Well, the world of Mark 5, beginning with verse 21, should be familiar to you. It’s the world where you live. It’s a world that has been dramatically broken by sin, where hard and difficult things are a regular human experience.
A father is facing the death of his little girl; it’s not supposed to happen. Children are supposed to outlive their parents. And you can embrace the helplessness of this man as he’s watching his little girl slip into death, and there’s nothing he can do.
It’s a world where people suffer physical things that are chronic, that destroy their lives; you can’t live around them; they shape everything that you do and you face every day, like this woman with this issue of blood.
The best of human help has not been helpful. Sort of an ironic comment here, that this woman had suffered at the hands of many physicians for many years, and all she had gotten from it was poverty. If you’re in the medical profession, don’t take offense. There wasn’t a whole lot of understanding of the pathology of disease in those days.
Faith Is a War
It’s a world where faith is a war. Are you actually going to believe the radical claims of Jesus, and will you stake your life on those claims? Will Jesus really be your hope; and because He’s your hope, you will do things daily that you wouldn’t have thought of doing any other way?
It’s a world where that kind of radical faith does war with doubt; because although faith is not unreasonable, faith will press you beyond your reason.
You would think in the story of this little girl that dies, you would think that that’s it; it’s over. And when Jesus says, “No, she’s not really dead; she’s just sleeping,” because He knew exactly what He was going to do, and He knew the temporary nature of her death, people laughed! It makes no sense.
That’s our lives. What do you do when the call of faith argues with everything that seems reasonable to you? What do you do? Faith is a war, and it’s a war that’s fought on your heart all the time.
A World Invaded by the Messiah
And then, in all of this, is this third thing that this world that is broken, where faith wars with doubt, is the presence and power of the Messiah, Jesus. This world has been invaded because God was not willing for the world to be in this condition. Praise God for that! He was not willing for His world to be broken, and so He invaded His world with the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. How does God repair His world? What is His ultimate tool? His ultimate tool is Himself.
In the middle of what would be otherwise a very sad story of the sad lives of two people is the power and compassion of Jesus, because this Messiah has more power than you are able to wrap your brain around.
We’ve seen that again and again in Mark; we’ve seen that when the disciples watched Jesus calm the storms, and they essentially say, “Who is this?” And yet that power would mean nothing for us if it weren’t surrounded by glorious love, and by glorious grace, and by glorious compassion. This Savior cares for our suffering. He cares about this broken world. There’s a reason to get up in the morning and press on because this world has been invaded by a glorious Savior! He cares.
And as you read this story, you should let your mind think, “Why would He care? He’s on this world-altering mission. Who cares about one lady; who cares about one little girl?” Well, I can tell you: Jesus does!
And His compassion for the details of our little existence, His willingness to exercise His power to help us in the midst of our little insignificant existence, is itself an argument for the glory of His grace. In a real way, this is a “says-it-all” passage. It’s got all of the elements that we ever need to keep before us.
Jairus: Radical, Costly Faith
Well, Jesus is back across the sea; He’s been going back and forth. And when He gets on the other side of the Galilee, He’s immediately hit by this crowd. Now, you know what’s been happening; the word has been building that there’s this amazing teacher, and He does two things: He teaches like no one else has ever taught. But He’s also a miracle worker.
And He’s encountered by these two people; the first is Jairus. You need to know who this man is. He’s a ruler of the synagogue. That doesn’t mean he was a rabbi or a teacher; he was more in the position of what we would call a deacon. They were prominent men; they cared for the facility of the synagogue, and probably their most important job was they cared for the scrolls, the teaching of the law that was at the epicenter of the worship of the synagogue.
This was a prominent man. These men would’ve been well known. And you need to understand that that religious world had already begun to position itself against Jesus. They had already concluded that this One was a blasphemer; that He had done the unthinkable; He had crossed the border you can’t cross: He claimed to be God. And because of that, He needed to die.
And yet, look where you see this man, verse 22:
Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet and implored him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.”
This is radical, costly faith. This man had much to lose because he was publicly now bowing before the One that the religious establishment had declared to be a blasphemer. And the plot of Jesus’s death was already being planned.
That’s what faith does though. Faith is radical; faith grabs ahold of the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ; faith embraces the truth that Jesus really is, in life, our only hope; faith really does say, “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.” Faith doesn’t count the cost; it’s not timid. True Biblical faith does radical things.
I would ask you this evening: where are you being called to radical things? Where are you being called to radical hope when everything around you says there is no hope? Where are you being called to radical hope? Where are you being called to courageous action? Where are you being called to publicly identify yourself with Jesus Christ? Where in your family, where in your friendship, where at your university, where at your work, are you being called to this kind of faith? And how are you answering that call?
Well, as Jesus is having this man now fall before Him and immediately Jesus responds, it’s an amazing thing. I love the brevity of words of Mark. Look at verse 24: “And he went with him.” Isn’t that amazing? This man falls before Christ, and in love and compassion, Jesus immediately responds. Whatever Christ was planning to do, He heads towards this man’s house.
The Woman Who Pressed Through the Crowd
And of course He doesn’t head there alone because there’s a great crowd. And in the middle of that crowd is this dear woman. What a specific description of her. “There was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years (first part of the description), and who had suffered much under many physicians (second part), and had spent all that she had (third part), and was no better but rather grew worse.” What a sad story.
Sometimes the best of human intervention doesn’t help. As I said before, this was not a day of much medical understanding; almost no understanding of the pathology of disease; almost not what we would call intrusive surgery. In fact, one of the things that was suggested for a woman who was suffering like this woman was that she would carry a dried quail egg with her in the linen pouch. How’s that for medicine? No wonder she had spent all her money and hadn’t arrived at any kind of solution.
Now, she’s also doing something that’s radical and unthinkable. Because of Levitical law, this woman was an outcast, because this issue of blood made her unclean, and so she was not allowed to be part of the synagogue service. In fact, she was not allowed to be part of normal society; she was despised; she was, in all ways, an outcast.
So it’s an unthinkable act of courage for her to be in this crowd in the first place and for her to press her way so close that she would actually touch the garment of Jesus.
This woman is my hero! I love this woman because I love the irrationality of it all. I love the courage of it all. I love the hope of it all. I love the action of it all. And she is determined somehow, some way, “I’m going to touch this man of power because there is no other hope for me!”
True Faith Is Desperate
I believe there’s a way in which true faith is always desperate because true faith recognizes the grandeur of the brokenness of the world. True faith recognizes the brokenness inside of me. True faith embraces inability and true faith runs to Jesus because I have no other hope; there’s nowhere else to look. There aren’t any other answers.
And that’s why we must remember, I think this is very important, that we’re not offering people first a system of answers. We’re not offering people, first, the system of wisdom. In this way, Christianity, as I’ve said to you before, is not just another philosophy on the shelf of philosophies and this one happens to be more logical. No! No! No! No! No! At the center of Christianity is the person and work of Jesus. We believe in a Redeemer. We offer the world a Redeemer!
Am I passionate about this? Well, you can tell, right down to my toes, because I think we get it wrong. Your theology does not make you a people mechanic, where you lift up the hood and you tweak people with some kind of theological ideology. No! You have no ability to do that; you and I have no ability to change anyone. Change is always an act of grace, and that’s why faith is desperate.
We have to say this: the most radical and desperate of faith is only as good as its object. Faith in itself doesn’t save you. There will be people of perseverant lifelong faith who will spend their eternity in hell because their faith wasn’t in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith is only as good as its object, and this woman has chosen the right object. And nothing is going to stop her.
What Gets in the Way of Your Faith?
I would ask you: What gets in the way of your faith? What stops you?
Six months of bad finances and you begin to get depressed, and you begin to question the goodness and faithfulness of God?
A rebellious child who pushes you all around every room of your house, and you begin to wonder if what God’s called you to as a parent works?
A professor in the university who has singled you out because he knows of your Christianity, who is going to do everything he can to mock your faith and make your life as a student very hard?
Too much traffic? A flat tire? Someone finishing the box of cereal? (Sometimes it doesn’t take much.) Sickness that you didn’t think you would have?
But I ask you this evening: Are you pressing through the crowd? Are you saying, “Although there is no place in my life to look for hope, although what I’m going through is hard, I am going to touch the garment of the Messiah. I will not let go of my belief that Jesus is my hope”?
“Who Touched My Garments?”
Well, she does it, and Jesus perceives that power has gone out of Him (this is an amazing account), and He says, “Who touched my garments?”
And the disciples had sort of a typical response: “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched my garments?’”
“What are you talking about? There must have been a thousand people who touched Your garments.”
Now, Jesus is interested because Jesus’s work as a powerful and compassionate Messiah is not done in this woman. And He looks around to see who’s done it, and the woman, knowing what’s happened, in fear and trembling (maybe she doesn’t know if she’s going to be reprimanded or what), comes back to Him and tells Him the whole truth.
And Jesus makes this declaration: “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease.”
Now, I believe that Jesus is making this public declaration for two reasons, and they reveal to you the heart of the Messiah. First, He makes this declaration to the woman so that she would have internal peace, so that she would actually understand, “In fact, God has acted on my behalf, and I am healed.”
And it’s the same reason that God has given us His revelation in Scripture, so we would know His character; we would know His plan; we would know His promises; we would know His provision; we would know His presence, and we could live in peace although what surrounds us doesn’t give us peace.
And so God has made this self-declaration to you so that every morning of every day in your life, you and I have reason for peace.
But I think there’s a second reason. Jesus is making this declaration publicly because He wants the crowd to hear that this woman is now clean. He makes a public declaration of her cleanness: “You’re now healed!” How compassionate! And in that moment, she begins to get released from that horrible life of alienation that had been her existence.
Do Not Fear, Only Believe
Well, while Jesus is speaking to her, the report comes that this little twelve-year-old girl has died. Think for a moment what would flood into the heart of this synagogue ruler, Jairus, who is on his way home with the Messiah, interrupted by this woman, and in the meantime his daughter dies.
Put yourself in that position. The “No! No! No! No!” And Jesus says, “Do not fear, only believe.” Again, a powerful depiction of the radical nature of faith. What informs your view of life? What, in fact, gives you peace?
Again, I will say this again and again to you: human beings made in the image of God do not live life based on the facts of their experience; they live life based on their interpretation of the facts.
You are constantly interpreting. You are a constant theologian. You are a constant philosopher. You are a constant archaeologist digging through your existence seeking to make sense out of it. You never ever escape that; you do that every day; you do that every moment of every day, and your response to life is based on how you’re interpreting life. That interpretive thing that we’re doing all the time is profoundly important.
Now, most often you do it, and you don’t even realize you’re doing it because you don’t stop life and say, “I need to think about what’s happened because I’m an interpreter.” It’s not the way it works, but it’s going on. And so Christ is saying to him, “Let this be your interpretation. Hang on to that radical faith that you had in the beginning. Don’t let this death get in the way of that radical faith.”
From Mourners to Mockers
Well, He narrows the crowd down to three: Peter, James, and John, and they continue with Him to the house of the ruler of the synagogue. Now it’s a scene, a wild scene of commotion, because by custom in these days, when someone would die, the family would hire professional mourners.
That still is a custom that exists in many cultures today. And the more prominent you were and the more money you had, the larger the group of professional mourners that would be there. And they’re weeping and wailing loudly; they’re doing what they are appointed to do. And Jesus enters and says, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead, but sleeping.”
Now notice this; this is what you call a rapid transition. These people have just been mourning, and in an instant, they laugh at Him!
You see, there’s a real way in which there is no neutrality. This faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in the middle of the harsh realities of life in a broken world, is the watershed. You either believe that Jesus is who He is, and you live out that belief, and it shapes the way you respond to the things that you face every day, that in His sovereignty, He has planned for you. Or, you mock His existence, and you live based on your reason.
And laughter, in the face of Christ’s claim, mockery is always derisive. It’s always saying, “Ha! I know better.” There is no comfortable neutrality, and Mark pushes that on us again and again and again in the way that he lays out these accounts.
“Little Lamb, Get Up”
Well, Jesus drives all those professional mourners, who have turned from mourners to mockers pretty quickly, outside of the house; and with the father and mother and the three who were with Him, He went into where the child was.
And this is a gorgeous moment that we ought to consider. He says to her, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.”
There are commentators who note that this is a tender term, a fatherly term. It almost would be proper to translate what Jesus is saying, “Little lamb, get up.” It’s a revelation of the tenderness of the heart of Jesus. Yes, He is on a world-altering mission; the ultimate goal of the mission of this One, who is now touching this girl’s hand, is the renewal of all things, but He loves her. He cares about what she’s going through.
There are no details too small for your Messiah. Do you believe that? Because the Bible says that the end of this all will be renewal of all things. “He comes to make His blessings known far as the curse is found.” In the smallest individual moments of the curse to the grandest creational implications of this curse, this is a Savior of not just awesome compassion, but awesome power. And He cares.
And immediately, the girl gets up and begins walking. Now, she’s not weak for two weeks; she’s healed. And of course, everyone is overcome with amazement. And the story ends this way: Jesus strictly tells them not to tell anyone.
Why is that? Because Jesus is in control of His ministry on earth; He is not ready yet for the final culmination of His ministry in the cross; there’s more that He has to do. And then in a stunning little detail, it says He told them to give her something to eat. How sweet! “She’s hungry; you’d better give her something to eat.”
Your World Has Been Invaded
Well, this is your address, this world. It’s still broken in these ways. I know there are some of you this evening that are facing things you never thought you’d face. There are some of you this evening that are in situations you don’t know what you’re going to do. There are some of you that are in places that maybe no one would notice, but you feel beyond your wisdom and beyond your strength, beyond your understanding. There are some of you that, in quiet moments, have flashes of wonderment about God’s presence, His power, and His love.
These accounts are in Mark so that you would know your world has been invaded. And it hasn’t been just invaded by insight. Yes, it has been invaded by wisdom, because wisdom is a person and His name is Jesus. “In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). But it’s been invaded by this One who is glorious in compassion and glorious in power, and He cares about His fallen world.
But that’s not enough; He cares about you and me. Do you run to Him in faith? Do you say, “Jesus is my solid rock”? Would you do the kind of radical things that these two dear people did because you believe in Jesus?
You see, we are diseased. The thing that all of us suffer from is not physical disease as much as it is that great spiritual disease called sin. And there is no hope for us but the Great Physician, Jesus. In Him and Him alone can forgiveness and power and ultimate deliverance from this sin be found. I would encourage you this evening: press through the crowd; touch His garment. He is magnificent in love and expansive in power.
Closing Prayer
Let’s pray: Lord, in many ways, this passage reminds us that this world is a broken place where there are daily hardships, sometimes small, sometimes grand, sometimes life-altering and unthinkable. But the honesty of that depiction of the realities of the fall is met in Scripture with the hope of the truth that this broken world has been invaded by the Messiah, Jesus.
And so, in the midst of our weakness, in the midst of our inability, in the midst of our wonderment and fear, there is hope to be found. Lord, may we exercise that faith that will not give up, that will not relent, until we are in possession of all that You have promised us. May we get up in the morning and say, “My Lord has compassion; the Lord has power; and because of that, there is hope.” In His sweet and powerful name we pray. Amen!
© 2010 Paul Tripp Ministries
