“Does the World Need a Savior?”

Mark 5:21-43

July 2, 2006

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John A. Fleming

I want to try out a story on you this morning. Maybe you have heard it before. It may sound familiar to you. An almighty Father sends his son to the earth. He puts him here for a specific purpose. “They can be a great people” the father says to his son. “They only lack the light to show them the way. “They have a capacity for good” says the father, “And for this reason, above all of the other reasons, I have sent them to you, my only son.”

While he is on the earth, the son speaks about truth and justice and making things right. The son displays amazing abilities. He is able to do things that no one else can do. He also has incredible insights into the ways of the world and the ways of the people. But sometimes he feels that his influence and perhaps his power is being drained out of him. Then there is a dramatic battle with the forces of evil. Because of it, the son is killed. But not to fear. The son is also resurrected and he ascends into heaven. He is reunited with his father. And the plan is for him to return to the earth again in what you might call a second coming. Do you know the story? Of course you do! It is the story of Jesus. We have just heard it again during the past few weeks. It is the story of Jesus, but it is also the story of Superman.

Have you seen the movie yet? It opened Wednesday in theaters all over the country. I have seen it. I went yesterday afternoon. There is a scene in the movie where Lois Lane is bitter. She is upset that Superman left for these five years. In her bitterness she says, “The world doesn’t need a savior, and neither do I.”

Really, Lois Lane? I think that we do need a savior. So the man of steel is back. That is how the headline of The Daily Planet reads. That news, in and of itself, is enough to send people to the multiplexes this summer.

I wonder if you would admit it. Are any of you like me? When you were kids, did any of you watch Superman and then find one of your mom’s old towels and wrap it around you with a clothespin and then go and find a small hill to fly off of?

We a people who are crazy about super heroes. Comedian Jerry Seinfeld once said, “Spiderman. Batman. Superman. Men don’t see these as fantasies. They see them as career opportunities!”

There has been a natural connection between Superman and Jesus, believe it or not. Jesus did not have super breath or x-ray vision, or even super strength, but he does have the power to save us. Jesus comes on the scene in Mark’s gospel as a man of action. He cures the sick. He casts out the demons. He cleanses the lepers. He heals the paralytics and he does all of this before he is finished calling the disciples, all before the middle of chapter two! Then he stills a storm and heals someone with demons, and sends the demons into a herd of pigs who jump into a sea. That would have looked good on a wide screen complete with surround sound! Jesus is all about saving people from illnesses, from evil, from destruction, even from death. So maybe Lois is wrong, maybe the world does need a savior.

Just ask Jairus, the leader of the synagogue in Capernaum, and he will tell you that he needs a savior. His twelve year old daughter is sick. She’s sick, very sick, apparently about to die. My guess is that her pictures are in frames on the desk in his office. My guess is that she is close to his heart. Mark makes sure that we know that Jairus is the leader of the synagogue. In the story, he mentions that fact three times. Why would he do that? I think that he wants us to know that this guy was not a member of Jesus’ fan club. Mark never says it outright, but its reasonable to assume that he hadn’t been open to the teachings of Jesus. That all changed when someone said to him, “I might be out of line in saying this, but I just heard that Jesus is on his way back from the other side of the sea.” The sentence didn’t have to be finished. Jairus’ hope shoves skepticism and hostility out of the way. His hope pushes through the great crowd and flings itself at Jesus’ feet. He begs the one who can save, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live.”

Before the two can make it to the leader’s house another person needing saving comes to find Jesus. She has had an illness for as long as the leader’s daughter has been alive. She has tried everything. There have been twelve years of doctor’s appointments. There have been twelve years of bills. She has spent all that she had on the hope of a cure. Mark tells us that the woman had heard about Jesus and that was enough for her hope. Now shabby and exhausted, she says the well known words, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” She dreams of putting a single finer in the fold of his robe. She touches him and immediately knows that she has been healed. She can feel it. The pain, the suffering, the humiliation, the isolation, the ritual impurity that has claimed her for these long twelve years is suddenly over. She has been saved!

Then the plot thickens. Jesus wants to know who touched him. Like superman in the vicinity of a piece of kryptonite, Jesus knows something has happened to some of his power. The crowd is pressing in. There are people everywhere. And Jesus wants to know who touched him.

He is looking for someone particular. He is looking for a unique individual who has come for one reason or another, to be saved. Full of fear and trembling, she tells Jesus the truth. And instead of being in trouble, Jesus commends her faith. He says, “Daughter, your faith has made you well.” Literally, your faith has saved you. He stuns the woman. He stuns all of us when he says that it wasn’t his clothes, that it wasn’t her touch, but it was her faith that made the difference. She is saved by her conviction, her belief that there is something special about Jesus.

Then the scene shifts. It is a dramatic turn, common in movies. While Jesus is still speaking, some people come from Jairus’ house and tell him that his daughter is dead. Jesus overhears the news. He says to the synagogue leader, “Do not fear, only believe.” There is something inside him, deep inside of him that wants to believe. That something helps him to walk the rest of the way with Jesus to his house. They arrive there. The casseroles are beginning to arrive. Friends of the family are gathering. In that culture, there were professional mourners and they had arrived.

Jesus cut through all that. He enters the house with the Jairus, the mother of the girl, and three of his disciples. There is no long prayer. There is no drama involved. Jesus simply reaches out his hand to the girl. He says to her, “Little girl, get up.” And she does. She is saved, not by a super man, but by the Son of Man. She is saved by the one who carries the power and the presence of God into the very middle of our lives.

Lois Lane wasn’t thinking right. The world does need a savior. We do, we really do. Our Bibles tell us that Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. They also tell us that Jesus came to give us an abundant life.

I want you to see this. Sparks are supposed to fly from one of these stories to the other. Both of them are about fear and faith and the power of Jesus to take people from one to the other. Jesus wants to take us from darkness and illness and immorality and sin and death to life. He comes, as John the gospel writer tells us, because He loved us so. All we have to do is to believe in Him, to rely on Him, to trust Him to be our savior. The good question this morning is how you go about doing that.

You do it when you give up vacation days for mission trips. You do it when you give to the church because you believe in what the church is doing. You do it when you write the check or put the money in the offering plate, believing that God will take care of your financial needs. You do it when you face an uncertain future with confidence believing that God is always working for the good in our lives. You do it when you make an effort to be loving and forgiving because that is the kind of life God has called us to. You give Jesus all of your hopes and your dreams, sure, but you also give him all of your hurts. You say to yourself, “If I can only touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Twelve years is enough. Twelve days is enough. Twelve hours is enough!

The problem with faith is that it doesn’t always or even often have a lot of drama associated with it. A life of faith has even less. No one will say, “Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s Jesus?” Faith isn’t the new movie out there with jaw dropping effects. Faith is seen in the silence touch of the woman with hope in her heart. Faith is seen in the quiet hope of the father who walked into a room expecting death, but instead found his little girl eating again.

Do not fear, says Jesus. Only believe. If you believe, you will be saved.

(Special thanks to the writers of Homiletics magazine for the idea about combining Superman and the Son of Man. The idea was sent to me by way of electronic mail this week. If you haven’t seen the movie and if you are a fan of Superman, you should see it. There are many religious connections).