Be with Him and Be-live in Him
Once, a pastor was standing at the door shaking hands with
the people as they leave church after service. As Joe tries to pass by, the
pastor grabs him by the hand and pulls him aside. “Joe,” says the pastor, “you
need to join the Army of the Lord.” Joe replies, “I’m already in the Army of
the Lord, Pastor.” “How come I don’t see you in church except at Christmas and
weddings?” the pastor asks. And Joe whispers back, “I’m in the secret service.”
Like Joe, we may have faith in Jesus, but it is very important how do we
express, live and deepen our faith. The late archbishop Fulton J. Sheen once
said, as Christians we are God’s chosen people but from the way we live out our
faith one would think that we are God’s frozen people. How do we experience, deepen
and express our Christian faith?
In these Sundays we have been reflecting on the theme faith.
Faith is basically a complete trust or confidence in someone or something. In
the spiritual realm it is a complete trust and confidence in God. When it is
mingled with deep rooted humility and thirst for Jesus in every second of our
lives, we witness the miracles as we see in the story of Jairus and the women
with hemorrhage (Mk 5: 21-43).
In the incident of Jairus and women with hemorrhage, there
were lots of people who came into contact with Jesus. First of all there was a
large crowd who were moving with Jesus. They were in contact with Jesus but did
not receive any special blessings from Him. It may be because they were ‘mere
spectators’ and had no intention of experiencing Jesus. Sometimes we are like
this crowd, coming to the church just to see what is happening or just to
fulfill our obligation. In that case we may miss a deeper experience of Jesus
as our savior.
The second group of people that we come across in the story
of Jairus and the women with hemorrhage are those came from the house of Jairus
to tell the sad news, ‘the daughter is dead, why to trouble Jesus any further?’
(Mk 5:35). They looked at things as impossible and hopeless. They perceived
Jesus with limitations. We may belong to this group of people if we have the
mentality of hopelessness and disappointment in our lives.
The third group that we see in that incident is the weeping
and wailing people in the house of Jairus. They ridiculed Jesus when he entered
the house (Mk 5:40). They may be called ‘realists’ who believed only in what they
could perceive in their mind and intellect. When we do not expect any divine intervention
or miracles in our life we become part of those realists. We may reject what is
irrational to our mind. But the real faith is expecting the unexpected. It is
accepting Jesus who is beyond human intelligence.
The fourth group of people in that incident includes Jairus
and the Women. They had deep faith in Jesus. They believed that Jesus can make
real changes in their lives. They also had a deep sense of humility as it is
written, ‘Jairus fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly’ (Mk 5: 23), and
the women ‘fell before Him and told the whole truth’ (v.33). These two persons
also had a deep conviction that without Jesus they cannot be saved. They felt
the dare need for Jesus in their lives.
Jesus asks us to be
in the group of Jairus and the women and experiencing the divine interventions
in our lives. To be in this group what we need to have is deep faith, humility
and strong conviction that we need Jesus at every moment of our lives.
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