‘Do not fear, only believe’” (NRSV, Mark 5:36)

In his account of the raising of Jairus’ daughter, St Mark records that immediately after the incident in which the woman was healed by surreptitiously touching Jesus’ garments, friends from Jairus’ house came and told him, “Your daughter is dead.  Why trouble the teacher any further?”  But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to Jairus, “Do not fear, only believe” (NRSV, Mark 5:35,36).  So they went on.

By the time they reached the house the professional wailing women were already in full voice, accompanied by the lament of the mourning flutes, known as “the flutes for the dead”, proclaiming that Jairus’ house was indeed a house of death.  “Why do you make a commotion and weep?” said Jesus.  “The child is not dead but sleeping” (NRSV, Mark 5:39).  And they laughed at him, but he put them all outside, and going to where the dead child was he took her by the hand and said, “Talitha cum” – “Little girl, get up!” – and immediately the girl got up and walked (NRSV, Mark 5:41).

In this illuminating episode we see how Jairus’ faith in Jesus not only held firm but deepened when put to what was its ultimate test.  His faith, however, was in Jesus as a prophet and a worker of miracles.

Such too, to begin with, was the Apostles’ faith in Jesus, but during the next 12 months their vision widened and with it their faith.  First St Peter was inspired to perceive and to declare that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the living God.  Then came the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, those pivotal events which revealed the whole glorious truth.  Miracle-worker, prophet, Messiah, and now supremely their Divine Saviour and Lord, and not theirs only but the Saviour of the world.

Their faith in Jesus now was not just in the Healer of people’s bodies and minds, but in the Saviour of their souls; and the Crucifixion was not the murder of the Healer but the spotless offering and sacrifice of the Son of God for the redemption of the world.  Redemption from what?  Jesus answered that question for us at the Last Supper when he took the cup and said, “…this is my blood of the (new) covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (NRSV, Matthew 26:28, our emphasis).

Our Lord made it unequivocally clear that sin – that is, moral evil – is the greatest of all evils, if only because its consequences are the most profound and the most far-reaching.  “…what shall it profit a man”, said Our Lord, “if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?  Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”  (King James’ Bible, Mark 8:36,37, our emphasis) (See note below).

So redemption is deliverance from sin here, and from its consequences hereafter.  For in the next world it is either God or nothing.  And Hell is that nothing.  It is totally negative – an eternal emptiness.  And each human being is free to choose for himself or herself either God or that emptiness.  And sin is the soul’s No to God.  The Book of Job puts that No into words, “Leave us alone!  We do not desire to know your ways” (NRSV, 21:14).  And God can do nothing other than to take them at their word.  He was crucified for them.  What more can he do?

Redemption is an essential and major part of the work of our salvation which is at the heart of the Christian Gospel, the Good News that Christ died that we might be forgiven our sins and restored and united to God, and by his grace be changed into the likeness of himself.  It is a moral and spiritual resurrection and transformation, the soul’s passage from death to life.  As St Paul put it to the Christians at Ephesus, “…when we were dead through our trespasses, (God) made us alive together with Christ…and raised us up with him…” (NRSV, Ephesians 2:5,6, our emphasis).  And the Apostle added, “…by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God…” (NRSV, Ephesians 2:8).

The Gospel is the proclamation of that gift – what St Paul calls “the gospel of your salvation” (NRSV, Ephesians 1:13, our emphasis).  But that is not the Gospel that we find proclaimed today in some influential quarters of the Christian Church.  The attitude of some is that redemption and salvation are an irrelevance in the modern world.  But redemption and salvation have to do with life and death, and what could be more relevant that that?

However, the world today has no sense of sin and therefore no perceived need for redemption.  There are those in the Church who see that they are out of step with the world and respond by falling into step with it.  They substitute the world’s secular agenda for the proclamation of the Gospel, offering only what the world sees as relevant to life as it is lived today, and saying nothing about sin and redemption which the world regards as an unwelcome intrusion.

But Christianity without redemption is the husk without the kernel.  It lacks the essential ingredient of life and power, the power to change the human heart.

In stark contrast, it was the Gospel of redemption and salvation which changed and converted the highly civilised and immoral Roman Empire.  An example is to be found in St Peter’s First Letter addressed to the Christians in Asia Minor who were under the threat of imminent persecution by the Imperial Government under Nero.  What St Peter gives is a factual description of real people as he knew them to be.  You were redeemed, he told them, “with the precious blood of Christ…Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” NRSV, 1 Peter 1:19,8,9, our emphasis).

And it was the Gospel of redemption and salvation which changed and converted the barbarians who overran the Empire.  So in the year 597 when St Augustine of Canterbury landed in Kent to convert the English, he arranged a public meeting with Ethelbert, the King of Kent.  Augustine and his companions went in a solemn procession, at the head of which were carried a silver cross and a painting, on a wooden panel, of the Crucified Christ.  We know the substance of Augustine’s address.  He told “how the tender-hearted Jesus by His own throes had redeemed the sinful world, and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.” (1)

And that is how the English Church began.  And that is the Gospel in which we believe, and the Redeemer in whom we put our faith.  And how desperately is that joyful message of redemption and salvation needed in today’s weary and materialistic world.

Note

The Greek word translated here as “soul” and in many modern translations as “life” refers to being physically alive and also to “the real self which is far more than physical life and which survives beyond it”. (2)

References

1. Wakeman, H.O. (1897) An introduction to the history of the Church of England, London: Rivington, Percival & Co.

2. France, D. (1998) Mark.  The people’s Bible commentary, Oxford: Bible Reading Fellowship.