The Power and Pity of Jesus, Part 2 B

Yes, He is the miracle worker. Yes, He is the greatest teacher ever. Yes, He is the Holy One. He is the Son of God. But to fully grasp His mission, you must understand His death. For it is there that He is revealed as Redeemer and Savior and substitute for sinners. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Ask ten people what love is, and you'll probably get ten different answers. The question is, what does the Bible say about love?

How do you know if you are really loving others? Well, you can go to the Bible's famous chapter on love, 1 Corinthians 13. You can also go to the Gospels and see how Jesus demonstrated love, which is what John MacArthur is going to do in his lesson today. Stay here with Grace to You as we turn to the Gospel of Mark for a practical look at how you can show the love of Christ to your spouse, your children, your unsaved neighbor, and that difficult co-worker. It's all part of John's current study titled Jesus Over All.

And with the lesson now, here is John MacArthur. The commotion was stimulated by Matthew 9 23 saying there were flute players and Matthew says the crowd was in noisy disorder. Now I need to tell you, folks, this is a different kind of funeral than you've been to. I've never been to a noisy, chaotic, loud funeral. In fact, typically when you go to a funeral, if you go to a funeral home, there's a sign outside the door that says, please be quiet...quiet please.

People talk in whispers and hush and everybody moves slowly, not wanting to cause any kind of disturbance and the organ plays soft kind of mellow music. We do funerals that way. We approach funerals in that kind of somber way in the western world. That was not how they did it in the eastern world. And it isn't even that way today.

Let me tell you what would be going on there. We can put this together from history. Jewish funerals had three elements that would be a little bit unique for us. One, you came and you expressed your grief loudly, you shriek and howl and everybody does that. And it is required that you tear your clothes.

Okay? So when you go to a funeral in our environment, we find good clothes. When you went to a funeral then, you knew you were going to have to rip it up, you found something you didn't mind ripping up. This became so involved that Jewish tradition came up with 39 regulations on how to tear your clothes.

So I suppose you had people talking to each other about the regulations to make sure they didn't leave anything out. Nothing was to be done, for example, while you were standing up. If you were related to the dead person, you had to tear your garment directly over the heart. If you weren't related to the person, you could tear your garment somewhere else near the heart. And by the way, the tear was to be there and the garment was to be worn over a 30-day period so that you continue to show your attitude of mourning. You could sew it up for obvious reasons, but originally it had to be torn big enough to put your fist through. Modest people would tear their undergarments or wear the torn garment backwards.

The tradition developed that you could sew it up loosely, but it had to be evident that it had been torn. So you have people there who are shrieking and howling and wailing and weeping and ripping their clothes. Now the second element of a funeral was you brought in the professional wailers who had developed the art of howling and shrieking. They wailed sort of priming the pump, you might say, to get everybody else wailing.

Agony was magnified, not shrouded in silence. And then the third thing they had was the playing of flutes. That was the most common instrument and lots of folks could play flutes and they all showed up with their flutes and played dissonant notes, a cacophony of things that didn't go together. So if you ever walked into an event like that, you wouldn't even believe it was a funeral.

You would think it was a contemporary musical event. The very poorest of the Israelites had to have at least two flutes and one wailing woman. In fact, this was part of the ancient world, Seneca, the Roman statesman, reported there was so much screaming and wailing at the death of Emperor Claudius that he felt Claudius probably heard it from the grave.

And that's what was going on, just chaos. And Jesus in this majestic tranquility comes in, verse 39, entering in, He said to them, why make a commotion and weep? Why make a commotion and weep?

The child has not died but is asleep. According to Luke, He said, stop weeping. Why are you weeping and making this commotion?

It's pointless. Matthew adds, He said, get out...get out. Strong language. Peter did the same thing. You remember in the book of Acts when he came to the house of Dorcas who had died, also called Tabitha, and he threw everybody out and then by the power of Christ raised her from the dead? This is no place for screaming, howling, wailing. Stop it.

This is Jesus in this magnificent majestic authority. He says, get out. Literally the Greek word, back out...back out. This funeral is over. Well those words would shock the crowd. Can you imagine?

They would offend the mourners who were doing what their tradition dictated. And then the Lord explains why He said stop and get out. The child has not died but is asleep.

In that moment, Jesus redefined death as a temporary condition. That's why He uses the metaphor or the analogy of sleep. Sleep is a temporary disconnect, isn't it? You're insensitive to the environment around you when you're asleep. You don't hear the conversations.

You don't participate socially. You're asleep. But it's a temporary situation. And Jesus is saying, for this girl, this is just a sleep. It's temporary.

This is not permanent. Well unless any of them had seen another resurrection that Jesus had done, they would have never in their life heard of anybody being raised from the dead. And they would never then have referred to death as sleep, sleep being something temporary. This concept of death as sleep is picked up by the Apostles, isn't it, in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul loves to refer to believers dying as being asleep, like he refers in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 to all those who sleep in Jesus will be caught up in the Rapture.

God will raise us. We who know the Lord Jesus Christ, when we die, the body sleeps. The soul immediately in the presence of the Lord, absent from the body, present with the Lord. Far better to depart and be with Christ.

That's the...that's the soul. But the body sleeps until the glorious resurrection at the return of Christ. And so you can refer to the death of a Christian as a release of the soul into the presence of the Lord, but the body sleeps until the day of resurrection. And so death in a sense for the Christian becomes described as sleep because it's temporary...temporary...temporary state. Well the reaction of all these mourners and pretty predictable, I suppose, in one sense tells us that Jairus may have been a rather isolated believer in the Lord Jesus Christ because they don't have any respect for Jesus at all.

Verse 40, they began laughing at Him...laughing at Him. And Luke had, knowing that she had died, it would be obvious. I mean, a few hours have passed, this child is blue. This child is dead. They've been there. What in the world are you saying?

The child has not died but is asleep? Jesus didn't respond positively to that kind of derision. It says, but putting them all out. He had already told them, according to Matthew, to get out but they had not left, rather they stayed and mocked Him and so He began putting them out. This would be reminiscent of His cleansing the temple, wouldn't it?

I don't know how He did it, but He ran them out and He emptied the place. Their laughter was a gloating over a stupid remark showing ignorance. It is the laughter of one who feels superior. It's mocking laughter.

And by the way, if you can go from weeping and wailing and mourning in a split second to laughing, you're not really grieving. But the act is over in Luke. If you were to read Luke's words about this in the King James, the original authorized version, it's really richly translated, it's the verb katagilao and it translates they laughed Him to scorn. It was that kind of laughter, the laughter of ridicule, the scornful laughter of supposed superiority.

What kind of a fool is this who thinks this child is merely asleep? The world still mocks and scoffs at the reality of Christ's power over death, but that doesn't limit Him in any way. Accessible, available, interruptible, imperturbable, perfectly calm. Finally, what can I say, kind, loving, maybe charitable if you want a BL word, BLE word like we've had. The last point here is just His tenderness, His love, His kindness.

He came and displayed power, the resurrection could have simply been a power display, say a word and it's done. But there's so much tenderness displayed in this that we see His loving heart. Back to verse 40, after clearing the house, He took along the child's father and mother. You can just see Him getting them in their grief and in the silence after the chaos.

He takes them literally, the implication here is that He collected them somehow, maybe put His arms around them, maybe He took them by hand. And He brought along His own companions, Peter, James and John and He entered the room where the child was...entered the place where the child was, which tells us this was probably a prosperous man with a large house with many rooms. So He comes into the room and again you see this tenderness, taking the child by the hand.

Here again, this very personal touch, this very tender sensitivity. And He said to her, and by the way, only Mark gives us the original Aramaic. Jesus' daily language was Aramaic, that was the language they spoke in Israel, the New Testament being written in Greek. The other writers give us the Greek translation, little girl arise. Mark gives us the very words of Jesus in Aramaic, talitha kum, which translated means, little girl, I say to you, get up.

Talitha means a youth or a lamb. It's as if He said little lamb. We use those kind of endearing terms, don't we? We say to a little baby, you little lamb, you, when we dote over them, don't we? We don't say that after they're about three or so.

We use other animals to describe them. But when their little lamb works really well...really well. Now this one was still a lamb in the eyes of Jesus and she was twelve...she was twelve and she was a lamb to that family. That was a term of endearment, kum, get up. Little lamb, I say to you, get up.

Did you get the picture? Jesus is talking to a dead girl. And Luke says, immediately her spirit returned. She was alive, breath, inner person, life, soul, spirit came back. I love this. Immediately the girl got up and began to walk, no therapy.

Wonderful. I mean, how do you go from being dead to getting up and walk? And it's not just walk, it's peripateo, we say somebody is peripatetic, we mean they never sit down, they just walk around all the time.

And that's exactly what it is, it's the verb pateo, to walk and peripateo, walk around everywhere. She just got up and walked around everywhere. There was no need for rehabilitation.

This was creative. She not only had life, she had all the normal strength of a twelve-year-old, young lady, no rehab from a terminal illness, no recovery. But that's the way it is in every single miracle Jesus ever did. There is no place in the Bible where therapists came in, or rehabilitation came in to help a person who had just been healed get back their strength.

Doesn't happen. Every miracle is a complete miracle. I have a new appreciation for that, having had sixty therapy sessions just for my knee. She's old enough to walk, that's the point of telling you she was twelve. She's alive, she's healthy, she can walk around with full strength. You know, the Lord could have healed her from afar. He didn't have to go to the house, did He? He could have healed her from afar.

He could have said, I don't have time to go to your house, I've got a lot of things going here, but I'll call down the power of God. But then something would be missing here. What would it be? It would be the tender personal touch, wouldn't it? It would be the tender personal compassion, sympathy. I call it...let's call that last point charitable.

That's a word that just embraces kindness, sympathy, compassion, love and everything. And He's so sensitive, the end of verse 43, He said something should be given her to eat. Well that's real sensitive cause once she came to life, can you imagine how Jairus and Mrs. Jairus were responding? And all the other little Jairuses that were running around there? I mean, there was some kind of reunion going on, wouldn't you think? And they were trying to process just exactly what was going on and it was a great celebration and it was great joy and it was an exhilarating thrill and love flowing between all of them. And hey, nobody even thought of giving her something to eat.

There's something so normal about that, isn't there? I mean, it was a miracle, but still she is a human being in a physical body and she needs food. She hadn't eaten probably in a long time if she had a terminal illness. The tender sensitivity of that, Jesus attending to her simplest need for food, for nourishment.

Well again, His tenderness evident. The response, look at the end of verse 42, immediately they were completely astounded. By the way, immediately appears a lot of times in the miracles of Jesus, just to solidify the point that I've been giving to you when He healed somebody, it was immediate and it was complete and it was permanent. And immediately there was complete astonishment on the part of the parents and everybody else who was in the room, including the three Apostles, Peter, James and John. The verb existemi literally means to stand outside oneself or to be beside oneself with bewilderment.

In other words, you have no logical explanation for what you have just seen. And then lastly, still in the category of His great love, He gave them strict orders, verse 43, not to tell anybody about this. Not to tell anybody about this?

Now we're getting used to this, are we not? Chapter 1 verse 25, 34, 44, chapter 3 verse 12, here, chapter 7 verse 36, verse 26 and 30 of chapter 8, verse 9 of chapter 9. Why does He always say this? Why does He tell them not to spread this around? Certainly Jairus' faith has been confirmed, wouldn't you think? Vindicated. And, folks, you've got to understand, too, there was conversation going on in that house with Jairus and Jesus and the family.

We just don't have the record of it. But Jairus had his faith confirmed. I think we'll meet Jairus in heaven, very likely that little girl, too. The strength of the faith of Peter, James and John was certainly increased, wouldn't you think? And so if it strengthened their faith, why not spread it around?

Our Lord gives this explicit statement, do not do that. But He doesn't tell us why. In fact, as many times as it's recorded that He said that in the gospels, we're never told why He said that...never.

But let me make some suggestions to you. Number one, He could have said it to avoid a stampede on the house, to give the family time to feed the girl and to celebrate and rejoice and give Him more time to instruct and teach. It is also possible that Jesus said this because He knew the crowds had these messianic expectations, right? The Jews were looking for a Messiah, they wanted the Messiah who would come demonstrate massive divine power and use that power to overthrow Rome and use that power to provide everything they needed and everything that had been promised to them in the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants. Jesus was believed to be that Messiah and if it ran rampant and it got carried away, the crowds could get very aggressive and try to force Him into a role that was never His intended role. Or thirdly, was it perhaps that He was motivated not to escalate the fear and the hatred of the scribes and Pharisees who were His enemies? If the crowd got excited, then Jesus becomes a bigger threat, then they escalate their animosity and they have to do something to stop that threat and in premature action against Him, they might come after Him to kill Him. He wasn't going to be killed on their time table, but on God's time table at God's time in God's place and in God's manner.

And those, I think, are valid ways to understand that, but I think there's one that is the capstone of all and it is this. It wasn't time for the evangel. It wasn't time to spread the message of Jesus Christ. It was time to listen to Him. But it wasn't time to turn yet and go with the message. What do I mean by that? Until the cross, which is only a few months away, until the cross, the full understanding of His mission cannot be known.

It can't be known. People can be saved by repenting and believing in Him like an Old Testament saint, but the message that is to be proclaimed is a message that has at the very heart of it the cross...the cross. Yes, He is the miracle worker, but far more than that. Yes, He is the greatest teacher ever.

Yes, but far more than that. He is the Holy One. He is the Son of God.

But to fully grasp His mission, you must understand His death. For it is there that He is revealed as Redeemer and Savior and substitute for sinners. There you really see the Son of God.

That's why the first time any person says this is the Son of God is at the cross, the centurion looking at Christ crucified, hearing the echo of His message, understanding the truth, he says this truly is the Son of God. The full story must include the cross. After the cross, the resurrection. After the resurrection, Jesus then says this, go into...where?...all the world and preach the gospel.

The story is not yet complete. He can be seen as conqueror of demons, conqueror of disease, conqueror of death, but He can't be fully understood until you see Him as the conqueror of sin on the cross as our substitute and our Redeemer. His death on the cross then ratified by His glorious resurrection. That enables Him not only to give temporary life to a dead girl, but to give eternal life to a spiritually dead soul. Crosses everything and that is why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2, 2, I'm determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. We preach Christ crucified. Friend, to fully grasp Christ's mission on earth and to know Christ personally, you've got to understand Jesus' work on the cross. That was a key point today from John MacArthur, counselor of the Master's University and Seminary, in his study here on Grace To You titled Jesus Over All. Well, John, over the years, you've preached hundreds of messages on the person of Christ, and I've heard you say that the more you preach on Christ, the more you want to keep digging and keep preaching. So talk about that a bit.

Well, it's like anything. You hear something the first time and it reaches a certain depth in your mind. But if you go back and listen again and again and again and again, it just becomes deeper and deeper in saturating your heart and your thoughts.

And which leads me to say what is obvious, the study has ended, but the study is going to be available to anyone who wants it. The title is Jesus Over All. And we've spent two weeks looking at Jesus, the majesty of Christ demonstrated in His authority over creation, sickness, demonic forces, and even death. And we saw the sympathetic Jesus, how He was moved to action by the needs of others. And more than just interesting stories, these accounts from the book of Mark add color, texture, perspective, and scale to the incomparable majesty of Christ. For your continuing study, you can download every lesson from Jesus Over All from our website free of charge.

You can download audio, video, and transcripts. And remember the book we've been talking about titled One Perfect Life. It's a fresh approach.

You've never seen anything like it. It's a fresh approach to learning what the Bible reveals about the Lord Jesus Christ, a cohesive chronological narrative of everything the Scripture says about Him. So download the series titled Jesus Over All and get a copy of the book One Perfect Life when you contact us today.

That's right, friend. One Perfect Life is great for personal study or to read as part of family devotions or do it in a group Bible study. Pick it up along with John's audio study called Jesus Over All when you visit our website today.

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That's our website. You can also download more than 3,600 other sermons by John, all for free, again, gty.org. And thanks for remembering the exponential impact you have when you support Grace To You through your prayers. Every day we are encouraging pastors around the world, and when you reach a pastor, you reach a church, and when you reach a church, you reach a community, and the truth of the gospel continues to spread. So thank you for praying for John and the Grace To You staff. We need your prayers, and thanks for telling others about this daily broadcast. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Watch Grace To You television this Sunday, DIRECTV Channel 378, and be here Monday as John takes you through the famous 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews, launching an encouraging study called The Power of Faith. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace To You.