As he rushed towards the shore, his heart sank as he saw how many people were already there. How was he ever going to get close enough to Him to plead for his daughter’s life … but still. He had to try. He would do anything to save his precious daughter’s life … even if it meant he had to fight everyone in the crowd … and even then he wasn’t sure if he got close enough to the Rabbi that he would have a chance to speak to Him, to beg Him to come lay hands on his daughter or pray or whatever He could do for her … and there was no guarantee that He would help. He did it for Jairus’ neighbor, Jacob … healed his mangled foot and made it like the wagon wheel had never run over it … and Jacob was just a baker … surely He would help Jairus… after all, he was one of the leaders of the synagogue.
Suddenly the people began to crowd even closer to the shore and word began to spread: “There He is!” Jairus began shoving his way to the front, ignoring the angry stares and suspicious whispers: “What’s ‘HE’ doing here?” He didn’t care. For the sake of his daughter, he pressed on until he was standing on the shore … and saw Him … standing in the front of the boat … and a wave of hope washed over him … “If I only I can talk to Him …”.
She saw the crowd gathered on shore, intently looking out at the lake and she was relieved. There were so many of them and they were so intent on meeting Him that they probably wouldn’t notice her as she covered her face and slipped into the crowd, hoping not to be noticed or else they would cast her out … or worse … and she wouldn’t have a prayer of getting close enough to this mysterious Rabbi with great power. She had heard about what He did … all the people that He had healed and all the poor souls He had freed from demons … and she was willing to risk a possible beating if she could just reach out and touch Him. She had no illusions about walking up to Him or talking to Him. The people who knew her wouldn’t let her get that close because of her condition … and they would be right … they would be protecting themselves and protecting this holy man of God from her impurity. “But,” she thought as she quietly and patiently worked her way through the crowd, “if I could just get close enough to touch Him … then maybe … I don’t know what will happen … but I’m willing to try. I’m willing to risk the anger of the mob to just touch Him.”
As I have said several times already, things happen quickly in Mark’s gospel. Jesus is preaching and healing when He is accused of being mentally unbalanced by His own family and He is accused of being an agent of Beelzebub. He sails over to the gentile or pagan side of the Sea of Galilee … where Jesus stills a deadly storm in the middle of the night … and is immediately accosted by an insane man possessed by a thousand demons the second that the boat that He’s in touches the shore. There was a crowd that followed Him to the shore when He left and now there’s a crowd waiting for Him when He comes back … and in that crowd were desperate people … more than two, I’m sure … but for Mark’s purpose, he choose two people in the crowd to once again demonstrate Jesus’ true identity, His true nature, His true power and … once again … to challenge US to see Jesus’ true identity, His true nature, His true power, and His true compassion as a way of helping us understand why He came and why He did what He did for us.
As I said, we don’t know how many people where there that day out of curiosity, how many were there because they heard rumors about a great healer coming to town, or went there to just to hear Him teach. I’m sure there were people there for all kinds of reasons … and some of them, like Jairus, where there out of sheer desperation and others, like the sick woman, who were there in the hopes of being healed … and the contrast between the two tells us volumes about Jesus and the heart of God. One person is a leading member of the community, the other an outcast. One person was there to plead for the life of a loved one and the other was there seeking help for their physical condition … and what’s key is that Jesus takes the time to help both. I say “time” because “time” is an important factor in the lives of these two people … one whose loved one’s time is running out and he doesn’t have seconds to spare and the other whose been burdened with a sickness that has affected her for many years.
Here’s something else about the events of that day that you might not have noticed. While Jairus is a man, this is really about two women … actually, a girl and a woman. One of them was 12 years old and the other had been suffering with a bleeding condition for 12 years. One was entering puberty and wasn’t old enough to have children yet and the other couldn’t have children. Both the woman and the girl were “unclean” … one woman because she was hemorrhaging and the other woman because she was dead by the time that Jesus was able to reach her. One was healed when she touched Jesus and the other was “healed” when Jesus touched her.
One was the daughter of a man with high status in the local community. As an official of the synagogue, he was a man of influence and some wealth. We know that he had servants and he had paid professional mourners to wait in the wings in case he didn’t find Jesus or Jesus refused to help him or he didn’t get help in time and his daughter died. Even though there was a crowd, I picture people parting and letting Jairus pass through the crowd when they realized who he was … and I can almost hear the murmurs of surprise when they saw him fall on his knees at the feet of this unknown rabbi and healer from the backwaters of Galilee and beg for Him to come to his house and save his daughter’s life. And the crowd was probably not surprised that Jesus started to follow him to his house … given the fact that the man was so important and his situation was so desperate … and this provides the distraction that the sick woman needs to get close enough to touch him and perhaps slip away unnoticed.
But Someone does notice … Jesus, amen? The second that she touches Jesus, her bleeding stops. And the instant that she touches Him, He notices. “Who touched my clothes?” Now, let’s pause here. In fact, that’s exactly what Mark wants us to do. Up until this point, we have a sense of hurrying … of desperation. Seconds count. In fact, Jairus’ daughter could already be dead. Jairus pushes through the crowd to get to Jesus and Jesus and His disciples push through the crowd to get to Jairus’ house and then … all of a sudden … Jesus just stops. “Who touched me?” Can you feel it? The whole crowd stops … they stop talking … they stop pushing and shoving … and begin to look around … to wonder, as the Disciples were, about what He was talking about. He’s surrounded by all the energy of the crowd … there is the pressure of the situation … and yet He stops and wants to know who touched Him? Now? Really? Who wasn’t touching Him? And poor Jairus! I can imagine that he was beside himself … ready to explode! Who cares if someone touched Him? They don’t have time for this … and he is right. While Jesus is talking to the woman who touched him, he receives word that his daughter is dead … and all the urgency just dissipates instantly. “Why trouble the teacher any further?” (Mark 5:35).
Jesus stops everything to find out who touched Him. Well, actually, He knows who touched Him. The reason that Jesus asks the question is key, I believe, because Mark wants us to know … just as Jesus wanted the crowd to know the kind of power that Jesus had. And it is important to follow the sequence of events here. Jesus stops to help an “unclean” woman while the life of the daughter of a prominent leader hangs in the balance … and, in fact, because He stops to talk to this unclean women, the girl passes away … but again, it's all part of the way that Jesus displays His power … so stay with me.
This woman could have touched Jesus and then quietly, discreetly slipped back into the crowd and disappeared … but her situation was such that nobody would have known. She could then quietly go to the priest … as she no doubt did … and have herself declared “clean” but she has been isolated from her family and her community for 12 years. How many years would it take for her to overcome her stigma and be accepted back into the community?
When Jesus calls out for the woman to show herself, she, like Legion, like Jairus, falls before Him on her knees … terrified of what Jesus might do to her for stealing some of His magic. A person with such great power could do some pretty horrendous things to you if they were mad … and so she kneels and begs for forgiveness. Mark says that she told Him the whole truth … and why not? Why lie? It was clear that He knew that someone had touched Him and that some of His power had gone to that person and healed them. And I think that is part of the reason why Jesus called this woman out. If she … or anyone else … thought that it was magic, Jesus immediately sweeps that notion away. “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” It wasn’t magic but her faith in Jesus that healed her and made her whole.
Her healing also served as a testament to the crowd and to, well, to us, amen? Not only could she have silently slipped away into the crowd and not come forward when Jesus demanded to know who touched Him, but He could have just let her go as well … both of them knowing that she was healed and both knowing who healed her. Had Jesus not stopped and asked who touched His garments, no one would have known of the miracle save Jesus and the woman. When she saw the eyes of Jesus fixed upon her, she knew that He knew everything. She feels like she has been caught “stealing” when, in reality, Jesus makes it clear that she has nothing to fear because she hasn’t stolen anything from Him but He has given it to her … and to anyone who has the faith to believe that if they could just reach out … if they could just touch Him.
She could have silently slipped out of the crowd and no one but Jesus would have been the wiser but Jesus called her out, not to humiliate her or even to glorify Himself, but to let others know, through her testimony and witness, make the crowd wiser … and make us wiser as to who He is and what great power He has. By calling her out, Jesus publicly made it known that this woman … who had been isolated from family, from friends, from the community and the synagogue for 12 years … had been healed … not just physically but spiritually and emotionally as well. Remember … she was afraid that if the people in the crowd knew she was there … that she had touched some of them … and touched Jesus …and made them unclean … that they … and Jesus … would understandably be upset. By calling her out, Jesus is now declaring that she is no longer a danger or a threat to the community and that she is free once again to go about her life like everybody else and enjoy the things that everyone else took for granted … like touching and hugging and kissing people and being touched and hugged and kissed too.
In the middle of all this is Jairus … who no doubt is ready to explode. Why is He wasting His time with this … this … unclean woman? She was well enough to come to Jesus and steal a touch … His daughter is lying at death’s door and every second counts. And, in fact, while all this is going on, his worst fear comes true. His daughter dies and his whole world comes to a crashing halt. He had rushed to the shore to beg Jesus to come to his house … waited like everyone else in the hopes that He would get a moment of Jesus’ time to plead for his daughter’s life … and it seems like his prayers are answered as Jesus starts heading to his house … when He stops to what? Have a teaching moment? To waste precious seconds to what? Make a point?
And now, when he is overcome with grief, Jesus tells him to not give up hope. “Do not fear, only believe.” What? Fear what? His worst fear has already happened. His daughter is dead. Believe what? That Jesus could do anything? There was nothing that Jesus or anybody could do … she was dead … and so was his hope. The last thing he needed at that point was some kind of pie-in-the-sky pep talk about not giving up hope. Jesus’ words probably sounded as ridiculous and as pointless … maybe even more so … to Jairus at this point as Jesus’ question of who touched Him did to the Disciples. Why go on? And yet Jesus does!
Now … it would seem that Jairus had every right to get angry and blame his daughter’s death on Jesus … she might still be alive if Jesus hadn’t wasted time with this woman. Actually, the fact that he saw Jesus heal this woman and heard her testimony might have given him hope … only to have that hope snatched away … making his loss all the more bitter and painful. He didn’t know if Jesus could heal his daughter or not but he was willing to go any distance and pay any amount to save her life … just as this woman had risked a beating and given all her money to get cured … and her efforts paid off … maybe his would too. But this woman gets to go home and celebrate while he has to go home and mourn and wonder if his daughter might still be alive if Jesus hadn’t stopped and wasted time calling out this woman. And now, drowning in a sea of grief, Jesus tells him not to fear but believe and when they get to his house, He tells the mourners that she is not dead but only asleep. If his grief and pain weren’t crushing him, he would have laughed with them. But Jesus seems determined and presses on … which, at this point, makes absolutely no sense. She’s dead. She’s gone. And there’s nothing that Jesus or anyone can do for her. And then Jesus goes and says something crazy like “fear not.” Of course not … Jairus’ worst fear at this point has come to pass … they didn’t get there in time and his daughter is dead. “Only believe.” Believe what? That she’s dead? Believe that there is anything that Jesus or anybody else can do? But remember, Jairus doesn’t know who Jesus is other than a man with the power to heal people … he saw that for himself. Neither do the people in the crowd or the people gathered at Jairus’ house … and neither do we. Remember, we’re hearing this for the first time. Jesus has healed people … Jesus has told the wind and the waves to knock it off … we know that Jesus has tremendous power over disease, demons, and nature itself … but death? Nothing can stop death and nothing can be done once a person is dead … and so, like Jairus, like the people gathered at Jairus’ house, we have to skeptically wonder what Jesus is up to, amen?
Now … the Apostle John mentions a similar event in his gospel. When Jesus found out that Lazarus was sick, He said something, well, strange, odd. “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (John 11:4). By the time Jesus shows up in Bethany, His friend Lazarus had been dead for four days … and Lazarus’ sister, Martha and Mary, are understandably upset. Unlike Jairus, who hoped that Jesus could do something for his daughter, they were upset because they knew that Jesus could have healed their brother and saved his life if He had gotten there in time. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:32).
When Jesus said that there was no hurry because Lazarus’ illness and death would glorify Him, it sounds rather … well … I’m not sure that vain is the right thing but it always kind of baffled me. Why let Lazarus die? Just to make a point? Well … yes, but here’s the point … not to show off … not for His personal glorification … but that His glory would show us why we should not fear … why He is to be believed … why we have faith … because death … while a final and insurmountable obstacle for us … it is nothing compared to the power that Jesus has over illness, over nature … over death, amen?
What would you do if someone you loved were sick and dying? If they only had weeks or days or minutes to live? We’d be like Jairus … we’d be like Mary and Martha … panicked … rushing … hurrying … doing everything that we could to beat the clock. We would be focused and we would be determined because death is the greatest enemy of life and its power is total and absolute for us. Once a person is dead … all hope is gone … but so long as they are alive, there’s a chance … there’s hope … and we wouldn’t waste it on an unclean woman who was sick … but would rush to the side of a girl who was hanging onto life by a thread like Jairus’ daughter was … not go to Judea and waste time preaching and teaching to a bunch of people who tried to kill you the last time you where there but make haste as quickly as possible to save a friend’s life … if you had that power, amen?
And that’s the point, my friend. Up to this point, we, like Jairus, have no clue who Jesus is or what He can do but there is one person who does … Jesus Himself. To Him, death is no obstacle. Death is not the end. It’s just another state of being … like being asleep … and though we don’t have the power to rouse someone from death’s sleep, He does … and so He lives by a different set of priorities. It’s not that He chose to help this sick woman over helping Jairus’ daughter but rather that He could and would help both. So, He takes care of the sick woman first … and that should be comforting to us. He doesn’t weigh us on a scale … He doesn’t have to triage us like they have to do at the hospital … getting to the most severe cases first because they have limited supplies or have to beat the clock. At that moment, the woman who touched Him was just as important to Jesus as the young girl dying at home … and He cared for them both and He did something amazing for them both, amen?
British pastor Frank W. Boreham recounted a time when a minister visited his home in New Zealand. Being young and inexperienced, Boreham sought the counsel of his guest. One morning they were sitting on the veranda of his house, looking out over the golden plains to the purple sunlit mountains. He asked the older and more experienced minister: “Can a man be sure that in the hour of perplexity he will be rightly led by God? Can he feel secure against making a false step?” “I am certain of it,” the guest said without hesitation, “if he will but give God time! As long as you live, remember that. Give God time.” It seems that whenever we want God to act, we want Him to act on our timetable. But God is not bound by our schedule. He operates on His own schedule for His own purposes and goals. He want us not to fear, only to believe, to trust that He is doing something and that He knows what He is doing, amen?
“Do not fear, only believe.” Believe in the One who has power … power over disease … power over demons … power over nature … and even power over death, amen? Not only does Mark use these two experiences to demonstrate the power of our Lord Jesus … he also uses them to reveal the person of Jesus. What we see in these passages is not just that God is a God of infinite power, but that He is also sensitive to our sufferings and trials. He is deeply touched by our human needs. He is sensitive to our sufferings and our trials in life. He not only cares for the raising up and putting down of kingdoms, but cares about a poor sick woman who spent 12 years hopelessly searching for a cure and a father and his terminally ill 12-year-old daughter.
The four miracles of Mark 4 and 5 prove that Jesus is not only a messiah … and earthly king anointed by God … but THE Messiah … with a capital “M.” He is the Lord of Creation, as shown in the stilling of the wind and the waves. He is Lord over Satan and his demons when he drives them out of Legion and into a herd of pigs who drown themselves. He is Lord over sickness and death as we have seen today. In each case, the people involved were completely helpless … incapable of helping themselves or being helped by anybody else but Jesus. The storm on the lake terrified experienced sailors. The demoniac could not subdue or drive out the legion of demons that were driving him mad. The hemorrhaging woman couldn’t heal herself and all her money and all the doctors and healers that she paid couldn’t heal her either. And the young girl who died could neither heal herself or bring herself back to life … and neither could Jairus … but Jesus could and He did, hallelujah, amen?
In utterly hopeless cases such as these, Jesus was able to heal and to save. In times when we think that everything around us is collapsing and God seems to be puttering around Heaven, stories like this remind us to do what Jesus told the Disciples and sailors during the storm at sea: Peace! Be still! (Mark 4:39). “Do not fear, only believe,” He tells us when our world, like Jairus’, comes crashing down around our heads. If we have faith, we’ll crawl to Him if we have to just to touch His robe. We do not fear but believe that He is greater and more powerful than even death. We do not fear because He will come, take us by the hand and say, “Qum! Arise!” and we will either sit up and eat something here and our life will go on or we will be seated at His table in Heaven, amen? When we reach a point where we have no hope left and we don’t see any point in bothering Jesus, that’s the time that we need to do as He commanded: “Do not fear, only believe” and “give God time.” We may not be able to predict how or even when God is going to act but we can be certain that He will, amen?
