Jesus Came to Save the Sick and the Dead

The Healer of Those Who Are beyond Hope
(Mark 5:21-43, Preaching: Pastor Nathan Snyder, August 27, 2017)

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.

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. ³⁰ And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?” ³¹ And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” ³² And he looked around to see who had done it.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. ³⁴ And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

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?”³⁶ But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” 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.” ⁴⁰ And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. 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.

Wherever there is life and health, it is the gift of God.  Wherever true healing takes place, it is the work of God.  He is the source of life, both physical and spiritual.  This is always true, but most obviously so when we have come to the end of our own resources, when our own efforts have failed, and then into the apparent hopelessness, God works renewal and salvation.  Jesus, the Son of God, has come as the Great Physician, the Healer of those who are beyond the hope of healing, the Savior of those who are beyond the hope of salvation.  Mark is reinforcing this point throughout the series of miracles he records in 4:35-5:43.  In 4:35-41, the disciples are at their wit’s end as their boat is beginning to fill with water.  The storm is threatening to drown them all and their efforts appear futile in the face of the violent wind and waves.  Yet Jesus commands the storm to be still, and it becomes still.  In 5:1-20, Jesus encounters a man whose soul is hopelessly bound and oppressed by a Legion of demons.  All anyone ever tried to do to help him was keep him restrained, but all attempts have failed and the man runs wild, alone among the tombs where he cuts himself with rocks.  Yet Jesus commands the demons, and they leave the man, who becomes a joyful believer in the Lord.  Now in 5:21-43, Mark writes of two more situations in which all human effort has proven useless to save.

The account of Jesus raising Jairus’ daughter from the dead sandwiches the story of his healing the woman with the flow of blood, for Jesus was on route to Jairus’ house when he encountered the woman.  Mark brings out clear connections between the two miraculous deliverances in the way he tells the story.  Jairus asks Jesus to make his little daughter well, while Jesus calls the woman in the crowd “Daughter” and tells her that her faith has made her well.  Jairus’ daughter is twelve years of age, and the woman has had this flow of blood for twelve years.  Both situations appear hopeless.  These two woman, both old and young, are beyond the help of men.  The woman with the flow of blood has suffered much and has spent all her income to pay doctors who have accomplished nothing.  Yet she has heard reports about Jesus’ power, and she believes his power is sufficient to heal her.  She is right.  When Jairus comes to Jesus, he says that his daughter is at the point of death.  The Greek here means she has reached the end.  After the encounter with the woman along the way, someone comes from Jairus’ house to inform him that his daughter is dead.  There is nothing more anyone can do.  A person cannot be more beyond hope than when they are dead, right?  Yet this limitation does not apply to Jesus’ power.  He encourages Jairus’ faith, continues to his house, and raises the girl from the dead, giving her back to her amazed and overjoyed parents.  Peter, James, and John were also quite amazed.  This miracle must have been emblazoned on Peter’s memory, for Mark records the exact Aramaic words Jesus spoke to the girl, translating it then for his readers into Greek.  Tradition tells us Mark got the information for his Gospel from Peter.

Mark emphasizes not only the hopelessness of both woman’s conditions, but the need for faith in Jesus’s power to save when all appears hopeless.  The woman on the road tries to sneak away after being healed, but Jesus calls her out.  She falls before Jesus, telling her story, and Jesus tells her that her faith has made her well.  Of course, it was Jesus’ power that had made her well, but she had received that healing power because of her faith in him.  Jairus also had fallen down before Jesus, pleading with him to come heal his daughter.  He clearly has faith that Jesus can do this.  When someone comes with a discouraging word, Jesus tells Jairus, “Do not fear, only believe.”  Jesus was calling Jairus to faith in his power to raise the dead (cf. Mt. 9:18).  His words tie this story back to Jesus’ rebuke of his disciples in 4:40, “Why are you so afraid?  Have you still no faith?”  When we are up against that which for us is impossible to face, this is an opportunity for us to trust in Jesus, for whom all things are possible.  As Jesus says later in 9:23, “All things are possible for one who believes.”

There is another theme throughout these two miracles: physical touch.  Jairus tells Jesus to come and lay his hands on his daughter so that she will be made well.  The woman tells herself that if she could just touch Jesus’ garments, she would be made well.  She does touch Jesus’ garments, and she is made well.  Later Jesus touches the deceased child, taking her by the hand, and she also is made well.  One of the reasons touch is so significant is because both the bleeding woman and the dead girl are ritually unclean according to God’s laws for Israel (cf. Lev. 15:25-28; 22:4).  When the woman touched Jesus, this would normally have made him ritually unclean, although if the woman had remained anonymous, nobody would have known.  Yet Jesus did not become unclean through the encounter, rather the woman became clean.  Likewise, when Jesus took the dead girl’s hand, this would normally have made him unclean.  Yet instead, he made her clean by restoring her life.  We find a deeper spiritual lesson here, for ritual uncleanness represents moral uncleanness.  This is why an unclean person was not allowed to come into the temple, which represented God’s presence.  Every one of us is spiritually sick with sin and thus defiled and unfit for the presence of God.  Indeed, every one of us is born dead in sin (Eph. 2:1-3).  No earthly remedy will help our condition.  We can do nothing to help ourselves, nor can anyone else except Jesus alone.  When the Pharisees complained that Jesus ate with “tax collectors and sinners,”  Jesus said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mk. 2:17).  There are, of course, none righteous (Rom. 3:10).  Jesus came to save helpless, hopeless sinners.  As long as the Pharisees considered themselves outside this group of people, they kept themselves outside the possibility of true salvation from the penalty and power of their sin.  Yet many whom they despised, such as unpatriotic swindlers (tax collectors), drunkards, and the sexually immoral, recognized that they, like the bleeding woman, needed someone who could heal them on the inside.  They saw that they, like Jairus’ daughter, needed someone to raise them from spiritual death to newness of life.  They saw that they needed to be cleansed, not of ritual uncleanness, but of their guilt and defilement before God.  Do we recognize that our spiritual condition is hopeless apart from the saving grace of Jesus Christ to make us well?  This is still true if we have been followers of Christ for decades.  No matter how much sin-sick we are, no matter how unclean, we must reach out to Jesus.  In doing so, we find not that we cause him to be defiled, but that he makes us clean and whole.  He is always our only source of spiritual life and health.