Thursday, August 2, 2001
The lady next to me on a recent airplane flight made me feel good about how far I had to travel that day. I only had to cross the country - she was doing that, too, but she had just connected from Europe to America. But she was still excited enough about her trip to Europe that she was happy to talk about what she had seen there. Frankly, I can only remember one thing she told me about - it was something I'd never heard about before. She had visited some of Europe's most majestic cathedrals. And she had learned that underneath the cross atop these cathedrals, the architects and builders had built in a gold ball. In that ball was a copy of the plans for the cathedral - safely hidden away in case something ever happened to that magnificent structure...so folks would know how to rebuild it.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A WORD WITH YOU today about "Where To Start Rebuilding."
Of course, it isn't just buildings that need rebuilding sometimes. It's people, too! You may have been hit by some pretty damaging blows recently - maybe you've been virtually "totaled" by what's happened. But where do you start to rebuild?
I'm hoping that our word for today from the Word of God might be the first installment of a set of plans for the rebuilding you need to do in your life. Mark 5, beginning with verse 22, tells about two people whose lives have been blown to pieces. "One of the synagogue rulers, named Jairus, came there. Seeing Jesus, he fell at His feet and pleaded earnestly with him, 'My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.' So Jesus went with him. A large crowd pressed around Him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind Him in the crowd and touched His cloak, because she thought, 'If I just touch His clothes, I will be healed.' Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering." By the way, Jairus' little girl was healed just as miraculously.
Two lives, broken and in need of rebuilding, both facing situations that were beyond their ability to fix or control. Sound familiar at all? They knew where to bring the broken pieces. They brought them to Jesus. That's where the rebuilding of a life begins. In fact, let me suggest that you look for answers where they kept the rebuilding plans for those old cathedrals - beneath the cross.
We want our broken situation fixed. But God knows the rebuilding of a life begins when the broken relationship between us and Him is fixed. We're cut off from our Creator's rebuilding power until all the sins of our life are dealt with - until they're forgiven. And that's what Jesus' cross was all about.