Sunday, March 1: Son of God

Mark 6:1–13

In Mark 5, Jesus performs his most amazing miracle yet. The synagogue ruler Jairus tells Jesus that his sweet little girl is dying and begs Jesus to save her. Jesus agrees, but before he reaches the man’s house, the girl passes. Jairus’ servants meet him on the road and try to prepare him for what awaits at home. “Your daughter is dead,” they tell him. “Why bother the Teacher any further?”

These words hit Jairus like a tsunami. His little girl–gone. The room starts spinning as grief begins to overtake him, but before he collapses to the ground, Jesus grabs him by the shoulders, lifts him up, stares straight into his eyes and says, “Do not be afraid. Only believe.”

Jesus challenged Jairus to believe that he had the power of life and death. While the crowds scoffed at this suggestion, Jairus believed and witnessed the impossible. Jesus called to his daughter, and she got up and walked.

Jesus demonstrated that he not only has power over disease, not only over demons, not only over nature, but over death itself. Mark 5:42 says that the people were overcome with amazement. “Who is this man,” they must have asked each other, “that even has power over life and death?”

What is he going to do next?

Well, he’s going to go home. Back to Nazareth. Back to where everything began.

In Mark 6:1–13, Jesus goes home to the people who knew him best. To his grade-school teachers. His T-ball coach. His childhood best friend. His brothers and sisters. His mother.

What would it be like to see the kid who used to play stickball in the streets of the neighborhood, grown up and raising the dead?

Maybe not what you think.

See you Sunday.