Why trouble the Teacher any further?

In Mark 5, a man called Jairus has a daughter who is on her death bed. Jairus finds Jesus and begs him to come and heal her. Jesus goes with Jairus to do just that.

On the way, they get sidetracked. A woman with a bleeding disorder that has lasted for twelve years touches Jesus’ clothes and is instantly healed. Jesus gets distracted by trying to figure out who touched him and thus was healed. The woman comes forward and Jesus speaks kindness and comfort to her.

But while that is happening, messengers come from Jairus’s house. His daughter has died. It is at this point that the messengers ask the question, “Why trouble the Teacher any further?”

This is a question that comes from despair. From hope being lost. It was possible for Jesus to heal this child. He had healed others before. But to these poor people on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, death always has the final word. Jesus might be a healer, but nobody expects Him to do anything for a dead person.

Why trouble the Teacher any further? Death has won. It’s too late.

I find myself struggling with this question a lot. Why trouble Jesus any further about things that seem beyond help? Why bother continuing to pray for peace in Ukraine or Gaza or Lebanon or Iran? Why bother continuing to pray about gun violence or school shootings? Why bother praying for unity in the church or the nation?

I find myself believing these things are hopeless. That my prayers have no way of stopping wars or softening the hearts of the ruthless and power hungry. Why trouble the Teacher any further?

Of course, I am miscalculating when this happens. I am assuming it is my prayers that will do something. I am right to acknowledge my lack of power or persuasion over any of these issues. I forget that it is the One I am praying to that possesses to power to act and change these situations.

And here’s where it gets really complicated. I trust that Jesus can stop all these wars and gun violence and disunity and whatever else is wrong with the world. And I approach these situations in a binary way. Either there is peace and or there is not. Either the violence stops or it doesn’t. Either there is unity or division.

This binary approach is what makes it seem like God is not acting, that my prayers are pointless. Because God has not flicked the off-switch on such wars and violence.

Of course, the situation with Jairus’s daughter was a binary one. She was dead. Jesus made her alive again. Jesus can and does bring the dead to life. He can and does stop wars. But sometimes He goes about that process in a way that is painfully slow to us. And in the slowness we miss that God is acting, often in hidden ways, to answer our prayers.

Most of what God is doing to answer prayers for peace involves stories I won’t read about on the news. It happens in a child who sees the devastation and chooses a career path that will bring about a more peaceful world. It happens when a child makes a new friend. It happens when two pastors sit down to coffee and build a friendship despite their differences.

Why bother the Teacher any further? Why pray about these terrible situations that have now become the status quo? Because the Teacher can and will and is doing something about these things. I must remember that I cannot see all that God is doing. That I do not know what’s happening in the hearts and minds and homes of the more than 8 billion people in the world. When it seems like God is acting too slowly or that it is too late for Him to do anything, I remember this story about Jairus’s daughter. How Jesus’ arrival is never too late. And that it’s always time to bother the Teacher and bother Him further.

Thanks for reading.

Andy

P.S. The topic of this post hits on one of the challenges of prayer. My next book is on this very topic and it is available for pre-order. It’s called Ten Treasures of Learning to Pray. If you are an Amazon person, you can order it here.