Mark 5:21 When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. 22 One of the synagogue rulers, named Jairus, came. Seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet 23 and pleaded earnestly with him, "My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live." 24 So Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." 29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. 30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. he turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?" 31 "You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?'" 32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."
Introduction
Three Households
It was just a typical, ordinary day in Galilee. And this teenager named Jesus woke up that morning and it was just like any other morning. You may have heard that we don’t know anything that happened in Jesus’ life between age 12 and age 30, but this morning I’m going to tell you about something that took place when Jesus was in his late teens—maybe 18 or 19 years old. Jesus was just going about his normal, daily routine in Nazareth—nothing special. But about 20 miles away, in the upper-class section of Capernaum, a man and his wife were beside themselves with joy. They just had their first (and, it would turn out only) child – a beautiful, healthy little girl, and they invited friends over and were laughing and celebrating. Like most parents, their minds were filled with thoughts of the future – hopes and expectations, wondering what life would be like for that little one, who she might someday marry and all the rest. I want you to listen for a moment to the sounds of laughter and rejoicing coming from that house.
And now listen as those sounds fade as we move a few blocks away to another house. This house is quiet. A young woman is sitting by her bed, alone, and she isn’t laughing at all. In fact, she is really starting to get scared now. You see, a few weeks ago she realized something was wrong in her body. She didn’t want to tell anyone at first, but this month, for some reason, her period just didn’t stop. It has been several weeks now, and she realizes she needs to see a doctor.
That would be enough of a concern medically, but for her there was much more to it than that. In Leviticus 15 it says that when a woman has this kind of problem, it makes her ritually unclean until it stops. Blood symbolized life, loss of blood was a symbol of death, and so it made a person unclean. The woman would be unclean, anything she touched was unclean, and any person she touched was unclean. So she hasn’t been able to go to the Temple or enter a synagogue for almost a month now.
And on top of the medical aspect, and the religious and social aspects, there’s also the personal side. For a woman to have a problem with her uterus—that’s not like some other diseased body part. That goes to the heart of her womanhood, especially in that culture where 99% of a woman’s value was in her ability to bear children.
And so there she is, sitting alone in her room wondering about the future. What if they can’t do anything? What if this keeps going for months … or a year? Her life would be ruined. She would be looked at as nothing but a contamination in a culture that already had a low enough view of women.
Now, this couple with the new baby and the woman with the bleeding didn’t know each other, had never met, and from this moment on their lives go in opposite directions. The man with the new daughter is on a track of success. He climbs the social ladder and eventually was appointed as a ruler of the synagogue... , which was an influential and respected position in the community. He loves his family, and as the years go by he takes great joy in watching his daughter grow up and begin to mature.
The woman’s life, on the other hand, has become a nightmare. The hemorrhage never did stop. And she tried doctor after doctor.
26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors
Sometimes the things doctors do to you are worse than the disease. My sister had a health problem when she was in Russia, and to treat it, they destroyed her thyroid. That didn’t help her condition at all, and now she has to take thyroid medicine for the rest of her life. And in that day, it was a lot worse than in our day. I read about some of the cures they had back then for this kind of problem. One was for her to carry a barley corn found in the dung of a white female donkey. If that didn’t work, she could drink some disgusting concoction, and then have someone come from behind and scare her. Gynecology, in ancient times, was not very advanced. But when you get desperate, you get so you’ll try anything. So she went from doctor to doctor. Every one of them charged her full price, and none of their remedies worked at all. In fact, they actually did damage to her so she’s bleeding even more now. And, of course, none of them offered her a refund. They took every last dime.
26 … and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.
Literally it says she spent all her wealth, so at one point she had money, but not anymore. She’s most likely alone with one to take care of her. No one would marry a woman like that, and if it started after she was already married, her husband would have been long gone. The inability to have children was grounds for divorce in that culture.
Back in the other neighborhood, that happy couple’s little girl recently had her 12th birthday. But one day, while her dad was at work, word came that his daughter was very sick. He rushed home and found that it was serious—real serious. The doctor says, “I’m sorry, I don’t know if she’s going to make it.” What a nightmare.
What do these stories have in common? A man with a 12-year-old daughter, a woman with a 12-year-old disease, and Jesus with his 12 disciples arriving by boat back in Israel. What do they all have in common? Nothing, until today when all three lives intersect in an amazing divine appointment.
A Desperate Request
Last week we left off with Jesus and the disciples paddling their boat, bumping along through 2000 floating pig carcasses in the lake to come back home after Jesus sent an entire legion of Satan’s finest to the Abyss.
21 When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake.
There’s the inevitable crowd. Jesus climbs out of the boat, he’s standing there talking to the people, and suddenly the crowd begins to stir. Everybody turns and looks.
22 Then one of the synagogue rulers, named Jairus, came.
That’s sounds a little ominous at first, because the last time Jesus was in a synagogue, the leadership became infuriated and went off to develop a plot to kill Jesus. So the crowd kind of parts, this synagogue official steps forward—what’s he going to do? Is this going to get violent?
22 … Seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet 23 and pleaded earnestly with him
Woah. No one saw that coming. This synagogue official falls down in a posture of worship and begs Jesus to help him.
23 "My little daughter is dying.
The word translated little daughter is a diminutive, which just drips with affection. Even though she’s twelve years old, when you’re about to lose her, she’s still your little baby girl. I walked my two baby girls down the isle to get married a few years back. And if you don’t know what I mean by that, just watch the movie Father of the Bride, where the adult daughter announces that she’s engaged, and the father looks at her and all he sees is a little 5-year-old in pig tails talking about getting married. That’s how it is for a dad. This is the language of a man whose heart is gathering in all the years of love for his precious daughter all into one, massive moment of overpowering love and agony at the thought of losing her.
23 "My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live."
He wants Jesus to come to his house. But Jesus is a busy man. He’s the most in-demand person in the country. He’s constantly mobbed by crowds. He’s the Messiah. Do you suppose a man like that is going to do house calls? Sure.
Jesus’ Response: He Goes with Jairus
24 So Jesus went with him.
It’s amazing how available Jesus was. You didn’t have to set an appointment with one of the disciples’ admin assistants. You could just walk right up to him and ask for something, and he’d come to your home.
So Jesus starts making his way toward this man’s house. And so did everyone else.
24 … A large crowd followed and pressed around him.
A loving father and a dying little girl—this is tugging at everyone’s heart strings. So they all go, and they are all squeezed into the narrow streets. Its says the crowd pressed around him. Luke says the crowds almost crushed him.
An Unclean Interruption
So there they all go, and this is where it gets interesting. This pressing crowd had to be frustrating to the girl’s father, Jairus. It would be like if your child were dying and the ambulance is stuck in heavy traffic. And then something big happens that nobody sees.
25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. … 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be saved.”
This woman squeezes up through the crowd from behind. Why do it that way? Surely there’s a lot better chance of getting healed if she just asked Jesus directly for healing. This touching the clothes idea doesn’t sound like it’s very likely to work. And she may never get another chance to meet Jesus. That should give you some idea of how afraid she was of her problem being exposed. She would rather risk going the rest of her life with this problem than actually talk to Jesus face to face.
But on the other hand, I don’t know if she even thought it was that much of a risk. She has so much faith in the power of Christ. Preachers criticize her for being superstitious. But I don’t think that’s what’s happening. I don’t think she believes Jesus is wearing magic clothes, so that any contact will automatically heal. Otherwise, everyone in this crowd would be healed. I think what we see here is not superstition; what we see is a woman who has such confidence in the power and love of Christ, that she is fully convinced that just the slightest brush with that power will be enough to give her everything she needs. And she was right.
Opposites or Twins? What Matters Most About You
Many people have pointed out that these two people—the synagogue ruler and the woman, are opposites. They couldn’t be more different. He’s a man, and she’s a woman, which, in that culture, made her very much a second-class citizen. He’s respected and popular; she’s despised. He’s well-to-do, she is penniless. He is at the center of religious life; she’s not even allowed to set foot in the Temple or a synagogue. He’s married; she’s single. Opposites, right?
Wrong. These two individuals are exactly the same. Their differences are superficial. But in the ways that really matter, they are the same. They are both desperate people who are coming to Jesus Christ in faith because they have no hope outside of him showing them mercy.
The factors that determine who you are and what’s important about you are not things like your age or social standing or marital status or financial status or any of that. It’s what kind of relationship do you have with the Lord Jesus Christ.
That’s what determines who you are and what you are far more than any other characteristic which is great because, unlike most of those other things, this is something you can control.
Jesus’ Response: Healing
So this woman elbows her way up close to Jesus, waits for a little opening, sees an opportunity, and reaches out, and closes her hand just for a split-second around one of his tassels on his cloak. And at that split-second, that same omnipotent power that calmed the storm and drove out the legion of demons courses through her body and she can tell that she is healed.
29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
What all her money and all the doctors couldn’t do in 12 years, Jesus does in an instant. And I love it that it’s free of charge. Whatever organs and tissue that needed to be repaired were suddenly healthy and functioning properly.
30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him.
Jesus felt it. What did he feel? What does it feel like to have divine power go out of you? I wouldn’t know. Only one person in existence knows, so if you want to know what it felt like, you’ll have to ask Jesus when you see him.
Who Touched Me?
Anyway, at this point this woman is thrilled. Her sketchy plan actually worked! She touched him, she’s healed, nobody saw it, and all she has to do now is drift out the back of the crowd and be on her way. Perfect. But then, her plan falls apart. Up to now, everyone is getting what they want, but then Jesus does something that horrifies both the woman and the synagogue ruler. Keep in mind, up to this point not one word has been spoken. The narrator has been telling us what Jesus and this woman have been thinking and feeling, but none of that was visible to the crowd. As far as everyone else is concerned, nothing has happened. They are still just walking down the street to Jairus’ house. And suddenly, without warning Jesus stops, and the people behind him bump into the back of him. “Oops, sorry Jesus. Why did you stop so suddenly?”
30 he turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"
Can you imagine how bizarre that question sounded to the people?
31 "You see the people pressing against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?'"
“What do you mean, ‘Who touched me’? How about everyone?” And the thing I find really funny is what Luke tells us.
Luke 8:45 "Who touched me?" Jesus asked. … they all denied it
Why did they deny it? Something about the way Jesus asked this question was intimidating. “I don’t know what you’re talking about Jesus, but whatever it is, it wasn’t me.” Think about that—if the whole crowd is intimidated and they didn’t even do anything, you can imagine how this woman feels. Beyond the embarrassment of the kind of female bleeding problem she had was the fact that everyone she touched became unclean. If this crowd finds out she is defiled, and they realize she was bumping up against everyone as she approached Jesus, she’s going to be in trouble. Especially with a synagogue official right there on scene. And it was a scandal for a woman to touch a man in public at all, much more an unclean woman touching a famous rabbi. So she is beyond intimidated.
Why doesn’t Jesus just let her quietly walk away? He could think to himself, “OK, that dear lady was just healed” and be on his way. Maybe give her a wink, keep walking, and no one would have to know. After all, he is on his way to deal with a medical emergency.
But to the horror of the synagogue ruler, who is desperate for Jesus to get to his house in time, and to the horror of the woman, Jesus stops, and asks: who touched my clothes? And when they all deny it, Jesus won’t let it go.
32 Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it.
I don’t know how long this standoff went, but Jesus is scanning the crowd to spot who it was. Evidently, he knows who it is, and he wants to make eye contact.
Violation of Privacy
The woman is concerned about one thing at this moment: protecting her privacy. But it doesn’t work. She tries to appear inconspicuous, keeps her head down, tries to blend in to the crowd, but then she glances up and Jesus’ eyes are locked on to hers. She’s caught.
33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her (and Luke adds, seeing that she could not go unnoticed)…came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth.
She’s so petrified, she is literally shaking. But there’s no getting out of this now, so she confessed everything. She admits the kind of problem she has, and that she had been unclean – and amid all the gasps and sneers and angry looks and all the distain from the crowd she went on to explain what she had done and why. Now she’s totally exposed. The privacy she tried so hard to guard—Jesus completely destroyed it.
And that’s not really all that unusual for Jesus. In fact, I honestly can’t think of any time when Jesus ever showed any concern for protecting anyone’s privacy. Jesus isn’t real big on privacy, because he came into this world to create a family—a close family. And privacy is the enemy of intimacy. You can’t be close to someone while guarding your privacy. And you can’t function in the body of Christ with the kinds of relationships Scripture calls for if you are maintaining privacy. Obviously there are some things that should be kept private. But when you get to the point where everything of any significance about you is hidden, and you keep everyone in the church at arm’s length; you can’t possibly obey the one-another commands in Scripture.
Jesus’ Words to the Woman
Well, this woman is scared to death. She has broken the law, violated society norms, acted secretly, recklessly made everyone around her unclean, then Jesus has this really intimidating reaction, demanding to know who did it. Now that he found the culprit, what is Jesus going to do? Mark holds us in suspense. You get the sense she’s in trouble. She certainly thinks she is. Everyone is dying to know.
34 He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."
She braces herself for a rebuke, and instead she gets, essentially, a big bear hug. He calls her daughter, which means she is now in the family of God. Remember, in ch.3 Jesus said his true family is made up of those who do the Father’s will, and so he’s saying this woman has done the Father’s will by trusting in Jesus. He calls her daughter, commends her faith, and then pronounces a blessing on her for the future. Go in peace is literally go into peace. He is sending her off into a life of peace, and in the Jewish context, peace (SHALOM) includes more than just healing. It describes well-being in general, especially in your relationship with God. Jesus is saying this healing is not temporary, it is thorough, and it’s just the tip of the iceberg of the blessings this woman is going to receive going forward.
You see, when Jesus destroyed her precious privacy, he wasn’t being cruel or insensitive. He was more sensitive to her needs than she was to her own needs. You see, this woman needs more than just healing. She thinks her need is met. She has what she came for, now she’s healed, she’s whole, she’s clean, she’s happy – that’s as much as she could have ever dreamed to have when she woke up that morning. And that’s enough for her, but it’s not enough for Jesus. Jesus wants to give her more.
For one thing, he wants it on the public record that she is now ceremonially clean. She can go to the synagogue, the Temple—wherever she wants. Jesus wants everyone to know that.
Secondly, he wants to put his glory on display. He can make uncleanness clean. Have you noticed how much of an emphasis there is on Jesus purifying uncleanness? First he touched that leper and made him clean, then he forgave the sins of the paralytic and Levi and has dinner with a bunch of former riff-raff, then that incident with the legion of demons where everything was unclean (demons, Gentiles, pigs, corpses), and now this unclean woman. Part of his glory is that when he touches uncleanness, he makes it clean. And he wants to put that on display. When we get too secretive about our ugliness and uncleanness, Christ gets no glory when he delivers us. If you’re struggling with some sin, and no one knows about it, then how does Christ get glory when he delivers you from it?
Third, he wants to make it clear that it was not the action of touching him that healed her, but the faith behind that action.
34 …your faith has healed you.
There is no physical action you can do that will, in and of itself, bring you grace from God—not baptism, not communion, nothing. Only faith.
The Depth of Christ’s Love
So those are a few reasons why Jesus does this, but there’s one more really big reason why Jesus does this, and this is the crux of the issue. It’s easy to miss, and most people do, because it’s just one, single word in the text. But it’s the most important word in this whole account. What does Jesus call this woman?
34 He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has saved you.”
If you want to understand the meaning of this miracle, underline the word daughter in your Bible as many times as you can. That is the key to understanding this whole event. He doesn’t call her “woman” like he did with his mother. he doesn’t call her “sister” like he did back in ch.3 when he called his female followers his sisters. Did you know that this is the only time Jesus ever called anyone “daughter”? We are Jesus’ brothers and sisters and we are sons and daughters of God the Father. So this is very out of the ordinary and striking that he would call this woman daughter.
We miss that only because we fail to pay attention to what’s going on in this event, but no one who was there could have possibly missed it. All three gospel writers, even though they place this account in different places in their gospel, they all put the healing of this woman right in the middle of the account about Jairus ... , because that’s what shows us the significance of Jesus’ words. Think about what it was like for them. What do you think was going through Jairus’ mind the moment Jesus decided to stop walking? “What are you doing? Why are you stopping? Don’t you understand—this is a medical emergency. My little girl is dying!” Then Jesus stops and asks, “Who touched my clothes?” Jairus is thinking, “Who touched his My baby girl is dying, her life could be snuffed out at any moment, and he’s worried about ‘who touched my clothes’?” “Jesus, how about we talk about this while we walk? We’re walking and talking and we’ll figure out who touched you while we keep walking. Come on, let’s go!”
But Jesus refuses to take another step. And he strings the whole thing out, longer and longer. In fact, we’re going to find out that the delay could have been several hours. And every minute Jesus spends investigating who touched his clothes, that little girl is suffering. She’s in pain. She’s dying. I’ve never lost a child, but I have thought before about what I would do if one of my kids died, and it brings tears to my eyes just to think of the hypothetical. If you’re in Jairus’ shoes at this point you don’t see an ostracized woman, you don’t see Jesus’ compassion, you don’t see a great healing, you don’t learn a lesson – all you see in one big, fat, maddening delay. Like if your child were being rushed to a hospital by flight for life, and on the way they stop to tend to someone who has had some condition for 12 years (hardly an emergency). Jairus is standing there, and his heart is bleeding for his daughter to the highest conceivable degree of emotion that a human being has the capacity of experiencing. He is wrenched on the inside. The whole time he’s thinking, “My daughter, my daughter, my sweet, precious little baby! Oh, my little daughter!” And suddenly he snaps out of that when he hears Jesus says these words, “Daughter, your faith has saved you.”
I guarantee nobody missed that. “What did he just call her?” Everyone is fixated on the preciousness of this man’s daughter and poor Jairus with tears running down his faceAnd right in the middle of all that, Jesus, who is always the master of the moment, forces everyone’s attention on this unclean societal reject and calls her his daughter. Do you see it now? Jesus is using Jairus’ feelings for his little girl to teach us how he feels about that filthy, unclean, defective, reject of a woman who believes. You can imagine Jairus looking off that way, in the direction of his house where his little daughter is and it’s like Jesus grabs Jairus’ face in both hands and turns his face toward that woman and says, “Jairus, do you see her? That’s my baby girl! This woman, who disgusts everyone who sees her, who has been shoved to the margins of society, rejected, contaminating, ostracized, hopeless, the kind of person no one wants to be around—broken, useless, unclean, unloved, unlovely, undesirablewhen I see her, the emotions that course through me are the same emotions you feel for your little girl at home.”
People think Mark 5 is the story of Jairus’ daughter? No, it’s the story of Jesus’ daughter.
Conclusion
Look at Yourself through the Eyes of Christ
Look at yourself through the eyes of Christ. Maybe you are this woman. You are pushed out to the fringes in some context. You feel like unclean, unloved, rejected, unworthy. Look how Jesus loves this woman. That’s how he feels toward you if you trust him.
Look at People through the Eyes of Christ
Secondly, look at others through the eyes of Christ. The next time you feel it’s important for you to criticize a fellow believer – out loud or in your own mind think of Jesus’ heart toward that person. Is there a woman you can’t stand to be around? Someone you struggle to love? Or maybe someone you just can’t seem to forgive? All you can see is their uncleanness? You look at them and all you see is what’s wrong.
Is that person a brother or sister in Christ? Then Jesus loves that person with this level of intensity. If he says to the person who is unclean in our sight, “my daughter,” what are we going to say to her?
Please understand, this is about emotion. Jesus is not trying to get Jairus or anyone else to do anything for this woman, or to give her anything. He just wants them to feel something of what he feels toward her.
1 Peter 1:22 Now that you … have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.
Take it to the next level. We serve one another, and that’s wonderful. We must do that. But it’s not enough by itself. But what happens if we pray faithfully for someone and we show up at their house to help when they need some help and we serve them, but it’s all duty? What if there’s no passion and affection behind our prayers and our help? 1 Cor.13 says it’s a resounding gong and a clanging cymbal. When you look at a brother or sister in Christ, put that person in this woman’s place, then look at how Jesus loves them.
1 John 4:11 Dear friends, since God so loved we also ought to love one another. … if we love one another God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
