Mark 5:21-43
Hopefully these last few weeks have built some confidence for all of us in the authority that Jesus has. We first saw His authority over His creation when He spoke and immediately calmed the storm. Then, we saw His authority over the realm of the spiritual when He cast thousands of demons out of the man who was possessed. This week, Jesus rounds out His proof of authority by healing a woman with a perpetual disease, and bringing a young girl back to life. Intimate authority over sickness, disease and death.
Mark 5:21-28
After Jesus heals the man with the unclean spirit, the people are terrified and ask Him to leave, so He gets back in His boat and heads back to where He had just come from. It’s been a short time since He left, and the same crowds that He sought rest from were back on the shore waiting for His return. We have 2 different people that are seeking Jesus for help. They come from different socio-economic classes, have totally different life situations, but had 1 thing in common: They were desperate and saw Jesus as their last and final hope.
Jairus
Jairus was a “ruler of the synagogue.” This didn’t necessarily mean that he was a Pharisee, but it did mean that he interacted with them every day, to the point where he absolutely would have known their thoughts about Jesus. He would have known their sudden hate and disapproval of the man that he was seeking. Being one of the rulers of the synagogue would mean that his duties included keeping the scrolls safe, general maintenance around the synagogue, organizing and administration within the synagogue school, and supervising the readers, teachers and those who came to pray. This job would have had good pay, and his family would have been well taken care of.
We also learn that Jairus has a daughter who is on her deathbed, in fact, moments away from dying. We’ll find out later in our passage that she is 12 years old, which is an interesting fact of comparison that we’ll address here in a few minutes.
So Jairus, desperate and with nowhere else to turn, knowing what the Pharisees would think, runs to Jesus publicly and falls down at His feet. He doesn’t care who sees. He doesn’t care what people think. In an act of submission and respect, he falls down at the feet of Jesus and begs Him to come and save his little girl. “Jesus, I’ve heard of your power, will you please come lay your hands on her so that she might be made well?! I’m begging you Jesus. We are so desperate. We don’t know what else to do!”
Jesus agrees to go with Jairus, and as they go the crowds follow. In fact Mark says that the crowds “thronged about Him.” The crowd was so dense that one could not move in between. This is why the disciples will respond in a few verses that the crowds were “pressing around Him.” And then we meet someone else. We don’t know much about her, but what we do know is enough.
Anonymous Woman
We see first that she has had a disease for 12 years. More specifically, the bleeding that she has had is a hemorrhage, or a damaged blood vessel that has not stopped bleeding for 12 years. This actually tells us a lot about this woman.
According to Old Testament Law, this would mark her as ceremonially unclean. We read in Leviticus 15 that because of this, she would not be able to marry. She was driven out of any sort of fellowship and community. Nobody could touch her, and if they did they would be marked as unclean as well. So she was perpetually ceremonially unclean. Even her own family could not come near her. It even went so far that wherever she sat or lied down would become unclean, I mean total and complete break in relationship and any sense of community.
We also see that she had “suffered much under the care of many physicians,” which was seen in the fact that she had run out of money trying, and was actually worse because of their help.
The Talmud, which is essentially a commentary on the Torah, 1st 5 books of the Bible, or the Law, contained historical context around what some of these physicians might have tried to do. This comes from the Talmud, a section called Shabbat 110b, and is specific to a woman who has a consistent bleed not associated with menstruation:
"Take the gum of Alexandria the weight of a small silver coin; of alum the same; of crocus the same. Let them be bruised together, and given in wine to the Woman that has an issue of blood. If this does not benefit take of Persian onions three pints; boil them in wine, and give her to drink, and say "Arise from thy flux." If this does not cure her, set her in a place where two ways meet, and let her hold a cup of wine in her right hand, and let someone come behind and frighten her, and say, "Arise from thy flux." But should this do no good, “Take a handful of cummin and a handful of crocus, and a handful of faenu-greek; let these be boiled, and given her to drink, and say, Arise from thy flux. But should this also fail, “Dig seven trenches, and burn in them some cuttings of vines not yet circumcised(vines not four years old;) and let her take in her hand a cup of wine, and let her be led from this trench and set down over that, and let her be removed from that, and set down over another: and in each removal say unto her, Arise from thy flux.”
Now, Scripture doesn’t tell us that this is specifically what was done for this woman, but we know that they would have been using the Jewish Old Testament Law to influence their procedures, which means she very well could have been subject to these remedies.
Here’s the point. Doctors had tried everything. She had spent all the money that she had, and it had only made things worse. Now, in her desperation, she had nowhere else to turn, except to hope that the stories she had heard about Jesus were true. So she sneaks into the crowd, breaking all kinds of laws, and touches the clothes of Jesus.
Let’s take a step back and look at these 2 individuals:
Man and Woman
Wealthy and Poor
Respected and Rejected
Synagogue Ruler and Anonymous “Nobody”
Honored and Ashamed
Came to Jesus publicly and came to Jesus secretly
One with a 12 year old child and one with a 12 year hemorrhage
12 Years of Delight and 12 Years of Despair
And where do they both find themselves when there is no hope left? At the feet of Jesus.
Mark 5:29-34
Immediately. Immediately a 12 year flow of blood dried up. When Jesus spoke to the storm, the wind and waves immediately stopped; complete calm. Now, Jesus doesn’t even speak a word, and in a really hard to explain moment, the power of Jesus completely heals this woman. Did Jesus perceive her faith and allow His power to go out? I mean it wasn’t like a chemical reaction because then anyone else who touched Him with great faith would be healed as well. Whatever the unseen moment contained, one thing is for sure, her faith in the healing power of Jesus was enough.
And then you get to this part where Jesus asks the question, “Who touched me? I felt my power go out of me, who was it?” Did Jesus really not know? Did all-knowing God in flesh not know? Or, was it perhaps that He wanted her healing to be testimony in front of the crowds? This woman who had been an outcast for 12 years, who had broken the Law and touched another human being, and now was completely healed. And let’s not miss what this meant for her. Along with her physical healing, she was no longer considered ceremonially unclean, which meant she could be restored to relationship with her friends and family. It meant that she could gather with other people to worship. It meant that she could potentially get married. So not only was her body restored, but her life was restored to her as well.
Mark 5:35-43
The most devastating news this man could ever imagine arrives. Any hope that he had was taken away in a moment. “Your daughter is dead, there’s no point anymore, just leave Jesus alone and come home.” And in this, the worst moment of this man’s life, Jesus looks at him and says, “do not fear, only believe.” Jairus had heard about the power of Jesus, but he had just witnessed it with his own eyes. Imagine the difficulty of “do not fear, only believe” if he hadn’t seen the power of Jesus heal the woman. But now, those words from the mouth of the Healer are easier to trust.
So they continue on to the house of Jairus, and come into a great commotion. The common practice of the time was to hire mourners to exaggerate the weeping and wailing after someone died. We see Jesus ask another interesting question, “Why all the commotion? Why is everyone crying and wailing so loudly? I mean you are acting like someone died or something! But you’re all mistaken. She isn’t dead, she’s simply sleeping.” This can be confusing. I mean, in reality, the girl had died. She was lifeless. So what did Jesus mean that she was simply sleeping?
Most commentators would agree that Jesus “meant that the girl was not dead to stay dead, but was speaking of death as sleeping. In essence, Jesus redefined death as a temporary state, just as natural sleep is temporary. Jesus’ point was that death is not permanent.” Of course they don’t understand, so instead of believing Jesus, they mockingly laugh at Him. He sends them all out, and enters the room where this girl was laying.
In an incredibly tender moment, Jesus takes her by the hand, and remember, Mark wrote this book from a first-hand account given by Peter. Peter, who was in the room when this happened, so when Jesus spoke the Aramaic words “Talitha Cumi,” it was such a powerful moment that Peter remembered exactly what Jesus said. Rather than “little girl,” a better translation would be “little lamb.” Jesus is so compassionate. And He speaks into the realm of death and brings this girl back to life. Immediately, the water was calm. Immediately, the demons left. Immediately, the bleeding stopped. And now immediately, the girl gets up on her feet and begins to walk.
The power and authority of Jesus brings about calm, peace and healing immediately.
Application
And this, this is great news. What we’ve seen these last few weeks is that Jesus has authority over every area of our lives. He has authority over circumstances that are out of our control. He has authority over spiritual oppression. He has authority over sickness and disease, and He even has authority over death itself.
Here is why that is great news. Well let me ask you a question. What did all of the people in these stories have in common? They had no other hope apart from Jesus. In the storm, the disciples could not save themselves. No one could help or control the demon possessed man. Doctors could not help the bleeding woman. Jairus saw Jesus as the only One that could help his daughter. So the great news is that when we feel like there is no hope left for us, nothing is beyond the control and authority of Jesus. Usually, when we feel like everything is falling apart, and we are frantic, and we are broken, and we are in pain, and we are trying everything in power to fix things, and nothing is working, it’s because we have lost proper perspective of Jesus. We have lost trust in Jesus’ authority. We have taken our eyes off the Savior. The One who walked this Earth, experienced pain, experienced storms, experienced loss, experienced sadness, had those experiences so that He could relate to us. What a loving Savior we have.
Now, in all of these stories, we see an immediate healing, an immediate rescue when confronted with Jesus. But, we have to recognize that it doesn’t always happen that way. The man was possessed with demons a long time before he met Jesus. The woman was sick for 12 years. Sometimes the healing or the rescue comes years down the road. Sometimes the healing or the rescue comes when we step into eternity where there is no more pain, no more tears, no more death. And while we may not know how long the season of pain or suffering might last, we hand it over to our Father who loves us and who promised to be our peace, Who promised to be our refuge, Who promised to be our strength.
