Mark 5:21-43: The Compassionate King

Who Is Jesus?  •  Sermon  •  Submitted
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Introduction

Good morning and welcome.
This morning we will be continuing our series in the Gospel of Mark, picking up right where we left off last week—in Mark 5, we will be starting in verse 21. That’s Mark 5:21.

Preliminaries

For those of you who may be new or newish to Santa Cruz Baptist, we began 2020 by looking the Gospel According to Mark. When we came to the end of Mark 4 we were confronted again with the question that has thematically driven our whole series, “who is Jesus?”
While Mark answers that question clearly and consistently, we thought it would be fitting to jump into Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians where he answers that question explicitly in the most all-encompassing, cosmic, and unapologetic terms and then goes on to explain how his answer effects all of life.
If I might summarize Paul’s answer to the question prompted by Mark 4, I would say that Jesus is the eternal Son of God who has become a man in order to take his place as God’s anointed King.
So that is where we have been over the last few months and it is important to see that for where we are going this morning.

Last Week and This Week

As we return to Mark 5 the message of Jesus’ identity is again answered in narrative form.
Mark has been doing this in every story he has told us of Jesus’ biography thus far. If you take just the last two texts that were preached in Mark (last week’s and Drew’s sermon fifteen weeks ago on Mark 4:35-41) we saw that Jesus in full kingly authority staring into the face of a storm and then staring into the human face of a man who had become infested with an entire military unit of spiritual forces of darkness and in each case Jesus declared peace and stillness.
And when confronted with the kingly authority of Jesus both natural and supernatural forces came into submission.
But if last week’s passage added a modifier to the display of Jesus’ cosmic kingship it would be compassionate.
Drew mentioned how narrative of this man who had been enslaved by a legion of demons is deeply human and pitiable.
You see to us, in our cultural context, the demonic likely triggers the mental images of horror movies. Green faces, speaking backwards in Latin, and mysterious and nefarious ability to defy gravity.
But in the first century context of Jesus, they had no such theatrical associations. The demonic was scary, but it was most often a cause for compassion and empathy. This man was scary, unpredictable, possessing unnatural strength, and consumed by evil.
But he was also alone, surrounded by death, unable to gain control over his own urges and actions. He was a man in need of mercy, but he was far from God, not even a member of God’s covenant people—he was without hope.
Until the day a small fishing vessel glided onto the shore near his graveyard habitation. In God’s merciful providence and plan Jesus is carried by wind and wave to this man.
And just a serendipitously he leaves. Mark 5:19, Jesus gets back in the boat and returns to Capernaum, where we find him in our text this morning.
But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s take a moment and pray asking God to speak to us through this story.

Prayer

Father in Heaven,
As we read in Isaiah this morning Lord,

3  Strengthen the weak hands,

and make firm the feeble knees.

4  Say to those who have an anxious heart,

“Be strong; fear not!

Behold, your God

will come with vengeance,

with the recompense of God.

He will come and save you.”

Ground the truths of this passage, the truths of forgivingness, spiritual cleanliness, and resurrection through faith in the compassionate King Jesus deep in our hearts so that we may indeed have strong hands and firm knees and a heart free from chaos in an anxious age.
I pray for this sermon and I ask that you grant me clarity of thought and speech as I seek to preach your word.
Amen

Outline

This morning, I have two points which are really in service of a larger theme. The two points I want us to see are:
The Clarifying Power of Suffering
The Unexpected Power of Jesus
And these points will illuminate for us the theme that...
Mark Bridging Contexts

Faith enables all, honored and dishonored, clean and unclean, to tap into the merciful power of Jesus that brings both healing and salvation.

The Clarifying Power of Suffering

21 And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him, and he was beside the sea. 22 Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet 23 and implored him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.” 24 And he went with him.

In this text we are going to encounter two very human stories intended to clarify the universal human condition, to draw out our compassion and to display Jesus’ power.
In the first story Mark tells we meet Jairus.

Who was Jarius?

We are first told that he is

one of the rulers of the synagogue

According to commentators,
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 8: Matthew, Mark, Luke 3. Jairus’s Plea in Behalf of His Daughter (5:21–24)

These were laymen whose responsibilities were administrative, not priestly, and included such things as looking after the building and supervising the worship. Sometimes the title was honorary, given to prominent members of the congregation with no administrative duties attached.

In other words, this position may have been honorary or official, but either way it was bestowed upon a someone who checked all of the cultural hierarchy boxes.
But what Jairus shows us is that none of that ultimately matters in the face of suffering. His prestige and position could not help him, they could not help his daughter. As such his response is totally appropriate.
The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume 8: Matthew, Mark, Luke 3. Jairus’s Plea in Behalf of His Daughter (5:21–24)

Jairus’s need was so urgent that he jettisoned all dignity and pride, fell at Jesus’ feet, and begged for help (v. 23).

Connecting back to last week’s text, this is not the first time we have seen someone fall at Jesus’ feet in desperate need of divine mercy. So who is Jairus?

the lay president of a synagogue. He would have, therefore, been a man of great devotion to God, great morality, respectability, probably wealthy, probably very prominent, but he is desperate, because his little girl is as good as dead. The language he uses is not just, “She might die,” but, “She is about to die.” She is going to die unless Jesus comes.

All he is is a man in need of divine mercy.

Reading 23-29

At this point we get the second story interrupting the first.

“My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.” 24 And he went with him.

And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. 25 And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, 26 and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. 28 For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” 29 And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.

Imagine for a minute how this goes.
Jesus goes with Jairus, how do you imagine that happening?
Jairus leads the way right and he is a bit frantic. He is out in front of Jesus making his way through the crowd.
Then come the disciples and Jesus. The disciples, one imagines, are a sort of entourage trying to keep people from slowing them down.
Then Jesus stops.
Maybe Jairus doesn’t know what happened at first. Maybe he took a few more steps, some distance got between him and Jesus and he has to move back to Jesus.
At the same time the disciples are urging Jesus on. Maybe one of them even had his hand on Jesus’ back and tries to apply a little pressure which assuring Jesus it was no big deal.

his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’

After all they are on a time table.
But Jesus digs in his heels. He wants to see who touched him.

Who Is the Woman?

So whose hand is it? Verses 25 and 26 tell us.

a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, 26 and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse.

First, being a woman placed her in a second class status with in society.
This is a cultural norm which the scriptures in general and the gospel of Mark in particular confront and challenge, but nonetheless everyone but Jesus likely existed with such a patriarchal framework.
But Jesus stops following a man to meet a woman.
Second, we are told that she had a “discharge of blood.”
This is no mere physical plight but a cause for substantial spiritual concern. Leviticus 15 explains:

25 “If a woman has a discharge of blood for many days, not at the time of her menstrual impurity, or if she has a discharge beyond the time of her impurity, all the days of the discharge she shall continue in uncleanness. As in the days of her impurity, she shall be unclean. 26 Every bed on which she lies, all the days of her discharge, shall be to her as the bed of her impurity. And everything on which she sits shall be unclean, as in the uncleanness of her menstrual impurity. 27 And whoever touches these things shall be unclean, and shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening. 28 But if she is cleansed of her discharge, she shall count for herself seven days, and after that she shall be clean. 29 And on the eighth day she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons and bring them to the priest, to the entrance of the tent of meeting. 30 And the priest shall use one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. And the priest shall make atonement for her before the LORD for her unclean discharge.

Several commentators with medical backgrounds have noted that such bleeding likely had significant medical cause and detrimental health-related ramifications. But to the Jews this was much more about being unclean. To heighten the pressure, Ezekiel 36:17 uses such ritual uncleanliness as an image for Israel’s idolatry and failure to follow God

17 “Son of man, when the house of Israel lived in their own land, they defiled it by their ways and their deeds. Their ways before me were like the uncleanness of a woman in her menstrual impurity. 18 So I poured out my wrath upon them for the blood that they had shed in the land, for the idols with which they had defiled it.

Jesus stops his service to a synagogue ruler for to serve and unclean woman.
Furthermore, did you notice the transference of uncleanliness in Leviticus?
If she lies on a bed (v26a)
If she sits in a chair (v26b)
Those objects become unclean.
If someone touches those objects he or she becomes unclean (v27)
It might go without saying, but we ought to take note of the phrase “as in the menstrual impurity,” which ties us back to Leviticus 15:19 and the inclusion that you may not touch the unclean person lest you become unclean.
What would it be like to be this woman then?
Can you imagine feeling what she feels?
Can you imagine not being able to lay in a bed with your spouse without making it so he or she would have to go through an elaborate cleansing ritual?
Can you imagine not being able to go to a friends house and sit in a chair?
Or if you invited them over and they were visibly uncomfortable thinking about what might be okay to touch?
Can you imagine if this woman has children?
Not being able to hold them without making them unclean?
How long, out of curiosity, do you imagine that she and any family or friends tried to figure out a way around the situation or a way to navigate it practically?
How long into the 12 years does it just become easier to write this woman off.
You know individualism has racked our country and culture with loneliness.
In 2018 loneliness was declared a public health crisis across the Western world, prompting in depth analysis, academic studies, and symposiums at The Atlantic, The Guardian London, and several seminaries and psychology or counselling graduate programs.
We often feel so separated from people. The rise of COVID-19 shutdowns prompted concerns about increased isolation and reports about skyrocketing mental illness.
But that is an individualistic society in which we are taught and trained to be self-sufficient. This woman is from a collectivist society filled with dozens of close-nit little towns. Her feeling of loneliness would have been substantially dialed up.
This woman is the poster-woman for outcast.
Moreover, we are told that she,

had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse.

So Jesus interrupts his helping a likely wealthy and well-respect community leader to help an impoverished, friendless reject.

Suffering Levels the Playing Field

Mark doesn’t even see fit to include her name. Jairus is named and known. Not her.
Here is what I am getting at in our first point, to quote commentator Donald English:
The Message of Mark 9. The Nature of True Faith (5:21–43)

Jairus and the woman with the haemorrhage could hardly be more different from one another, in sex, status, public recognition, identification in the story itself, approach, and manner of ministry by Jesus.

Yet, suffering has revealed that they exist on the same level. Sure there are wide socio-cultural gaps between them, sure Jairus has lived the life of more comfort and with more opportunity. But desperation pervades his story as it does with the demoniac from last week and this 12-years unclean woman.
There is a literary device where you group similar stories together in order to highlight the contrast between them. I think Mark, by couching Jairus’ story in-between the demoniac (also unnamed, and as a gentile, also an outcast) and this woman, I think Mark is trying to point out how the heights or suffering and hardship equalize all people.
Dustin can correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t think the word “terminal” in medical parlance is financially dependent. The words incurable or inoperable can’t be waved away with a limitless credit card. All of Jairus’ prestige and position can’t save his daughter.
With that realization comes clarity. I think we can learn something really important.
There is nothing like suffering in terms of the power to clarify.
To clarify what?
We have already said it clarifies that before God we all exist on the same level, but that is fundamentally because of something else it clarifies.
Suffering clarifies our need.
We can surround ourselves with so many things for comfort, safety, and security. Yet all of those things can be ripped away or shown as insufficient in a heartbeat. When the sort of suffering comes that strips us of our illusions of control and security, of self-mastery and self-importance,
when that happens we see our ultimate need is the same as the demoniac, the same as the bleeding woman, and the same as Jairus. We need a supernatural encounter with Jesus Christ.
The Demoniac needs Jesus because he is trapped in his sins, surrounded by death, and enslaved.
But we too were enslaved to sin surrounded by death… Romans 6:20-23 says,

20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The woman needed to encounter Jesus because she was ritually unclean and removed from the people of God.
But we too were unclean and set apart from God in need of the ritual work of a high priest… Hebrews 9:11-14 says,

11 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Jairus needs Jesus because it turns out that in the face of human mortality he has nothing to overcome it.
But we too are powerless in the face of mortality… thankfully John 3:16-17 reminds us,

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

Jairus’ suffering clarifies what is true of all of us that we need a supernatural encounter with Jesus.

Christian Suffering Is a Trial of Patience

While we are on the subject of Jairus and suffering, I think this encounter shows us something else as well.
Suffering—and especially suffering with Jesus—is a trial of patience. Writer and retired-pastor Timothy Keller put it this way:

Jairus and the disciples are saying to Jesus, “What are you doing? Don’t you understand the situation? Hurry, Jesus! Hurry or it will be too late.

I need help from you now, Jesus! I don’t need help from you later. Hurry, Jesus. Hurry, Jesus!” But Jesus will not be hurried.

As a result, for almost everyone who has any relationship with Jesus, we often feel exactly like Jairus, that he is just delaying irrationally, unconscionably, inordinately, wrongly.

I understand this feeling. Anyone who has experienced “the waiting” has. But it is in the waiting in which God find us most malleable. Keller, again,

The Unexpected Power of Encountering Jesus

But what are those lessons?

The Woman Encountering Jesus

Our second point, the unexpected power of encountering Jesus. Think about this woman. The text says:

27 She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. 28 For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.”

First of all, we know that this is a woman of great faith.
She has suffered for twelve years. She has experienced failed attempt after failed attempt at healing. To the point of depleting all she had financially.
But still she had faith that she could be made well. She expected an anonymous touch in which healing power is transferred to her. But she receives so much more than merely what she wanted. Instead Jesus wants to clarify and restore entirely.
What does he want to clarify? It seems that this woman has a sort of superstitious view of Jesus. She has associated and has put her hope in “the touch.” Jesus doesn’t want her hope in the touch. He wants her hope in him. So he needs to call her out of the crowd to clarify. This is so important to Jesus that the text says he stopped—interrupting his journey to a dying girl—and looked for her.
Of her perspective, one commentator writes:

If she would admit to the healing, she would acknowledge that she had compromised the ritual purity of Jesus as well as members of the crowd (see v. 27 and note). The woman likely feared reprisal for violating religious law. She may also be afraid because she has just experienced divine power, and without permission, and is concerned about how Jesus will respond

She would have been immensely afraid and embarrassed by this, so why does Jesus seek her out. Why is this such an important thing for Jesus to do? I think we see the answer in what happens next.
So eventually,

33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth.

The “whole truth” in front of a crowd and a ruler of the local synagogue. She is outed as the unclean in their midst. Remember Leviticus and think of the nature of the crowd pressing in on Jesus. She just risked making many people unclean. But Jesus’ response mitigates any reaction and clarifies the true source of healing:

“Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

I said that we can see this woman has great faith, but faith in what?
In a touch.
It was not the touch, her superstitious Jesus is wrongheaded. It was your faith in Jesus. Jesus sees it as vital that both her and the crowd, and by proxy us as the readers, understand that healing comes from “faith alone in Christ alone.”
This is true for the immediate resolution of the chronic twelve year bleeding, but it is also true of that which we reflected on in the first point.
Our ultimate need for salvation from sin, ritual uncleanness, and ultimate death is found only in faith in Jesus as well.
What does he restore?
He speaks to her in front of his hometown crowd and calls her daughter and declares her healed. In effect he has just publically restored her image. The use of familial imagery hangs his reputation on the woman. If you believe in me, then you believe she is restored. This is more than she could have expected—restored physically and socially.
Restoration like this is why the church historically has been a place where all are welcome. Failure to welcome, except on the grounds of protecting the congregation, strike a dissonant note to this text.
As one scholar notes,
Mark Original Meaning

Why does Jesus call attention to what she has done? Has she not suffered enough public embarrassment? Could he not let her go in peace with a silent wink? The public embarrassment caused by singling her out signifies his individual care for her. He will not allow her to slip away and remain anonymous. He forces the issue so that when she leaves healed, she will leave knowing that the one who healed her knows her and cares for her. She is a person who is worth taking time with and addressing.

Jairus Encountering Jesus

Lest we think such restoration takes place at the cost of Jairus, he too gets something unexpected. When he comes to Jesus, Jairus has a small hope in Jesus. The interruption of this woman crushes that hope:

35 While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler’s house some who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?”

Yet in a comment that is hard to imagine how you even take it, the text says,

But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.”

A comment which he doubles down on when he arrives at the home and finds people mourning:

37 And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John the brother of James. 38 They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. 39 And when he had entered, he said to them, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.”

Their response is one of derision and mockery, so they are put out of the house as he raises the girl to life:

41 Taking her by the hand he said to her, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” 42 And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement. 43 And he strictly charged them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

This is the unexpected power of resurrection.
But let’s think about what is happening here. Okay obviously it is pretty cool that Jesus resurrected this guy’s daughter from the dead, but why let her die in the first place? I mean think about it.

Now chronic and acute are two very different things! A chronic problem means this has been going on. It’s a very sad thing, but it’s been going on for years. It certainly could wait two more hours. The little girl, though, has an acute problem. She is about to die. Yet Jesus chooses to stop and talk with this woman. This makes no sense! This is absolutely irrational. In fact, it’s worse than irrational. It’s malpractice. See?

Listen, any emergency room doctors who had a woman coming in with a chronic problem that could wait another couple of hours and had a little girl coming in with an acute problem and she was about to die … If they treat the woman and the little girl dies, you know what happens. That’s what Jesus is doing.

I think Jesus wants to show Jairus something unexpected as well. You see Jairus also has heard of Jesus, but he has no idea how far beyond his expectations that Jesus’ power goes. And so Jesus wanting to challenge the small nature of Jairus’ expectations.
So often out view of God and view of Jesus is too small.
Too small to save this person or that person,
Too small to be alleviate or work in my suffering,
Too small
A.W. Tozer once wrote,
The decline of the knowledge of the Holy has brought on our troubles. A rediscovery of the Majesty of God will go a long way toward cure them. It is impossible to keep our moral practices sound and our inward attitudes right while our idea of God is erroneous or an adequate...What comes to our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.
Jesus wants to help Jairus, but he wants to push Jairus to think beyond his present conception grounded in this life.
After all, if Jesus just healed her would she not experience death later?
Jesus is trying to send the signal that you need more than to be made healthy, you need to be given the power of resurrection. Think about how Jesus responds to another individual when healing was requested.
In John 11, two of Jesus’ closest friends Mary and Martha send word that their brother Jesus’ close friend is sick and on the verge of death and they request Jesus’ immediate help so that he may be healed.
And in what could be read as some of the most baffling words in scripture we read:

6 So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

Jesus stays and delays.
And when he finally goes Lazarus is already dead for three days.
Listen to this exchange from when he finally arrives:

23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

If you know the story then you know that Jesus resurrects Lazarus after three days in the grave. But he wanted to be clear that theology—Martha’s right doctrinal belief—was actually being understood in light of faith in him.
In both stories Jesus allows himself to be delayed until illness has had its way and death has prevailed. So that he can show his unexpected power as the source of eternal life.
And let me be clear that eternal life is not merely about going to Heaven. If you are a follower of Jesus, a believer in the message of the gospel then you have eternal life now. For you who have trusted in Jesus for salvation, death has been transformed from a great enemy to a necessary evil which one experiences as we wait for the full realization and conquest of Christ’s kingdom.
We see this truth in Ephesians 2:

2 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Notice the use of tenses in this passage you WERE dead, you ONCE walked, we all ONCE lived, we WERE by nature children of wrath. Each is formed in a grammatical structure that tells us that these things are no longer true of believers in Jesus.
Then the transition phrase “but God.” Now we have been MADE ALIVE with Christ, we have been RAISED up with him, and he HAS SEATED us with him. All formed in a grammatical structure which indicates completed action with ongoing consequences.
And one last time for emphasis, how do you access this?
Look at Jesus’ words to Jairus:

“Do not fear, only believe.”

We might fill this out, believe what you have heard about me.
Mark Bridging Contexts

Faith enables all, honored and dishonored, clean and unclean, to tap into the merciful power of Jesus that brings both healing and salvation

Prayer

Let’s pray:
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