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Jun 09, 2024

A Healing Touch

Passage: Mark 5:21-43

Preacher: John Repsold

Series: Gospel of Mark

Keywords: faith, touch, healing, disciples, desperation, capernaum, interruptions

Summary:

Illness, interruptions, desperation--they are all a part of life. While this passage focuses on two very different people who Jesus healed, it is about much more than physical healing. If you are hungry for a healing touch of some kind from Jesus, this passage is especially for you.

Detail:

A Healing Touch

Mark 5:21-43

June 9, 2024

Fellowship Question:

Fellowship Question:  Tell someone about a person you know whom God has healed…  OR… share about someone you prayed for that wasn’t healed.

 

How many of us love interruptions? 

            Today’s passage is about a couple of people whose lives were being turned inside out by life itself.  They both had ideas and even plans that were time-sensitive and, in one case, life-threatening.  Interruptions were not on their agenda.  But they were on Jesus’. 

            But this text is about much more than that.  More significantly, I think it is about teaching us how God wants to interact and relate with us in the midst of life’s most perplexing and threatening crises.  Some of those crises build over years; others appear overnight.  All of us are going to have them.  All of us are going to find ourselves in desperate places where every human possibility isn’t enough.  Hopefully, when that happens, the truths of this passage will utterly change the interaction and connection we will have IN the midst of that with God.   

Read Mark 5:21-43

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 Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. 23 He 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.”

35 While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher anymore?”

36 Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”

37 He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. 38 When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, 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 began to walk 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.

            This is one of those passages that, in my opinion, proves that the written record of Jesus’ life and work is not something cooked up by mere humans.  This story contains so much that is counter-cultural to the day that there is virtually no chance that anyone but the Holy Spirit would have recorded this story this way. 

  • Women and girls were not the stars of any 1st century story. Their testimony in court was not considered as weighty as a man’s.  Their position in society was much less than a man’s.  Yet repeatedly, the Gospel writers put their testimony and their acts of faith up against that of even the inner circle of Jesus’ Apostles.
  • The woman with the issue of blood in the middle of this story was not a woman any Jew would have selected to be the hereon. She had been ceremonially unclean for 12 years! That meant she hadn’t gone to synagogue for 12 years.  That meant any person she touched was unclean for that day, any chair she sat in had to undergo a cleansing and any clothing she wore also had to undergo a rather extensive cleansing process. 
  • She was shunned by the community, by the religious leaders and probably by her neighbors and possibly even family.
  • She had spent whatever resources she had on medical “services” most likely performed by rather dubious “medical professionals” who usually relied on fanciful concoctions of things like bat brains, mice skulls and local herbs. (Which may be why Luke’s account of this story omits this little fact of her being driven into poverty by her medical bills.)

But let’s go back to the beginning of the story.  As we read, Jesus is now back in Capernaum on the west side of the Sea of Galilee. In the last 24-hours, he proved his power over the natural elements (wind and water) and over the spiritual and physical powers of the demonic realm.  Now he is going to demonstrate his power over illness and even death. 

            Why is Jesus doing this? There is only one very small group of people who are going to see all of these demonstrations of power and authority in this short period of time.  Who is that?  (The Apostles.)  Everyone else, from the people in other boats in that storm to the delivered demoniac on the other side of the lake to the people who are about to see these miracles—they all only get to see one or at most two of the four miracles. 

            In the very next chapter and possibly within just a few days, Jesus is going to send the 12 out, two by two, to engage in ministry just as they have seen Him do.  Again, as this story reinforces and as we’ve seen over the past few weeks, Jesus is most interested in individuals, not crowds.  He’s interested in the 12 over the 12,000.  He’s interested in 2 demoniacs over the thousands in the 10-city region of the Decapolis.  And in this story, he's interested in a young girl’s life, her parents, his disciples and a suffering woman over the crowds of hundreds and thousands that were literally crushing and trampling each other just to get near him. 

            We need to remember that when we are tempted to think that our life doesn’t matter, our average family isn’t important or our little church isn’t all that significant.  That’s a lie from the Father of Lies.  The only numbers game God is focused on is 1—YOU! 

     Before we go any further, I want to talk about the place and the people involved in these miracles. 

Place:  Capernaum, Jesus “home away from home”. 

  • On the west side of the Sea of Galilee
  • His chosen place of residence when not in Jerusalem. (Mt. 4:13)
  • Held the synagogue where Jesus did a lot of teaching (Mk 1:21; LK. 4:16-37)
  • The place Jesus gave the Bread of Life Discourse in John 6:22-59.
  • The synagogue where Jesus healed and cast out demons (Mk. 1:23-28)
  • The town that had Peter’s house and where Jesus often stayed (Mk. 1:29). Historians believe Peter’s home was actually very near this synagogue.
  • The same town where “a certain royal official whose son lay sick” went to Jesus when he was visiting Cana again in John 4 and “begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.” Jesus told him to return home to Capernaum and that his son would be healed.
  • The town where Jesus healed the Roman Centurion’s servant (Luke 7:5). This man was apparently a God-seeker.  He had built the synagogue. 

Capernaum was a town that was filled with spiritual activity and people of faith.  No wonder Jesus chose it as his base of ministry. 

APP:  How about we make Spokane just such a town in our day?

NOTE:  The historical details of this town are amazing.  If you or someone you know is wondering about the accuracy of the Gospels, just this town alone has enough details about it that have been confirmed by archeologists over the past century that make the Gospels one of, if not THE best, historically attested records in all of ancient history.

            Archeologists have known for over 100 years the exact site of this synagogue in ancient Capernaum.  For decades they debated, however, about what they had found.  Because of hundreds of coins found, the type of architecture and the material used, they were convinced this synagogue was from the 3rd or 4th century A.D. 

            But further excavation around and under the 3rd century synagogue found that, while these white marble ruins are from the 3rd and 4th century, underneath them is, the very floor and walls of a synagogue built in the first centuries B.C. and A.D.  Those ruins are, in all likelihood, the very place where all these events happened. 

            Luke 7 tells us that it was the very Roman centurion whose servant was healed that financed this building.  The materials are hewn basalt rock, completely different rock from the later 3rd century synagogue built on top of it.  (See pictures.)  If I ever get to the Holy Land, I want to stand on that very pavement where Jesus must have gone time after time to teach, the very place where he delivered the demoniac in the synagogue, the very place where that Roman centurion must have worshipped God.  Don’t let anyone tell you this book is some non-historical fairy tale.  Far from it!

            Now let’s dive into the meat of this passage with a myriad of spiritual applications for us today.  We are told in vs. 22 that Jairus was a synagogue leader. 

Q:  What do we know about most of Jesus’ encounters with synagogue leaders in the Gospels? 

A:  they were agnostic about Jesus, at best, and usually antagonistic.  They felt their power was being undermined by Jesus.  They resented and despised the fact that Jesus would often heal on the sabbath in the synagogue.  As a result, many of these leaders hated Jesus to the point of wanting him dead. 

Q:  So what makes Jairus different? 

A:  A personal crisis!  We’re all familiar with the phrase, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”  There is a spiritual parallel to that little phrase.  It is that, “Personal crisis is the mother of faith.”   Jairus was desperate.  His 12-year old daughter was dying…and he knew it. You can be sure he had already gotten the best doctors to do what they could for her.  But she was still dying. You can be sure that he had gone to the synagogue and prayed like he had never prayed before for his daughter.  But she was still dying. 

            Perhaps as he knelt there in the synagogue, facing Jerusalem, alone in the dark that night, God reminded him of how Jesus had stood in that very room and healed the demon-possessed man.  Perhaps he heard again Jesus’ words spoken in that very room:

  • “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval,” (John 6:27)
  • “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent,” (John 6:29)
  • “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”  (John 6:35)
  • “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.” (John 6:40)
  • “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.” (John 6:44)

Jairus had a decision to make:  would he allow the opinions of his peers, his own pride and reputation, his own position in the community, his own power and prestige to stand in the way of faith in Jesus…OR would he humble himself, go public with what he was becoming convinced of in his heart about Jesus…and possibly save the life of his daughter by declaring His faith in Jesus?

  1. APP:  This brings us to the truth that there can always be plenty of hurdles to faith in Jesus.  For Jairus it was his reputation, his peers, his position in the community, his spiritual tradition, his own pride.  After all, if his prayers could save his own daughter, what was he doing being a spiritual leader in the community? 

            What/who is it that is keeping you from putting all your faith and trust in Jesus?  It took the crisis of a life-threatening illness of someone Jairus loved with all his heart to confront him with his need to make a life-changing decision about Jesus Christ.  What will it take for you? Will life’s crises be your gateway to faith in Jesus…OR will you just use them to bar the door even more securely against the presence of God in Christ in your life?

            So, Jairus makes his choice.  He chooses Jesus.  But to get to him he must now fight the crowd that, according to Luke 8:42, was almost “crushing” Jesus, they were so intent on touching him.  He finally gets close enough to Jesus to actually “fall at his feet” (Mark 5:22).  Here is a second vital truth:

  1. Humble submission is the best place to start…and end…our times of desperation. I say “end” as well because Jairus could have jettisoned his submission to Jesus anywhere along this story.  When he is told, in just a few minutes, that his daughter has died, he could have said, “Well, I guess I’m done with Jesus.  I must have been wrong about Him.  What a fool I’ve been!”  But his humble submission to Jesus didn’t let even the reality of death get in the way of his faith.  (We’ll come back to this at the end.)  Additionally, the women who is about to be healed in the street there in Capernaum, didn’t start with bowing down at Jesus’ feet like Jairus.  But she did exactly the same thing after she experienced her miracle of healing.  Humble submission before Jesus and after her miracle was precisely where her desperation needed to lead her.

APP:  When we are desperate about life, humble submission before Jesus is where we must start and end.  You may not be in a place of desperation right now.  But life will put you there someday.  It may be a tragedy that strikes your family or loved one.  It may be a health issue that assaults you.  It may be financial ruin…or war…or persecution some day because you are a Christ-follower.  Whatever the desperate situation…and regardless of the outcome…humble submission is what will be needed to become a person of faith in a world of crisis.

Jairus not only got to Jesus in time; he got the response from Jesus that he so desperately sought.  Time was of the essence.  His daughter’s life was slipping away.  You can be sure that, as he led the way to his home through that crowd, nothing was going to stop him from making a way for Jesus to get to his daughter. 

But then someone interrupted his desperate plans.  As the crowd is virtually crushing them, Jesus stops dead in his tracks and shouts out, “Who touched my clothes?”  While Jairus is trying to make sense of this seemingly inane question, Peter, as usual, is the one to verbalize what everyone is thinking, (Luke 8:45).  “Who touched your clothes??? EVERYONE!  What on earth are you talking about?  Everyone is trying to get a piece of you today!” 

            But for Jairus, whatever is going on with the crowd is simply an unnecessary delay to what he desperately needs God to do.  This delay could spell the difference between life and death of his little girl.  Which brings us to a third spiritual reality:

  1. God sometimes puts our plans on hold so that His purposes can be more fully realized.

Jesus knew what was at stake.  He knew this little girl had probably already died.  He knew that Jairus’ faith was about to be tested to the max.  And he knew that someone else had just experienced a miracle that needed his follow-up.  But Jairus knew nothing of all this.  He just knew life was desperate.  And panic probably welled up in his throat as Jesus stopped dead in his tracks.  He didn’t know what we know now:  that this ‘delay’ was going to make his miracle even bigger and was going to reveal to the world another miracle of faith that would reveal Christ’s power for centuries to come.

APP:  Don’t let seeming delays in God’s answers diminish your faith in Jesus.  Let them grow your faith…and the glory Jesus will get when faith triumphs over even hard facts. Claim delays as divine experiences.  Turn God’s delays in times of personal desperation into chapters of faith-development.  Don’t let delays destroy your faith.

            It is at this point that the scene shifts to this woman and her desperate situation.  How different her situation is from Jairus’.  While he was enjoying raising a little girl, this woman was suffering physically, spiritually, financially and relationally for 12 years.  Maybe her bleeding had started with a miscarriage.  She may have been childless.  Who knows, her husband may even have divorced her for her constant ‘uncleanliness’.  According to the law, sexual intimacy would have been off the table for those 12 years.  While Jairus was building a career and respect in the community, this woman was being more marginalized, shunned and isolated at every turn. Her’s was a desperation that had been building for 12 years!

            But like him, she’s past caring what others think.  But her desperation is private.  She doesn’t want anyone to even know she’s in the crowd making everyone she touches ‘unclean’ too.  She doesn’t dare call out publicly for Jesus to help her.  Her one hope is that she might just touch Jesus’ cloak for a second in the hopes that maybe the magic will rub off.  For Pete’s sake, even her theology is a mess!  She’s treating Jesus as some good-luck charm.  But desperate people do desperate things. 

            So, she muscles her way through this throng of people, and manages to just barely grab Jesus’ cloak for a split second.  And immediately she feels the change.  Immediately her bleeding stops.  Immediately the power of God changes the course of her life.  She probably just stood still as the crowd surged around her.  But then time froze.  Jesus shouted, “Who touched me?”  The crowd got quiet.  Nobody moved.  And a different fear flooded into this woman’s soul.  Next things she knew, she was bowing at Jesus feet, trembling, and spilling out the whole story.

            Here’s a fourth fantastic truth from this story:

  1. There is a great difference between a ‘touch of faith’ and a ‘touch of curiosity.’ As the disciples rightly noted, plenty of people were touching Jesus that day. But only one person that we know of combined her touch with crisis-changing faith. 

As we’ve seen, it wasn’t even perfect faith.  It may have been a sort of confused and unorthodox mystical faith.  But the object of her faith was the issue…and that was Jesus.  So was the nature of her faith:  it was deeply personal. 

APP:  I pray you have discovered the difference between “crowd faith” and personal faith? 

I trust you have experienced the difference between just being curios about Jesus and being desperate? 

I trust you know the difference between faith that longs to reach out and touch Jesus in a transforming way and religious experience that just goes along with the crowd because other people in your life are doing it.

  • Children of believing parents: at some point you need to make faith your own, not your family’s…or you will just be a part of the crowd that will fade away and go about their business unchanged by Jesus.
  • Church-attending good people: unless you have had a personal encounter with Jesus, your faith is no more transformational than 99% of the crowd that day.  You need to reach out to Jesus for healing from your own sin and spiritual sickness. 

PRAYER of faith.

Jesus’ words to this woman are pregnant with meaning.

  • Jesus addresses her with a term/title only applied to her in all the Gospels—“Daughter.” Surely Jesus is trying to signal something even to Jairus.  “I haven’t forgotten about your little daughter…but I also care deeply for this ‘daughter’ of mine…a woman you have excluded from the fellowship of God’s people in your synagogue.  She’s my beloved daughter and I must take a moment to show her how special she is to me in a world that has no room for her. 
  • Just like you, Jairus, she has faith in me. In fact, her faith is more than your faith, but it is still a faith that is saving her from sickness and so much more.” 
  • Then Jesus gives her 2 commands just like he is going to give Jairus and his wife 2 commands once he raises their daughter from the dead.
  1. FAITH is always involved in the divine intervention of God in miraculous healings. Just don’t let anyone tell you it all depends on your

We don’t have time to develop a whole theology of healing today.  But one thing is very clear from this passage:  faith in God for healing can come from a host of possible sources…and it’s not always the faith of the person needing the healing.  In this story Jairus had faith for his daughter…and this woman had faith for herself.  Jesus tells them both not to be afraid but to have faith.  Jairus’ coming to Jesus was a statement of his faith.  So was the woman’s touch.  Faith of someone had to be involved.

APP:  this is why sometimes we need someone else’s faith for us. 

ILL:  Pastor’s prayer group a couple of weeks ago, sharing about 2 miraculous healings in the midst of praying for the healing of one of the pastor’s wives who just got a cancer diagnosis.

  • Baby with brain abnormality in-utero who was miraculously healed this past month (Fellowship Church African pastor’s brother’s child).
  • Couple whose little girl (3-4 years old) was brain-dead and going to be taken off life support for organ donation (Don S., Spokane First Church). Now lives in MT.

NOTE:  this does not mean that when God does not heal, someone’s faith has been lacking or failed.  Nothing in Scripture teaches that, contrary to what some are saying today.  God is not obligated to heal every sickness IF we just “have enough faith.”  That is a heresy that does untold damage to the Gospel, the Word of God and the people of God.  We can talk more about that afterwards if you have questions. 

            There is a whole lot more here, but I’ll end today with this last very related truth. 

  1. Where there is death, there is hope. Normally we say, “Where there is life, there is hope,” right?  If you know Jesus, it’s much better than that.  Where there is DEATH, there is hope.

Jairus was forced to either grow his faith in the next moments of this story OR bury what little faith he had.  Word arrived as Jesus was ministering to this unnamed woman that his daughter was dead.  In that moment his world collapsed.  The love of his life was gone.  Life would never be the same.  Those of you who have lost children or spouses know what he was going through. 

            Yet Jesus gave him, now, a two-pronged command:  “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”  Death is THE most difficult experience in all of life in which to a.) not be overwhelmed by fear, and b.) to develop even more faith in the God who loves us but did not stop death.

            The rest of the story goes on to confirm that, yes, in fact, this little girl had died.  But Jesus went on to raise her from the dead because He had a particular agenda to show to the whole world and history that his authority and power extends over our worst enemy—death itself.  So, he called Jairus to a greater faith in the midst of death itself. 

APP:  God is going to ask every one of us at some point in our faith journey to “just believe” in the midst of death itself.  Some day, someone you love is going to die despite your best, most faith-filled prayers and petitions to God.  Then you are going to hear Jesus say, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”  And then you are going to have a choice to make.  “Will I obey Jesus’ commands and grow in my faith until I see him raise my loved one from the dead some day…OR will I give in to the ‘reality’ of what I and everyone else around me can see is death…and stop believing in Jesus who raises the dead?” 

            Jairus’ long journey the rest of the way to his house was a journey of faith. 

            Putting the mourners, who knew that his daughter had died, out of his house and holding onto Jesus’ impossible words, was a journey of faith. 

            Waiting and watching Jesu compassionately take the limp and lifeless hand of his daughter, tenderly call her “Little girl”, and then issue that resurrection command, “Get up!”, was a journey of faith. 

Is this not what Jesus is asking of every one of us when someone we have desperately wanted Him to save from death dies?  We are being invited to trust His love for them.  We are being invited to keep walking a journey of faith in Jesus.  We are being invited to believe that though they have died, they will live again on that day when Jesus shouts to all humanity, “Get up!  Arise!  Your final redemption is here!”

            In preparing this message, I read many a story of pastors who preached this very passage to their churches in faith, having lost a son or daughter or spouse to death.  I’ll close with the words of just one of them, words that echo the spirit of faith of all of them.  

ILL:  The great Bible teacher, G. Campbell Morgan, lost his firstborn daughter to death at a young age. Forty years later, preaching on this story of Jairus, he said,

“I can hardly speak of this matter without becoming personal and reminiscent, remembering a time forty years ago when my own first lassie lay at the point of death, dying. I called for Him then, and He came, and surely said to our troubled hearts, “Fear not, believe only.” He did not say, “She shall be made whole.” She was not made whole on the earthly plane. She passed away into the life beyond. He did say to her, “Talitha, cumi,” “little lamb, arise”; but in her case, that did not mean, stay on the earth level. It meant that He needed her, and He took her to be with Himself. She has been with Him for all those years, as we measure time here, and I have missed her every day; but His word, “Only believe,” has been the strength of the passing years. (Jill Morgan, A Man of the Word [Baker], pp. 82-83.)

CLOSE: 

We have a Savior who loves and cares for the small and the great, the powerful and the powerless, men, women, boys and girls. 

  • Have you reached out by faith to Him? Asked for his healing power of redemption to rescue you from sin and death?
  • Do you need to come in humble submission to His will for you and the people you love?
  • Have a desperate situation that is calling you to reach out to Jesus in faith?
  • Are you ready to grow your faith even where there is death?

PRAY

 

 

Addendum:  Contrasts and Comparisons:

            Jairus                                                 Woman         

Father with a daughter                        woman without children?

Well-known, public figure                 unknown, private woman

Spiritual/civic leader                          spiritually ostracized

Leader                                                 leading no one

Used to being in-control                     Used to being out of control

Powerful                                             powerless

12 years of joy with daughter             12 years of suffering by

                                                            herself.

Father’s faith                                      Her own faith

Bowed down before the miracle        bowed down after the miracle

Now, between the girl and this woman:

Young                                                 older

Short illness                                        long illness

Resurrection                                       healing

Semi-private miracle                          very public miracle

Similarities:

Gripped by fear                                  Gripped by fear

Desperate                                            Desperate

2 commands by Jesus                         2 commands by Jesus

Unnamed                                            unnamed