Category: sermons

Mark 5:21-43

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So we've seen how the woman's expectation was frustrated, she was driven down then lifted up. 

The same happens to Jairus.  He had expected Jesus to come and heal His little girl.  But talk about frustration.

Can you imagine being Jairus in v24?  You're leading the way back to your place, Jesus is coming but the crowd is holding everything up.  How fast can you go when a large crowd is pressing around?  You can bet Jairus wished the whole crowd would just disappear.  I mean there are even people grabbing hold of Jesus' clothing as they're racing back to his house.  But frustration just isn't the word when in v30, Jesus stops.

"Why have you stopped Jesus?  Didn't you understand v23: my daughter IS dying."  This is a race against the clock.  Jesus has brought everything to a halt and now He's looking around a large crowd and asks 'who touched me?'  Put yourself in Jairus's shoes. 

"Who touched you?  Who touched you???  A) Everybody.  B) Who cares!!"  It's incredible isn't it.

I mean verse 31 from the disciples is just dripping with sarcasm and incredulity:

"You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask,'Who touched me?'"

That's how the disciples were thinking, how must Jairus have been thinking?? 

I have no medical training, I have no healing powers but if you told me your daughter was dying I'd come with you in a second.  And nothing would get in my way.

Jesus is very different.  He frustrates our expectations.  We keep coming up against this in Mark.  Just think about the last three weeks.  In Mark 4 a hurricane blows up and not only does Jesus not immediately still it, He takes a power nap.  And the disciples say "Jesus don't you care if we drown!?"  Jesus does not do what He's meant to.  Unbelievably Frustrating.

Last week we saw Jesus deliver a man oppressed by an army of unclean spirits.  If you were here last week you'll remember Jesus had granted the request of the demons, He'd granted the request of the hostile crowd but when this delivered man just wants to hop aboard and be with Jesus, Jesus says 'No.  Go back as a missionary.'  Jesus frustrates our desires. 

Here a father wants healing for His dying girl.  Is there anything wrong with that request?  Anything wrong with wanting your twelve year old daughter to live?  Well then Jesus, if you have the power and if you're good, you'll do this thing.  But what does Jesus do?  He waits. He stops and talks to a woman - a destitute, unclean woman who wouldn't have even been allowed into Jairus's synagogue.  And what's more this woman has been bleeding for 12 years now, she could wait another hour Jesus.  But no.  Jesus is unmanageable.  He has His own agenda.  He's insanely frustrating.

And verse 35,

"While Jesus was still speaking to this woman, some men came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue ruler." 

And here are some of the most painful words you could ever hear

"Your daughter is dead." 

"Your daughter is dead."  Put yourself in Jairus's shoes.  He's left his daughter's bedside.  He's come and put his career on the line, he's prostrated himself at the feet of Jesus - begging for his little girl's life.  And Jesus has not come through for you.  Now you hear 'Your daughter is dead.'

Jairus's story is our story.  Every one of us either has had or will have moments like this in our Christian lives.  We have come to Jesus.  We have real needs.  We are sure we know the best way He can help us.  But He doesn't do what we'd thought and our worst nightmare happens. 

These last three weeks have been teaching us painful but invaluable lessons. 

The storm of Mark chapter 4 taught us: We will go through storms and Jesus won't calm them right away.  It will get to the point where we say "I'm dying here and you don't care do you?".  The story of Legion in Mark 5 taught us:  Jesus will say 'No' to us even when our desires seem completely legitimate and godly.  This week we learn:  Jesus will delay and nightmare scenarios will arise. 

What do we do?

This is what we're supposed to do - v36:

Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, "Don't be afraid; just believe."

That's incredible.  How can that be in the bible?  How can Jesus say that?  Everything in us tells us this is the moment NOT to trust Jesus.  This is the moment to conclude He's not good or He's not powerful but either way He's not helping, He can't be trusted.  Jesus says "Don't be afraid, trust me."

Jairus is being driven down further than he'd ever anticipated.  You would have thought at the start of the story that begging Jesus for healing was as desperate as Jairus could have been.  But no, his daughter is now dead and still Jesus asks Jairus to trust him.  Jairus is being driven down.

He is brought to the point where there is no earthly hope whatsoever.  Only the God of resurrection can be trusted at this point.  When your daughter is dead you must either be swallowed by despair and conclude that nothing is bigger than the grave or you can trust in the God of resurrection, but there's no other option.  Either death swallows everything or there's a God of resurrection.  Jesus says 'Trust me - I am the God of resurrection.  I eat death for breakfast.'

Jairus gets to see firsthand the God of resurrection at work. Let me read from v38 (it's worth just reading this in full):

³⁸ When they came to the home of the synagogue ruler, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. ³⁹ He went in and said to them, "Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep." ⁴⁰ But they laughed at him. After he put them all out, he took the child's father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. ⁴¹ He took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha koum!" (which means, "Little girl, I say to you, get up!"). ⁴² Immediately the girl stood up and walked around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. ⁴³ He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat.

Jairus was driven down and then lifted up in the most incredible way.

Jairus came to Jesus for a healing.  He got a resurrection.  And when it came, verse 42 says they were 'completely astonished'.  Literally it says they were mega-ecstatic. Mega-ecstatic.  Greatly beside themselves.  Completely astonished.  Jesus raised their dead daughter the way you or I would wake the sleeping.  Those words in verse 41, "Talitha coum," are in Aramaic - the language Jesus spoke most often.  And Mark leaves them in their original Aramaic because people remembered the exact words that came from Jesus' mouth.  It was such a precious moment people would always remember the way He spoke to that little corpse.  Jesus said 'Talitha coum' which is a term of great endearment.  'Talitha' has the feeling of 'Little girl', 'little madam', 'little missy' - it's warmly affectionate.  I heard one American translate it 'Honey.'  Honey, it's time to get up.  That's the flavour of what Jesus says.  He takes a 12 year old dead girl by the hand and says 'Honey, it's time to get up.'  Immediately she rises from the dead at the word of Jesus. 

And at the end of the story Jesus has saved both daughters.  He's saved both daughters.  Everyone thought the bleeding woman could wait while Jesus healed the dying girl.  But no - Jesus He's saved the woman with the flow of blood and He's saved the dying girl.  He calls the one 'daughter', He calls the other 'Talitha' - both terms of great affection.  He does care, He is powerful and He does know how to bring things to a happily ever after that far outstrips anything we expected.  Through sickness and suffering, through frustration and painful delays, through death and grief, Jesus brings us through to resurrection and leaves us in verse 43 feasting.  That's what you do when you rise from the dead you eat.  That's what we'll do when we rise from the dead, we'll feast with Jesus, and on that day we will see how Jesus has brought us through suffering into astonishing glory.

Do you know that the same Jesus who said 'Talitha koum' is alive and well and ruling the universe?   Do you really know that?  Do you really know that this Jesus who calls the woman 'Daughter' and the girl 'Talitha', He is seated on the throne of the universe.  He is the One ruling the events of this world and this week and my past and my present and my future.  This Jesus who is the same yesterday, today and forever, this Jesus is Lord. 

And He was crushed ultimately at the cross so that power could come out for our salvation - by His wounds we are healed.  He ultimately went down into death, and He ultimately rose up again and is now reigning over history and over you.  And now when we come to Him we find forgiveness and cleansing.  We can have a one-to-one with Him where we tell Him the truth about ourselves. And we can know ourselves to be a beloved Daughter or Son.  And one day beyond our own deaths Jesus will say to us 'Rise and shine.  It's time to get up.  It's time to feast.'

In the meantime we may face crippling pain, financial ruin, sickness, overwhelming grief and horrific frustrations.  But all the time Jesus is saying to us "Don't be afraid, just believe!"  He is saying this to us right now 'Don't be afraid, trust me.'  And we can trust Him.  The One more powerful than the storms, more powerful than the demons, more powerful than death itself, will bring us through suffering to a completely astonishing glory of resurrection and feasting.

So, "Wait for the LORD.  Be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD." (Ps 27:14) 

Therefore to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit be ascribed all the glory, all the honour, all the majesty, all the power and all our trust, now and forever.  Amen.

Taken from this sermon.  Audio here.

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Mark 5:21-43

In this story, two people come to Jesus with their needs.  They are very different people.  Jairus is an important man.  V22 says 'a synagogue ruler'.  He's a man, he's a ruler, he has a family, he's religious and very respectable in the community.

The woman is not even named.  Jesus calls her 'Daughter' in v34, which is even better than telling us her name.  But as the story begins she is an unnamed and unclean woman.  She has, v25, an unstoppable flow of blood which made her perpetually, ceremonially unclean.  This woman is unnamed, unclean, sick and now destitute.

Verse 26 details her 12 years of suffering:

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.

That really tells a story doesn't it?  Suffering under the "care" of many doctors.  I don't know if you've been passed around from doctor to doctor and they can't seem to help you.  That in itself is frightening and dehumanizing enough.  But this woman has been suffering at the hands of these doctors.  We can only imagine how these 1^st century physicians were treating her or what they were prescribing.  Mark just tells us that she suffered a great deal.  And she paid a lot of money for these worthless and painful treatments.  Now she has nothing, you can add financial ruin to her list of woes.  This woman is in a desperate position.

So this woman has had 12 years of great suffering. 

She is very different to Jairus.  Jairus, we can imagine, has had 12 years of joy with his 12 year old daughter.  But now with his daughter on death's door, Jairus is brought to the woman's level.  They are both needy beggars coming to Jesus.

Verse 22 this respectable man falls at Jesus' feet and pleads earnestly with Him.  This was very dangerous for Jairus to do.  We know from chapter 3 verse 6 that the religious authorities have been plotting to kill Jesus.  So for this synagogue ruler to fall at Jesus' feet could well have cost him his job and his reputation.  But what's that compared to your 12 year old girl?

So Jairus and the woman, very different, but both come to Jesus in their need.

And both people think they know how Jesus is going to help them.  They both have very particular expectations of Jesus.

Verse 23: Jairus thinks Jesus ought to come and lay hands on his sick daughter.  And he probably thought that because Jesus had performed other healings where that's what He did - He laid hands on people.  Other times Jesus healed people from a distance or just with a word, or He spat on the ground and made mud or He put His fingers in their ears.  Jesus didn't have a single way of healing people, but Jairus thought 'laying on hands' was the order of the day.

Verse 28: the woman also thinks she knows how to get a healing.  She thinks if she just touches Jesus' clothes she'll be healed.  Why did she think that?  Well quite probably it was because of an Old Testament prophecy. There's a verse from Malachi chapter 4 and verse 2 that speaks about the Messiah as the Sun of Righteousness who would rise up with healing in His wings.  That might be a familiar verse to you at Christmas.  When we sing Hark the Herald Angels Sing we say Jesus is "Ris'n with healing in His wings."  Well in Hebrew the word for wings is the same as the word for the end of your garment.  Where we might talk about coat tails, they'd talk about wings.  And so there was this expectation that when the Messiah rose up, there was going to be healing in His wings, His coat tails, in His clothes.  And this woman thought 'if I just touch His clothes, I will be healed.'  So in her head she was just going to grab the end of Jesus' coat, get zapped and slink off.  That was her plan.  She had a plan, it was her sickness, she knew how best to be treated.  This is how Jesus is going to help me.

Now you can understand their expectations can't you?  They seem fair enough.  But for both of them Jesus frustrates their plans and they are driven down much further than they were prepared to go before being raised up much higher than they'd dare dream.

What do I mean they were driven down and then raised up?  Well let's see it first in the woman.

There she is, just an anonymous figure in the crowd, pressing in against Jesus.  She wants to remain anonymous, she doesn't want a fuss, she doesn't want to meet Jesus.  She just wants to get zapped and get on with her life.  Well incredibly even with that kind of belief, which is bordering on the superstitious, even with that tiny mustard seed of faith, Jesus responds. 

Verse 30:  At once Jesus realised that power had gone out from Him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"

Power goes out from Jesus.  Isn't that amazing?  Jesus feels power going out from Him. 

We might imagine that if Jesus is the LORD of creation, well then everything He does is effortless.  Surely the One who calms hurricanes with a word will take a healing like this in His stride.  Well if we remember that the ultimate power of Jesus is shown at the cross, if we remember that the healing of the world happens when Jesus is crushed, then we might start to think differently.  Isaiah the prophet said of Jesus: By His wounds we are healed.  Are we healed by His strength?  Yes.  Are we healed by His omnipotent power over sin, sickness, Satan and death?  Yes.  But it is no less true that "by His wounds we are healed".  The healing power of Jesus is grounded in His suffering death on the cross.  Jesus is not like a broadband package - unlimited downloads.  It's not clinical like that.  It's personal.  Those He heals, He also suffers for. 

If you've come to Jesus you should know He has suffered for you.  You haven't just downloaded salvation from His infinite hard-drive, it's personal.  He has suffered for you.  Paul would write in Galatians 2:20, "The Son of God loved me and gave Himself for me."  Christians know this to be true.  I'm not an anonymous member of the crowd who happens to have been zapped by Jesus.  Jesus has suffered for me.  He has felt power going out of Him for me.  On the cross, He was drained... for me!

This woman thought she would mean nothing to Jesus.  She wasn't going to bother Him.  She just hoped for a zapping.  But there's no such thing.  You can't have Jesus' power without having Him.  His power is a personal power and a power that costs Him dearly.  He wants one-to-ones with each and every one of us.  Immediately Jesus feels that power has gone out and immediately He wants to talk to this woman.

The woman is terrified.  It seems to take her a while to own up.  Verse 32, "Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it."   The woman wanted an anonymous experience.  Jesus wants a personal encounter.  And that's scary.  This is far more than the woman bargained for.  But eventually v33:

Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth.

The woman is driven down.  Just seconds ago she'd hoped for a zap and run, but now face-to-face with Jesus she falls at His feet.  And she tells her story to Jesus.  "This is who I am Jesus, I'm a poor, sick, unclean, desperate woman.  That is the whole truth."  The woman is driven down further than she'd ever expected, but then Jesus lifts her higher than she's ever dreamed.  Verse 34:

Jesus said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."

This woman is not just an anonymous woman to Jesus. To Jesus she's a daughter.  He doesn't want anonymous followers hanging onto His coat-tails.  He wants daughters, He wants sons, who tell Him the whole truth. 

And Jesus explains to the woman - your faith has healed you.  Jesus is telling her, 'It's got nothing to do with any magical powers in my clothing. You believed in Me, that's the thing.  I'm the Power that healed you, and you trusted Me.  Now go in peace and be freed from your suffering.'

This word peace means wholeness, soundness, welfare, prosperity, tranquility, friendship.  It's peace with God, peace with others - Jesus says go in peace.  What a brilliant encounter with Jesus.  She wanted to get zapped and run, Jesus wanted to call her 'Daughter' and give her peace.  Driven down, but raised up much higher. 

Do you have a zap and run mentality with Jesus?  He wants a face-to-face.  He wants you driven down to confess to Him your whole story and He wants to lift you up and speak peace to you.  But you can't just be anonymous in the crowd when it comes to Jesus.  Fall at His feet, tell Him the whole truth. He will lift you up.

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Taken from this sermon.  Audio here.

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Mark 5:21-43

In your imagination, picture olives being crushed and pressed together and the oil seeping out at the bottom. 

That's a picture of Jesus that Mark hints at again and again.  In Mark's Gospel, Jesus is in almost constant danger of being crushed.

 Mark 3:7-9:

Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lake, and a large crowd from Galilee followed. When they heard all he was doing, many people came to him from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon. Because of the crowd he told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him, to keep the people from crushing him [that's literally the word - 'crushing Him'].  For he had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him.

That's why in Mark 4:1 Jesus has to get in a boat to teach people, otherwise they'd smother Him.  When he decides in v35 to go over to the other side of the lake, v36 says 'they took Him along, just as He was, in the boat.'  He couldn't even risk stepping ashore, so they whisk Him off away from the crowds. Of course in this crossing, Jesus calms the storm (end of chapter 4), lands on the other side (chapter 5).  Then, do we remember from last week, He meets Legion, exorcizes an army of demons and sends the delivered man back to his people as a missionary.  That probably only took Him an our or two.  So now, with that job done, He returns.  So, v21, He's back after His flying visit. And the crowds are there again.  Mark says: 'A large crowd gathered around Him.'

Mark really wants us to get a feel for this crushing crowd.  And so Mark 5:24 says it again:

A large crowd followed and pressed around Him.

The disciples use the same word in verse 31:

You see the people pressing against you [literally]

This is a mini theme of Mark's Gospel.  The whole world flocks to Jesus in their need.  And in the midst of that crush - healing, forgiveness, restoration, salvation, peace and new life flow out.

The woman in this story presses in - she's part of this crush - but what she finds is that, in the crush, power comes out of Jesus and she is healed, freed, granted peace.

Now at the end of Mark's Gospel we see Jesus praying in a garden called Gethsemane.  Gethsemane mean oil press.  It's where the olives from the Mount of Olives were crushed.  That's where Jesus was oppressed like you and I would never understand, that's where He contemplates the cross and He undertakes to die under the weight of a world's need.  And because Jesus was crushed the oil of His Spirit flows out for the salvation of the world.  In that ultimate crush, that ultimate power was released for all who come to Him. 

Mark 5 is giving a miniature picture of that truth.  Here in this crush, power goes out from Jesus and healing, peace, freedom and ultimately resurrection results...

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I'll post the rest of the sermon in parts.

For the whole script go here

For the audio go here.

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Storms are bigger than we are.

Jesus is much bigger still.

We're small.

We're passive.

We're at the mercy of bigger forces.

Either Jesus steps in or we're doomed.

When He does step in it's even scarier!

Jesus is just as unmanagable as the storm

The difference is Jesus loves you, the storm doesn't.

Jesus is the Ultimate Jonah hurled into the Ultimate Storm to bring us peace.

That's why we can trust Him.

So, Who or what will we fear?

Who or what will we trust?

And Who is this Jesus?

He's the One who sails with us in the storm,

Yet He rules over the storm by His mighty word

And in the storm - that's where we really come to know Him.

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Those are the sort of thoughts informing this sermon on Mark 4:35-41 - Jesus calms the storm. 

Audio mp3 file here

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