Sermon for the Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Trinity
“For the maid is not dead, but sleepeth.”
There is no greater contrast than between the atrocities committed by radical Islamic terrorists, it seems, in Paris this weekend and the readings before us this morning; a contrast between death and destruction, on the one hand, and healing and wholeness, on the other hand. Troubling times that confront us with such contrasts.
Jesus spoke and arose. Jesus turned and saw her and said, “Daughter, be of good comfort, thy faith hath made thee whole.” Jesus came and said, “Give place; for the maid is not dead but sleepeth.” Jesus “went in and took her by the hand, and the maid arose.” A double healing.
The year runs out in the strength and the gentleness of healing in contrast to death and destruction. The year runs out with Jesus turning and taking us by the hand. Such is the truth and the power of the Word spoken and felt. At issue is whether we are dead or only asleep. The whole pattern of the Church year in the ordered readings of the Scripture is really about two things: God turning to us and our being turned to God. This simple yet powerful Gospel story captures the whole point of the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation. In a way, it is simply about the purpose and meaning of God’s turning to us in the intimate humanity of Jesus Christ.
In relation to that turning of God to us in Jesus Christ the question is whether we are affected and changed, whether there has been any turning from sin to grace, from death to life, in us; in short, whether we are dead or merely asleep. If the latter, then there is the hope of our being awakened; if the former, then there is the hope of being raised up, so that, in either case, we “might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding” and that we “might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God,” as Paul exhorts us in his Letter to the Colossians. Powerful words, perhaps, even stirring words; words that can turn us about and change us. That is the whole point.
