08/25/2026
A big thank you to Mr. Ferrier for sharing in this week’s Upper School chapel as we continued our theme, BEHOLD. Through a few stories from his own middle school years and a look at Mark 5, Mr. Ferrier challenged students to consider what it means to truly know and experience the love of God.
Here is a recap of today's chapel:
As ridiculous as my middle school stories of “love” are, in those moments, I truly believed I knew what love was. Friends, I’m concerned many of us believe the same thing when it comes to God’s love. We know the phrase “Jesus loves me” so well that it no longer really affects us.
Let's read this passage in Mark 5 together. We meet a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. She had suffered physically, financially, emotionally, and spiritually, considered an outcast and unclean in her culture. Then she heard about Jesus. She took a desperate step of faith, reached out and touched His cloak, and was immediately freed from her suffering.
She grabbed a tzitzit, a tassel worn as a reminder of God’s love in action and His freeing Israel from slavery. Then Jesus invited this fearful, trembling woman out of the crowd and said, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.” Jesus already knew who she was, but He needed her to know WHOSE she was.
We may not be hemorrhaging blood, but we are hemorrhaging in our sin, shame, doubts, distance, and indifference toward God. Like this woman, we try everything to fix it: success, good grades, sports, the stage, entertainment, pleasure, popularity.
We can know that Jesus loves us without allowing that love to transform our lives. This woman went from having heard of Jesus to a first-person, firsthand encounter with Him. She approached Him, reached for Him, fell at His feet, and heard Him call her “daughter.”
Jesus invites us into that same personal encounter: “I love you, son. Come and be free. I love you, daughter. Come and be free.”
Jesus tells us in John 15:13, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Friends, don’t become so "familiar" with the love of Jesus that it becomes simply a fact you know. Behold His greater love, and allow it to transform you.
