Please turn with me to Mark chapter 5.
In the Gospel of Mark so far, we are seeing Jesus proclaiming the good news that God’s long-promised Messiah, the rescuer of Israel and all mankind from sin and death. He proves that this message is true through powerful miracles, and he urges the crowds to “listen”, to hear him so that they might believe the good news and find the freedom and peace that comes from being a citizen of God’s kingdom.
In the parable of the sower, Mark emphasizes different responses that people have to Jesus’s teaching. They are either “along the path”: hard and unbelieving. Or they are “on the rocks”: surface-y in the reception of Jesus’s word, but when things get tough, they turn away. Or they are “among the weeds”: and Jesus’s words sort of land, but really their life is consumed with other cares and pursuits, and so they never bear fruit. And finally, they might be in the good soil:
Mark 4:20 (CSB)
20 And those like seed sown on good ground hear the word, welcome it, and produce fruit thirty, sixty, and a hundred times what was sown.”
Mark emphasizes this throughout the first chapters of his gospel account: trusting Christ’s words, listening to them and doing them, setting aside every other concern or pursuit that would get in the way. Before the parables of the past few weeks, we see this short scene in Mark 3:
Mark 3:31–35 (CSB)
31 His mother and his brothers came, and standing outside, they sent word to him and called him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him and told him, “Look, your mother, your brothers, and your sisters are outside asking for you.” 33 He replied to them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34 Looking at those sitting in a circle around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
Here Mark is reemphasizing Jesus’s teaching that it is not simple acknowledgement of Jesus’s words as important that he is after, but a life that changes and reprioritizes and reorients around God’s words. A life that surrenders in trust of Christ.
The rest of chapter four and five recount four of Jesus’s miracles, highlighting the different responses people have to him. And that is where we find ourselves today. Last week we looked at the first two miracles:
Power and Authority
Miracle 1, Jesus calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee shows Jesus’s power and authority over unstoppable storms. Miracle 2, Jesus casting out legion, shows Jesus's power and authority over unstoppable demons
This week we are going to look at the third and fourth miracles:
Miracle 3, the healing of a woman with a 12 year old illness, shows Jesus's power and authority over unstoppable illness. Miracle 4, raising Jairus’s 12 year old daughter, shows Jesus’s power and authority over unstoppable death.
Finally, Jesus goes to his hometown: teaching God’s word with authority and power. We will see that in every case, the response of the people are very mixed. Like the seed in the four soils in the parable of the sower.
Let’s read.
A Desperate Jairus Takes a Risk
Mark 5:21–24 (CSB)
21 When Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the sea. 22 One of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet 23 and begged him earnestly, “My little daughter is dying. Come and lay your hands on her so that she can get well and live.” 24 So Jesus went with him, and a large crowd was following and pressing against him.
Last week we left off with Jesus leaving the region of Geresa across the sea of Galilee where he drove out the legion of demons, and now he has come back, and the crowds are waiting for him. And a man named Jairus, a leader of a synagogue who knew about Jesus’s miracles came to him. This is quite possibly the leader of the synagogue in Capernaum where Jesus has spent most of his time so far.
This is a dramatic moment. Jairus was desperate. His daughter is dying. And this man, who likely had previously been in the camp of those doubting Jesus, in his moment of desperation, turns to one that he knows for sure can help his daughter.
A few important details that we’re given here, he is the leader of the synagogue. This likely meant that he was among the upper class in his town. A well respected individual. This man was risking reputation with Jewish leadership by going to Jesus.
Notice also, his wording: “…come lay your hands on her, so that she can get well and live.” There isn’t a hint of doubt in that statement. This man knows that Jesus is able to heal his dying daughter.
Sometimes moments of crisis bring clarity in terms of our faith.
Jesus goes with the man, and on the way there is interrupted.
A Desperate Woman Takes a Risk
Mark 5:25-28 (CSB)
25 Now a woman suffering from bleeding for twelve years 26 had endured much under many doctors. She had spent everything she had and was not helped at all. On the contrary, she became worse. 27 Having heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his clothing. 28 For she said, “If I just touch his clothes, I’ll be made well.”
By contrast to the influential and probably wealthy synagogue leader, here we have a broken and destitute woman. Because of her condition, she would have been considered ritually unclean according to Leviticus 15. Anyone she would have touched would also have been considered unclean as well. For the last twelve years of her life, she would have had to be very careful not to let anyone come into contact with her.
She had tried everything. The CSB translation is too nice here with “endured much under many doctors” she had “suffered much” under many doctors. All her money was gone. She was broke and broken. I suppose only my sisters here can fully appreciate the idea of unsuccessfully seeking healing at the hands of many ObGyns for over a decade…
She was desperate. She had probably been hearing of the healings of Jesus in the crowd for the last period of time, and one can imagine that she had avoided coming to him because she was carefully avoiding the crowd. You can almost hear the music swell in our narrative as she pushes through the crowd, making hundreds of people unwittingly ritually unclean to come to try and touch Jesus.
Her faith in his ability to heal her, even just by touching his garment, is effective.
Jesus Heals the Desperate Woman
Mark 5:29–34 (CSB)
29 Instantly her flow of blood ceased, and she sensed in her body that she was healed of her affliction. 30 Immediately Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” 31 His disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing against you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’ ” 32 But he was looking around to see who had done this. 33 The woman, with fear and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. 34 “Daughter,” he said to her, “your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be healed from your affliction.”
The instant she touches Jesus, she is completely healed. I love the phrasing here: “Jesus realized that power had gone out from him…” it almost seems like he’s surprised, doesn’t it? It is possible that he is! Why does Mark record it this way? I’ll get to that in a bit.
It is remarkable that we don’t have a record of an instant that “power went out of him” in the same way prior to this. There were hundreds of people touching him. And this is the first mention of it. It won’t be the last, however. Chapter 6 records that this sort of thing keeps happening.
Jesus wants to make absolutely certain that this woman understands why she was healed. It doesn’t have to do with any magic power in Jesus or in his robes. She was healed because of her faith. He uses an interesting phrase here “your faith has saved you…” and then a different word, go in peace and be healed… This is a similar interaction with the paralytic man in chapter 2: “son, your sins are forgiven.”
This beautiful interaction causes an unfortunate delay for Jairus’s daughter. At least at first glance. While Jesus is delayed with this woman’s healing, the daughter dies.
Jesus Heals Jairus’s Daughter
Mark 5:35–6:1 (CSB)
35 While he was still speaking, people came from the synagogue leader’s house and said, “Your daughter is dead. Why bother the teacher anymore?” 36 When Jesus overheard what was said, he told the synagogue leader, “Don’t be afraid. Only believe.” 37 He did not let anyone accompany him except Peter, James, and John, James’s brother. 38 They came to the leader’s house, and he saw a commotion—people weeping and wailing loudly. 39 He went in and said to them, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but asleep.” 40 They laughed at him, but he put them all outside. He took the child’s father, mother, and those who were with him, and entered the place where the child was.
41 Then he took the child by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum” (which is translated, “Little girl, I say to you, get up”). 42 Immediately the girl got up and began to walk. (She was twelve years old.) At this they were utterly astounded. 43 Then he gave them strict orders that no one should know about this and told them to give her something to eat.
6:1 He left there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him.
They arrive at the synagogue leader’s house but they are too late. The daughter is dead. Jesus turns to Jairus and comforts him. “Hang on to that faith that you had when you came to me. Don’t fear.” The crowd doesn’t believe Jesus’s ability to heal the girl, and so they jeer at him. This laughter is not because Jesus cracks a joke. They are mocking him.
The important detail here is the amount of effort it took Jesus to raise this girl from the dead.
None.
Jesus does the same thing he did with Peter’s sick mother in chapter 1. He takes this girl by the hand and tells her to get up. And she does. The dead rise at Jesus’s command.
So far in Mark, we have seen Jesus perform impossible miracles, and prove his power over sin, sickness, natural forces, supernatural forces, and even death.
And we see the response of the people. They don’t get it. A few believe, but by and large no one understands who he is or what he is up to. Not yet.
Jesus goes to his hometown of Nazareth, and is invited to teach in the synagogue. He was the area’s biggest pop-star after all. The hometown hero, right?
Jesus’s Hometown Rejects Him
Mark 6:2-6:6 (CSB)
2 When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished. “Where did this man get these things?” they said. “What is this wisdom that has been given to him, and how are these miracles performed by his hands? 3 Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And aren’t his sisters here with us?” So they were offended by him.
4 Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown, among his relatives, and in his household.” 5 He was not able to do a miracle there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. 6 And he was amazed at their unbelief. He was going around the villages teaching.
The people in Jesus’s hometown actually summarize Mark’s point in his gospel account nicely: Jesus has been given wisdom from God to proclaim God’s Word, and Jesus performs undeniably powerful miracles.
But they have a problem: preconceived ideas about who Jesus is, and who he isn’t. They are already certain that He is not God. They think they know who he is. A mere man. A clever teacher, and somehow he is apparently doing miracles, but there’s probably another explanation for that.
They were “offended”, literally “scandalized" by the idea that Jesus could actually be who he claimed to be: the Messiah, the Lord God, the Creator of all, the promised rescuer of Israel and of all mankind from sin and death.
Certainly he’s not that.
Can any of you here this morning relate? You come to church because it gives you a sense of comfort and of community? Or maybe you think religion itself has something it can offer. Some sort of philosophical or metaphorical peace. Maybe you’ve just heard that religion and prayer have good mental health outcomes.
But the idea that Jesus is actually God? That all this God-talk is real? That the stories recorded in the Bible aren’t just myth, but an actual record of true events? It can’t be that. That’s scandalous! It’s offensive!
Our passage today calls us to consider the claims about Jesus. And to respond to believe him. Trust him. Welcome him. Respond to him!
What is the message for us?
Our passage today shows us that:
Jesus saves anyone who comes to him in faith.
The upper class, influential, and religious. Twelve year old girls, and those suffering from twelve-year afflictions. Community leaders and outcasts. The crowds, and everyone in between. The way to Jesus through faith is open to anyone.
Jesus saves anyone who comes to him infaith.
It’s not your good works, your performing of a ceremony, your being in the right place at the right time. It’s not your deservingness or your humility that saves you. It is not making the right choices, saying the right words, praying the right prayer, being part of the right family that saves you.
Faith saves you.
Jesus saves anyone who comes to him in faith.
Both Jairus the synagogue leader and the woman with the affliction needed to approach Jesus in faith. That faith was risky for them. It was risky socially. She was an outcast, he had a reputation. Both had to get over those things and come to the only one who could rescue.
And it is the same for us.
This morning’s passage shows us that we can trust Jesus. We can trust his power. We can trust his timing. We can trust his willingness to heal and to help.
Trust Jesus.
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