Jesus Raises A Dead Girl & Heals A Sick Woman Series

Apprenticing Under the Master January 15, 2006

Mark 5:21-43

Jesus Raises a Dead Girl & Heals a Sick Woman

It’s been a long time since we’ve been in Mark, but if you don’t mind, I plan to return to Mark periodically. We still have much to learn from Jesus in Mark as we “Apprentice Under the Master”

In this story, Jesus has just returned from the region of the Gerasenes on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. The people of the Gerasenes didn’t want Jesus to stay in their region after he freed the man from the legion of demons. Either they were afraid of his power, or they were upset that the demons had killed the pigs and they were left with a sane man and no pigs. The people on this side of the Lake, however, embraced Jesus. A crown gathered around him as soon as he made landfall on the beach.

Through the crowd comes one of the leaders of the synagogue, a man named Jairus, comes. Other religious leaders had rejected Jesus, he threatened their position among the people. With Jesus, everyone came on equal footing to God, there were no super saints and sinners, they were all sinners in need of forgiveness from a loving father. It made it very difficult to accept Jesus as a leader, they had too much to lose. But Jairus was in danger of losing too much without Jesus. His daughter was ill to the point of death. Have you ever had a sick child? It becomes pretty easy to give up your pride when the one you love is sick, you would crawl on your knees up the hospital stairs if it would do anything to heal them, if it would do anything to get the doctor’s attention.

Jairus comes through the crowd and falls at Jesus feet, begging Jesus to come and put his hands on the little girl so that she would be healed and live. Jairus is desperate, and his prayer is a desperate prayer. It’s okay for those of us in desperate situations to pray prayers of desperation, to beg God for salvation and healing. Jesus, and thus God, does not stand on ceremony, you don’t have to hold your tongue just right to have your prayers answered, you can pour your heart out to him and he hears you.

1 Peter 5:7 “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you!”

Verse 24 says it so simply “So Jesus went with him.” The man’s begging doesn’t bother Jesus: He has compassion on him and his love for his sick daughter. He ignores the crowd, and goes with Jairus.

The crowd that gathered went with Jesus, they were all trying to get close to him, they were jostling and pressing in on him. In the midst of the crowd was this woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. Her ailment must had kept her weak, but there was the element of shame attached as well. She would have been considered ceremonially unclean for those 12 years, unable to worship in the temple or to participate in the festivals or other religious ceremonies. It would be like being kept out of church and not allowed to participate in Christmas or Easter or Thanksgiving, weddings, funerals, celebrations of births, nothing.

Anyone one who touched here would be considered unclean for a time until they had followed the cleansing rituals. She would have had to float under the radar for 12 years. The doctors had attempted to help her, but they had only made her worse and poorer for their failure. She remain an “untouchable”

She had joined the jostling crowd in the hope that she could just touch the healer’s robe and be rid of this curse forever. She doesn’t want to have to explain her self to the man, she just wants a quiet, anonymous healing.

She gets close enough, reaches out and touches the hem of his coat and instantly she is healed. The cause of 12 years of bleeding was removed and stopped.

But Jesus has felt the healing power go out from him and he stops and asks, “who touched my clothes?” The disciples look at him like he’s lost it. It’s like someone from the mosh pit asking, “Who brushed up against me?” They say, “Oh. Come on Lord, everyone touched you.” Jesus keeps looking around, finally, the woman, terrified, falls at his feat and confesses that she stole the healing.

Jesus says “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.

Who knows why Jesus brought her out of her shame and made her show her face. Maybe it was so that she wouldn’t walk away and a day or so later think to herself that Jesus had nothing to do with it, she simply got better, her body healed itself. Now there was no doubt. Jesus healed her.