Would He throw aside His compassion? There seemed to be no other options, but Jesus found one. He said to them, "Whichever one of you has committed no sin may throw the first stone at her", and one at a time they slowly walked away.

Jesus reminds us that none of us are perfect. We have all sinned. We are all sinners, and when we start pointing fingers to show the world how bad someone is, the first finger we should point is at ourselves, for we are far from perfect.

It's then that a moment of grace happens. When the woman responds to Jesus saying that there is no one left to condemn her, Jesus says, "Well, then, I do not condemn you either. Go, but do not sin again". We are sinners, but Jesus did not come to condemn us, rather He came to walk with us and to show us a better way.

Compassion. Jesus has compassion for us not only in the gift of eternal life, but in the acceptance and the forgiveness that are offered to us so freely - today and each day as we struggle with the problems and burdens of life. In Jesus Christ God has said to each of us, I love you. I forgive you. Go, but do not sin again. .

Amen.