Raising the Dead

Mark 5:21-43, by Rev Richard Keith, 26 March 2017

In our passage today, we see Jesus back on the western shore of lake Galilee in Jewish territory. That’s right. Jesus had gone to the eastern shore, after a long day of teaching the people. He had ridden a storm, just to set one man free from the demons infesting him, and left him to tell his friends and neighbours what the Lord had done for him. Jesus didn’t stay to heal other people. He didn’t start his own preaching tour. He healed one man and let him loose.

This is what one person’s life meant to Jesus. This is what one person set free can do to advance the kingdom of God. It’s the best advertising – word of mouth. One satisfied customer telling the world what God has done.

After that one brief encounter, Jesus crossed the lake again. And again a large crowd gathered around him beside the sea. When a man named Jairus came to him. He was one of the rulers of the synagogue in the town and fell on his knees in front of Jesus. He begged him over and over. “My daughter is dying. Come and lay your hands on her so she may be healed and live.”

That’s faith, isn’t it? When other synagogue leaders had turned against Jesus, he turned to him. When others would have been too proud, he knelt on the ground in front of everyone. He simply believe that if anyone could bring his daughter back from the brink of death, it was Jesus. So Jesus went with him and the crowd followed him.

In fact, the crowd was so large and confined to such narrow streets            on the way to Jairus’ house, that it pressed against Jesus on every side. And it was at that moment that a woman took her chance. We don’t know her name. She passes into Jesus’ story and passes out again so quickly that we barely know anything about her. What we do know is that she had been sick for a long time. I hate being sick for twelve minutes. But she had lived with her haemorrhage for twelve years. It would have left her tired and lethargic. What’s worse is that she had been to the doctor, but the doctor’s treatment had only left her poorer and sicker. And what’s even worse, is that under the Old Testament law, she would have been ceremonially unclean. Like she had touched a dead body. Like she had leprosy. And she wouldn’t have been allowed to worship at the temple.

Her faith in human beings had been tested and worn out. But she had faith in Jesus. Not a lot of faith by human standards. Not enough faith to make a fuss. Not enough faith to stand in front of Jesus and ask him to stop. Not enough faith    to take up time his telling him her problem. But enough faith to believe that if she only touched his coat she would be healed. And she was. She sensed his power coming into her, damming the flow of blood at its source and making her well.

Jesus sensed the power going out of him as well. “Who touched me?” he asked.

His disciples were incredulous. “What do you mean, “Who touched me?” Can’t you see the crowd? Everyone is touching you?”

But Jesus knew his gift, how it could be accessed and what it could do. Someone had reached out to him in faith and the Spirit at work in him had responded in healing. He looked around and saw the woman who had done it. She became afraid and started to tremble. She had wanted to avoid a scene, and against her will a scene was starting to form. She came and fell in front of Jesus and told him the whole truth. As Romans chapter 10 says, she had believed in her heart. Now she had to confess with her mouth and be saved. Jesus spoke to her kindly, wanting to reassure her. “Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be healed of your complaint.”

Wanting not to delay Jesus, the woman had caused a delay, and some of the Jairus’ household came to tell him that his daughter had died and that Jesus was not needed anymore. She had passed beyond his power and will. This is how we experience death. It is more than a boundary or a doorway to another place. It is a high and forbidding wall, keeping the living out and the dead in. It is the point of no return.

But Jesus is Lord. Lord of the storm. Lord over the kingdom of evil. Lord of the living and the dead. And he could see at that moment that he was needed more than ever. “Do not be afraid,” Jesus said to Jairus, “only believe.”

Jairus only had to learn the lesson from the encounter between Jesus and the woman. She had only needed faith. She had not needed a long speech. She had not even needed Jesus’  permission or conscious attention. The Spirit at work in him was more than capable of knowing what she needed. Her unspoken thought was her request. Her plan to reach out and touch his coat was based on her confidence in his power.

Jairus had already shown this kind of faith in Jesus. Jesus was on the way to do for him what he had asked. He only needed the faith not to give up when he needed it most.

They came to the house. It was time for the crowd to come no further. Only Peter, James and John, the inner circle of three disciples, were allowed into the house with Jesus and the girl’s father. Jesus saw the weeping and the wailing of the people in the house. “Why are you crying,” he asked. The girl is not dead, but only sleeping.”

And they laughed at him. We shouldn’t be surprised. They hadn’t been in the boat  when he calmed the storm. They hadn’t been on the eastern shore when he cast out the host of demons. They hadn’t known what the woman on the street had been suffering, and what Jesus’ gift had healed he of. They thought Jesus was either mad or insensitive.

It is not surprising. But it is the exact opposite of the faith they needed at that very moment. There was no room for them or their unbelief in the house.

Jesus sent them away and took with him the four who were already with him plus the girl’s mother and went into the room where the girl lay still. Was she only sleeping, as Jesus had said? Or was she dead. Both are just the same to the Lord who doesn’t see death as a wall to keep him out. He took the girl’s hand and said to her “Little girl, get up.” And she got up like she’d only been asleep and had only just waken up. She started walking around. She wasn’t a little baby. She was twelve years old. She’d been alive for as long as the woman who met Jesus on the road had been sick. Both had been made well by the power of Jesus to the astonishment of all.

What we see here is that even after five chapters of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus was still able to surprise those who thought they knew him best. Neither of the healings were normal. The first healing did not conform to the general pattern that we see in the Gospel. Someone has a problem. They come to Jesus for help. Jesus responds to their faith and makes them well. The woman didn’t ask. Jesus made no conscious decision to help her. All she did was reach out and touch him. And the Spirit of God responded to her faith. All she had was faith. It was not faith in herself. She didn’t get well because she kept a positive attitude. She didn’t get well because she was determined to and didn’t give up. She got well because she knew that the God at work in Jesus could make her well and because she trusted him to do his will.

If the first healing shows what faith can do, the second healing shows what Jesus can do. The little girl had no faith of her own. She had gone beyond all faith and doubt. But to Jesus the boundary of death is just a line in the sand that he can cross at will. The dead are not beyond him. To him they are only asleep. The God who gave them life can restore it. The God who made them can remake them. And so at the boundary between life and death, faith has nothing to do with the stages of grief. Faith isn’t a denial of death. Faith isn’t bargaining with God to prevent death. Faith isn’t an acceptance of death’s reality. Faith is trusting in the God who created life not death. Faith is trusting in the God at work in Jesus Christ who lived and died and lives again for us so that death would not have the last word.

I mean, God isn’t greedy. He just wants what belongs to him. And he says of the living, “I made you. You belong to me.” And he says of the dead, “You are mine too.”

To us, death is a wall. It keeps us out and it keeps the dead in. The dead are beyond human justice and human comfort. But they are not beyond God’s justice. The wicked are only asleep and they will be made to stand to answer for their crimes, for breaking faith with those who trusted them, for abusing the poor and the defenceless, for perverting justice. Every wrong will be put right on God’s great day.

But neither are the dead beyond God’s comfort. And those who have trusted Christ and been washed of their wickedness and received his life and fallen asleep in him will wake up to his eternal blessing. For death will not have the final say, nor can it hold us against our Lord’s will. Do not fear. Only believe.

Marge’s Talk – The Family of God

I love being part of a family, in fact I am part of quite a few families. Of course there is my home family with my wonderful husband and best friend Kevin, I feel very much part of this Church Family, we are like a family at school and there is also our Emmaus and Kairos families. I love the fact that you can be yourself and have fun with all the different members of your various families. I very much love being a wife and I love being a mother. In fact as a very young person all I wanted to do with my life was to become a mother. Even as a child at Primary School I was fascinated with babies and my whole ambition was to have one of my own. I just couldn’t wait to grow up and be old enough to get one.

You can imagine my devastation at the tender age of 16 when I came home from school one night to find out that the doctor had rung with the results of some tests and I had been diagnosed with an hereditary hormone disorder which meant that none of my reproductive system had developed properly and I had to have an immediate complete hysterectomy. I just thought that I was a late developer but that definitely was not the case. A couple of days later I was put into Mooroopna Hospital under the guise of an appendix operation to protect my reputation and a full and complete hysterectomy was performed. I would never be able to have children, my life was over.

It didn’t seem to matter what anyone said to me I just didn’t care. I must have heard the words, “Well, you can always adopt!” from twenty different people. All I could think was I don’t want to adopt, I want to have my own children. I mean really when it is all said and done you just can’t love an adopted child as much as your own, can you? That was the mind of a 16 year old.

Well, I stand here today, some 43 years later with two of the most wonderful children a mother could ever have, Ruth aged 31 whom we adopted at 9 weeks old and Matthew aged 28 whom we adopted at 4½ months old. They are my children and heaven help anyone who says otherwise. I love them with all my heart and I can honestly say that I could not love a child that was my own flesh and blood any more than I do these two. Why am I telling you all this? Well because I want you to leave here today absolutely secure in the knowledge that God has this same love for each of us, you and me, and He wants us to be part of His family.

I want you to know without any doubt just how much God loves you. In fact He loves you and me so much that He sent his only Son to die on our behalf, to save us from sin and death. Ephesians 1:4-5 says, “For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will.” How cool is that! God chose us before He even created the world and has adopted us as His sons and daughters and He did it in accordance with His pleasure and will, not because He had to. He wanted to. That’s love and I certainly want to be part of that.

Earlier we read from Romans and I just want to re read verses 15-17, “The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba Father”. The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” God has adopted all of us and we are, in God’s eyes, heirs of the Kingdom on the same standing as His own Son Jesus Christ.

Titus 3:4-7 tells us,

“But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that, having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.”

I don’t know about you but I find that a lot to take in but when you really think about it, it is truly wonderful. Someone out there loves me that much that He wants, WANTS, not thinks, not wishes but WANTS me as part of His family despite the fact that I can never earn that status. He loves me in exactly the same way as He loves His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. I am important to Him. That is the most wonderful thing I have ever heard or experienced.

Now I never grew up in a Christian family and my mother only went to church on two occasions, a wedding and a funeral and usually I didn’t get invited to either. My father died when I was 9 and I wasn’t even allowed to go to his funeral. So the church to me was a very strange place where only the do-gooders went and I never wanted to be part of them. The High School I went to had a School Chaplain, very similar to James Brown here in Leeton. His name was Mr Wilf Poole.  During my surgery and after I got home Mr Poole visited me and would talk to me about Jesus and His love and being heirs of the Kingdom. He invited me to the Shepparton Baptist Church Youth Group and the rest as they say is history. I came to realise that the Church isn’t just where the do-gooders go on Sunday morning but is in fact a family.

We sit here each Sunday morning listening to Richard’s absolutely excellent sermons and we praise God with our singing and we pray with all our heart and these things are truly wonderful. But you know Church is much more than that. Church is a family. I love sitting here listening to Richard, I love standing here singing and I love praying but I also love the bond that exists between us all. I love the smiling faces, the joyous greetings, the discussions around morning tea. Heck, I even love Doug’s sick jokes. I love the feeling of belonging. Now if I feel that here in Leeton Presbyterian Church, I can only imagine how wonderful Heaven is going to be. Imagine being in the company of Jesus and being able to talk to Him face to face, being able to ask all those questions that have eluded us for years. Personally for fifty years I have wanted to know the name of the lady who reached out and touched Jesus cloak and was healed.

We often hear people say things like how great Heaven will be because there won’t be any pain and suffering and that is true and the older I get the more I am looking forward to that side of it but there is just so much more. Everything that is good, everything that is perfect is in Heaven. Anything that is not good for us or is just bad or evil simply won’t exist in Heaven. This is what God’s totally unconditional love has done for us and has in store for us as part of his family. I can’t wait!

Hebrews 2:10-11 tell us,

“In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. Both the one who makes people holy (Jesus) and those who are made holy (you and me) are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them (us) brothers and sisters.”

Roman’s 6:5 says,

“Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.”

If you look around you see that a lot of people today are obsessed with technology, economics, scientific discovery and political power for solving their problems and trying to bring themselves happiness, but these things are only transient and do not bring true happiness. There is only one source of true happiness. It can only be found in God and the grace of Jesus Christ. It is only through accepting the love and forgiveness that God offers us that we will find happiness. When we set our minds on what the Spirit desires, we will find happiness. It is this complete love for us that lead Jesus to the Cross of Calvary where He suffered and died to take away our sins and in doing so He bridged the gap of sin and death that separates people from God. The Cross of Calvary took us out of that miry pit and brought us into God’s family.

How’s that for an act of love. I think it’s pretty good. I think this is the very best family that you can belong to. There is absolutely no doubt about it….God loves you and God loves me. I know there are plenty of times when I grieve Him far more than I could ever know but He doesn’t leave me or forsake me. He loves me unconditionally and that is just the best feeling.

This is the Church. For many years I thought the church was that huge building on the corner with the tall steeple and that annoying bell that rang every Sunday morning and woke me up, but the truth is that is nothing more than a pile of bricks and mortar. The true church is the people. Yes we are the church, you and me. In the Kairos Prison Ministry program there is one of the talks that asks the question of the inmates, ‘Who is the Church’ and by the end of the 3½ day program they are very enthusiastic in shouting out ‘WE ARE THE CHURCH’, and that is true. As beautiful as it is, this building is merely a shell. The Leeton Presbyterian Church is you and me with Christ. Now I have attended Church regularly ever since that day I started Youth Group and my true friends, my church family, have helped me overcome many disasters in my life. I felt very alone and isolated when I found I couldn’t have children. I felt God had rejected me after all He knew that all I wanted was to be a mother and He took that away from me. How could He do that if He truly loved me. I also thought others would reject me for not being a ‘whole’ person because I couldn’t have kids. Fortunately for me God is far more in control than I am and He sent His angel Mr Poole and others in the Church to help bridge that gap between God and I. He never abandons us even though we may feel that we are completely alone at times. Remember the Footprints in the Sand where it says at the very lowest times in your life, when you see only one set of footprints, it is then that I carried you. God’s love for us is so strong and so perfect that He never leaves us, He carries us.

God has looked after me and nurtured me through many of life’s storms. He is an anchor for my soul that is sure and steadfast. Whatever storms we pass through, whatever uncharted seas we must sail, whatever misfortunes we may encounter, our life’s ship will never be wrecked, but will complete its journey till it finds safe harbour with our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Now that is love in its purest form and it is real for you and for me.

God’s message for you today is that you have that anchor. Whether you are riding out the storm or experiencing a time of calm, whether you are safe at harbour or sailing uncharted seas, you have the anchor for your soul that is sure and steadfast. Even when you can’t feel it, even when you think it is slipping and you are drifting, it is, in fact, the only thing holding everything else together. Because this anchor, this hope, is not just a feeling, and does not rest on our feelings. It is a hope that we can be sure of. This is that unconditional love that Jesus has for each of us. He wants to holds us and guide us and that love is the very best thing that you will ever have.

 

Easter Children’s Talk

Boys and girls, if you’ve ever played a game or entered a competition, you know what it feels like to win or to lose. Maybe your class choir won first prize at the Eisteddfod. Maybe you won the lucky door prize at the Anglican Church Fete. Maybe your team won the grand final. It feels good. It feels great. Especially if you didn’t expect it. To win from behind against tougher opponents, to be down 20-nil and then the whistle goes and you won by one point, well sometimes it feels like you’ve come back from the dead.

But losing hurts. It hurts to lose to your sister in Monopoly. It hurts to see the other team score the winning goal. It hurts to come second, when there are only two people in the race. It hurts when you feel like it was your fault, when you dropped the catch that could’ve won the game, when you missed the tackle that let the match winning goal go in.

The disciples of Jesus knew that following him was more than a game, because on that first Good Friday when they saw him die on the cross, when they lost him, they felt like they’d lost everything. And they felt like it was all their fault. The night before Jesus had prayed in the Garden, “Father if it is possible, don’t let me go through this.” But instead of praying with him, the disciples had fallen asleep.

Then the soldiers had come to arrest Jesus. And instead of standing with him, the disciples had run away. Peter had tried to follow Jesus to the place where they put him on trial. But while Jesus told his accusers the truth, Peter denied him.  “I don’t know that man.”

Some of them watched Jesus nailed to the cross and left to die. But only from a distance, so the soldiers wouldn’t catch them too. When it was all over, they went back into the city and locked the doors. They’d lost everything.

On the first Easter Sunday the women went to Jesus’ grave and found it empty except for two men dressed in white, “Why are you looking for Jesus among the dead?” they asked the women. “He is not dead, he is alive.” And then later that day Jesus himself appeared to the disciples and said, “Peace be with you.” And the disciples were so happy, because everything they thought they’d lost, they thought they’d been beaten a thousand to nil. But Jesus had won.

This is what we celebrate at Easter. God’s love beats hate. God’s hope triumphs over despair. And in Jesus coming to life again we see God’s life slaughters death so it is broken and has to retire.

Easter means that Jesus wins. And if we love him and trust him and follow him, whatever we entrust to him, he will never lose.

Dirty Laundry

The moral of the story is that our attitudes have a powerful effect on how we see things. “To the pure, all things are pure.”  Titus 1:15, NIV

If you mean “Thank you” don’t say “Sorry”

I’d like to share with you a little lesson that I’ve learned recently. It’s so simple that I don’t know why I haven’t thought of it before. But it is simply this: if you mean to say “Thank you” don’t say “Sorry”. This lesson was put beautifully in picture form on a website I found while research a lesson for a school scripture class.

I’ve been practicing. I hope you learn to do it as well.

Every Tear will be Wiped Away

Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death” or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’

Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Behold, I am making all things news.”

Revelation 21:1-5, NIV

In Revelation chapter 21, the second last chapter of the whole Bible, we see the great purpose towards which God’s great work of creation and the universe he made is moving. It is a new heaven and a new earth, a creation made new according to its maker’s original plans. A place of life. A place of joy. A place of peace. But in the new creation we see not a new Garden of Eden, but a holy city, a new Jerusalem, a place where a multitude can live because there is room in it for me and there is room in it for you.

The city is dressed like a bride ready to meet her new husband on her wedding day. For this is the great purpose of God, that he and his people may be one in joy and fellowship and love. “Look,” says a voice, confirming what we thought was true. “Now the dwelling of God is with human beings, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.” Not God above us. Not God ahead of us. But alongside us, beside us, truly with us. And not a distant God or a God only for a chosen few. But a God who is ours, so that we may be his.

And God will wipe away our tears. He will acknowledge our loss and our pain, but they will be redeemed in the fulfilment of his purpose. Not to pretend that our tears never happened, but because our suffering will no longer define us or control us. For there will be no more death, for death will be put to death, and there will be no more mourning or crying or pain. They are part of our present life. They hurt us, limit us, and shape us, but in the new life to come, our wounds will be healed to scars, just as our Saviour Jesus still bears his scars. They will be the memory of pain in the past, but they will no longer hurt us.

Blessed are those who live to see the triumph of God’s love over hate, and of his life over death. Blessed are those who have set their hope in Christ and live to see him reign as Lord. Blessed are those who have been led by the Spirit and completed the journey of faith to kingdom of God. Blessed are those who have wept in prayer and their tears have been wiped away. Blessed are those who are there when the Lord says, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Blessed are those who will be made new.

As Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies. And whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Nan Hamilton did. She taught it to others. She lived it her whole life. And she has received the gift which her Lord has promised her, a place in New Jerusalem.

Comfort yourself with this hope for Nan’s sake. But don’t fail to embrace it as your own, for your own sake.

Signs of Madness

In the playground the school kids used to say that the first sign of madness is talking to yourself and the second sign of madness is answering back.

This morning we are looking at signs of madness. And it is no joke. The Bible says, “Jesus’ family came to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.” So what were these signs of madness that prompted Jesus’ own family to be so worried about him?

Well last time I was with you we were in Mark chapter 2, and we looked at the calling of Levi to discipleship. And we’ve skipped the end of chapter 2 and half of chapter 3 to begin at verse 20. But in those missing verses there are a number of things that would have concerned Jesus’ family.

The first sign of his madness was his rising conflict with the teachers of the law. Jesus seemed to be going out of his way to provoke them. Not only poking the ants’ nest with a stick, but putting his hand right in. Jesus ate and drank with outcasts and sinners. He let his disciples break the Sabbath by rubbing heads of grain together to eat the seeds. Didn’t he know that they couldn’t harvest or thresh grain on the day of rest?

And then Jesus himself broke the Sabbath again. He went to the synagogue and healed a man with a withered hand in public. In front of everyone. On purpose. When it wasn’t a life threatening condition and it could easily have waited a few hours until sunset when the Sabbath ended. And when he was confronted, Jesus answered back, so that the Pharisees and the supporters of Herod – two groups who were normally enemies – came together to plot to kill Jesus.

By antagonizing these men, Jesus wasn’t just playing with fire. It was like he had set his own clothes on fire, just to watch them burn.

The second sign of Jesus’ madness was his picking 12 disciples. A wiser man would have scaled back. A sane man would have laid low. But Jesus seemed to be ramping it up, taking on these 12 apprentices, training them up, franchising his business, so that between them the twelve could go to places that one man could never visit on his own.

Maybe, Jesus’ family had hoped that this “kingdom of God” thing would be just a passing phase. But it didn’t look like it was going to go away without their intervention.

The third sign of Jesus’ madness were the crowds that he just wouldn’t send away. They followed him everywhere. He let them come close to him. He let them touch him. Jesus’ family finally found him again when he returned to Capernaum. He went into his house and such a large crowd gathered, wanting to listen to him, wanting to see a miracle, there was such a large crowd that Jesus and his disciples couldn’t even eat.

For Jesus’ family this was the last straw. Being popular was one thing. But Jesus was letting this whole “kingdom of God” thing ruin his life. He wasn’t even looking after himself. They needed to take charge of him. Like a parent would take charge of a screaming two year old. Like a son or daughter would take charge of an aged mother who was forgetting to feed herself. To them, Jesus was insane and a danger to himself.

It reminds me of the definition of a theory. A theory is an explanation that explains all the observable facts, but just happens to be dead wrong. Jesus’ family had a theory. Jesus was mad.

Jesus’ enemies had a different theory. They said that Jesus was bad.

In fact, it was a different group of opponents that we see at the end of Mark chapter 3. Up until this point Jesus had faced the local Pharisees and teachers of the law. The provincials from Galilee. They were doing their best, but Jesus’ popularity was getting beyond them. Everything they’d tried had failed to stop him.

So the big wigs came from Jerusalem. Big city type teachers of the law fresh from the seat of ruling power in Judea. They came to Capernaum with a cunning plan. “This man,” they said, “is doing all these miracles by the power of Satan. He can cast the demons out of people because he secretly works for the prince of demons.”

Again, it’s an excellent theory. It explains all the observable facts. The demons listen to him because they are all on the same team. It was a conspiracy. Satan would lose the chance to keep causing misery to a few individuals, but in return he’d get the lifelong devotion of thousands of people for his servant Jesus.

It would have been very persuasive. But it was also dead wrong. Because Jesus had a better explanation. Jesus said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand. A kingdom fighting civil war will destroy itself. And if Satan is divided against Satan the end has come. And evil will disappear. But that’s not true, is it? Rather, what you are witnessing is the plundering of a strong man’s house.”

Satan is the strong man. He holds under his power the lives of millions of people, trapped in prisons of drugs, of lies, of abuse, of violence, and of despair. Who can save these people, except if an even stronger man comes along and overpowers the strong man and ties him up so he is powerless and robs him of all his prisoners?

Jesus’ family said he was mad. His enemies said he was bad. But Jesus said, “I am Lord.”

It is not just a theory. It not only explains all the observable facts but it is also true. What were all Jesus’ miracles but examples of him plundering Satan’s house? Satan is strong. The forces of evil are powerful. They kill, crush and destroy. Even those who serve the powers of evil are just different kinds of victims, prisoners of their own hate and sin. When Jesus healed the sick, when he gave back sight to the blind, when he restored the withered hand, when he commanded the paralysed man to stand up and walk, when he touched the leper and cleansed him, when he ate with the sinners and tax collectors, when he called them to discipleship and they followed him, Jesus was robbing Satan’s house and setting his victims free.

Satan is strong. But Jesus is stronger. Satan is the prince of demons. But Jesus is the king of kings. He isn’t mad. He isn’t bad. He is Lord of heaven and earth. On the cross, Jesus entered Satan’s basement and took his place among Satan’s victims. He suffered shame and pain and rejection and humiliation and death. But Satan was powerless to keep him prisoner. And by his resurrection, Jesus broke open that basement so that light shone in that darkness to set the prisoners free. And by his ascension to the Father’s right hand, Jesus is proclaimed Lord of all.

Satan is strong. He longs to bind you in chains of hate and unforgiveness and pride and hypocrisy and guilt and hopelessness. His greatest wish is that you would look at his power and cower in fear and despair.

But Jesus is stronger. And the darkness will not rule over you, if you follow his light.

A message came into the house where Jesus was. “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”

Jesus said, “My family aren’t outside. Here am I teaching. My family are inside with me. Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

The moral of this story is that people will treat you the way they treated Jesus. If they called the teacher mad, they will call his students mad as well. Mad for believing in him. Mad for following him. Mad for investing your life in his legends and myths. Mad for taking up your cross. Mad for losing your life for his sake. Mad for reading his book and trying to put its lies into practice. Mad for denying yourself any and every pleasure. Mad for embarrassing your family with your superstitions. Mad for wasting your money on this insane religious club of yours. And some people who love you enough will try to take charge of you to talk you out of this madness.

Unless, or course, you’re very good at hiding the signs of your madness from your family and friends.

Some people will say you are mad. Others will say you are bad. Every Muslim extremist thinks he will win glory for Islam with his bombs. Not knowing that he is a tool for Satan to bring shame not just on Islam but on the followers of Jesus as well. Religions are just full of hate, people say. Religion is the cause of all the wars. They seriously believe it, because they are too young to remember the miseries and death of two world wars. They will say Jesus is the devil, his religion is poison and his church is just a trap to take money from fools.

They will say you are mad or you are bad. They said it about Jesus. They will say it about you. But it isn’t true. Do you know who your really are? You are Jesus’ family. His brothers and sisters. And in him we are the children of God.

Satan is strong. He ruins lives. Families. Communities and nations, like an out of control wrecking ball in a glass factory.

But Jesus is stronger. And the darkness will never rule us, while we follow his light.