Mark 5 21-43 Desperation

Desperation changes people. Desperation reduces us to our essence. All pretension is stripped away and we are who we are at the most basic level. The truth is that Jesus meets us in our desperation; God knows how we feel and in fact has felt it Himself. Desperation can be used by God for good because it can be a turning point in our lives when we finally come to realize we can’t control everything in our lives. There are some things beyond us that only God has control over. Johnny Cash, the country singer, tells of the turning point in his life, when he realized his life was beyond his control. The drinking and drugs had taken over, and he was finally desperate. It was only then that God could finally touch his heart, change the direction and trajectory of Johnny’s life.

It is true that many people come to Christ without being desperate; some come because of the dictates of logic, some come to Christ because they want more for their lives, they want safety and love and grace. There are many reasons people come to Christ, but desperation is certainly a key catalyst in the lives of many who come to faith. Once we get to the place where we understand that our lives are not completely under our authority and control, then logically it would be a good thing to get to know and love the person who does have ultimate authority over our lives. Our passage this morning is from Mark 5, starting in verse 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. Then one of the synagogue rulers, named Jarius, came there. Seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet 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.” So Jesus went with him.

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 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. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?”

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

While Jesus was still speaking, some men came from the house of Jarius, the synagogue ruler. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher any more?”

Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”

He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John, the brother of James. When they came to the home of the synagogue ruler, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” 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. He took her by the hand and said to her, Talitha koum!” (which means, little girl, I say to you, get up!) Immediately the girl stood up and walked around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat.

Let’s pray.

We’re still working our way through Mark. There are, as you might remember, 4 gospels, Matthew Mark Luke and John. The word “gospel” means “good news”. So the early church had 4 distinct gospels, with the same overarching message-that Jesus Christ was good news for humanity. Sent by God, sacrificed by humans, resurrected by God, ready and willing to share that resurrection with those who depend on Him to be their Lord and Savior. Of the 4 gospels, Mark was the earliest written, perhaps as close as 30 years after Jesus ministry, death and resurrection. So when the text mentions people like Jarius, it does so because there would have been people who read the good news, the gospel according to Mark who might have known Jarius, or even his daughter. This is verification. This is Jarius the head of the synagogue, over in that town over there. We remember him, we know that daughter this Mark is writing about. We can go ask if this account of the raising of his daughter is true or not. I always enjoy Mark listing people’s exact names. To me, it is verification that what he says happened, did. He couldn’t write it in the gospel if the story was going to be contradicted by someone who was there.

Our passage today contains the stories of two healings. But more than that, it is the healing of desperate people. People tended to not come to Jesus with little problems; the people who came for healing didn’t have tennis elbow or a hangnail, but had much more serious issues like leprosy, like being paralyzed and so forth. Today’s folks are also facing serious problems. The little girl has died, and her father seeks Jesus out, and the older woman has had serious bleeding issues for years. They are desperate, and in their desperation they have sought Jesus out, the only person who can help them. We also ought to understand our own desperation, even if we are feeling fine at present, but we’ll return to that idea later in the sermon.

I’ve been talking a lot out the overall form that Mark often writes in, and how we can look at this form and more deeply understand the point Mark was trying to impress upon his readers. This morning’s entire passage is really an extended chiasm, you can see how the passage starts with Jarius and Jesus, goes to the bleeding woman, and then goes back to Jarius, his daughter and Jesus. Within that overarching chiasm, there are smaller and tighter outlines of the text. Usually I like to read the entire text over again within the sermon because I’m convinced we don’t know our Bibles as well as we should, but today’s passage, due to its length, just won’t allow for that. Please take some time to reread it again later this week.

To set the scene, Jesus has been traveling around the Sea of Galilee, from place to place, healing people and teaching. You’ll notice that Jesus is swamped with people as He arrives in the boat, is approached by the desperate father, Jarius, and then as Jesus leaves with Him the crowds continue to follow Him around. This is not an out of control mob, but there are a lot of people around. In the midst of all those people, traveling with Jesus to Jarius’ house, a woman approaches to touch Him. This section also is done in chiasm form: the woman (A), touching Jesus (B), she is healed (C), Jesus asks about being touched (B) back to the woman (A). As we have learned, the center of the chiasm is the main point Mark is wanting his readers to hear and understand.

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 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.

This was a desperate woman. Clearly. The Greek words describe her bleeding as a “fountain of blood”. Merely bleeding is no big deal. A fountain of blood, continually coming from this woman, that’s really bad. All she had financially, all her energy over the past dozen years had gone into getting free of this horrible condition. But it had been all for naught. I tend to get upset when I turn an ankle and can’t play ball for a week or two. For twelve years she had been at the mercy of this debilitating disease. Doctors took her money, and then didn’t heal her. So now she was both physically and financially crippled. I wonder if she didn’t earn enough money to pay for the newest, next treatment, which then would fail again. I wonder if she wasn’t in a cycle she couldn’t get out of by herself. Money, to the doctor, fails, money, to the doctor fails again and so forth. What a miserable existence. Some of you may know this life, and may resonate with her frustration, pain and really, desperation. Like the father, Jarius, she is desperate. Jesus, this new healer in the district, would have seemed to be a godsend. Which He was.

When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?”

I was searching for some notes on this passage that I couldn’t find, but it seems to me one speaker said it was likely that the woman was reaching for the ends of Jesus prayer shawl, the tips of which flow out from a person who is walking. And that makes a little sense that the woman might not have been right next to Jesus, but maybe a couple of feet away, where she could touch Him and try to remain anonymous. With so many people pressing in on Jesus, perhaps she thought she could remain anonymous. But when God heals, when God comes close, why remain anonymous? Why not testify to the greatness of God? I wonder if she wasn’t surprised to find herself healed, or she was embarrassed because she had approached Jesus covertly when she didn’t need to. You know, as a Jewish woman she would not have been allowed to touch Jesus’ person. Maybe she thought she would get in trouble for having touched Jesus clothes and/or person. I don’t know what the penalty for that might have been, but I doubt it would have been considered a good thing in her community.

Jesus though, forces her hand. She is physically healed, but now needs to know more of who Jesus is. We all need Jesus healing, but that is the first step into a full relationship with Him. His healing begins our journey with Christ, but it is Himself that keeps us coming back to know more and more of His love, it is Jesus who we run to with fears and hurts, it is Him who loves us that we long to know more and deeper. Here’s the thing. We need to be healed of our sinful nature. That’s starts with Christ. We all have Adam and Eve’s curse-the tendency toward sin. We are born fallen. We are born sinful. We don’t somehow catch a sinful nature as we catch chicken pox; it is something we are born with that only Christ can cure, and only when we come to Him. Christ comes to cure all of our sins; our past, present and future sins. It is our sinful nature that Christ came to save us from, to be the sacrifice to heal on the cross. The woman is physically healed, but she needs more than that. We all do. We need Christ to heal our sinful nature, otherwise we are in real trouble. We cannot heal ourselves; we are already too bent and broken. We are all in need to Jesus healing—not that we are all a fountain of blood, but we are bent and broken. We need Christ; everyone does. It’s too bad that often we have to come to a place of desperation before we understand our need.

The main point of the passage is the woman being healed by Jesus; but it is the last point Jesus makes that defines the healing, that makes it a lesson for us. It is the woman’s faith that has made her well. Her faith in Christ is what healed her; her faith in His power, in acknowledging His lordship. She does not save herself, but her faith in Christ through His grace, heals her. And it does us as well. Faith is key. Our faith in Christ is the key to life on this earth and life eternal. This was Jesus message to this woman, Mark’s message to his readers and the message for us today. There is healing in Christ. Faith in Christ is the key that opens up life for us. We will see next week what a lack of faith will do. Jesus comes into His hometown and can do very little because of the lack of faith of the folks in Him. Somehow God uses our faith in Him to make all sorts of wonderful things happen. Desperate people find faith in Christ. They seek, and find.

Then Jesus continues the journey to see Jarius’ daughter, even though the servants report his daughter’s death. This little episode is also about faith. Jesus begins by telling Jarius-“Don’t be afraid, just believe.” Jarius journey with Jesus also begins with faith, just like ours. There is something deeply powerful about trusting Jesus with the most important parts of our lives. Perhaps desperation has driven Jarius to this point, but nonetheless he is here before Jesus, trusting Him. The center of this passage is Jesus grabbing the little girl and raising her up. The same thing that He will do for us someday. Dead, He will grab our hand and pull us up into life eternal. That is a powerful image for me, the hand of God reaching into our most desperate hour, pulling us up to Himself. The trust and faith placed in Jesus by Jarius was not misplaced. We see the fulfillment of his faith as his daughter is resurrected; healed, whole and back to herself.

These desperate people came to God with nothing but their faith, and God answered. I hope that is true for us as well. I hope we are desperate enough, sick of ourselves and the way we humans are; fundamentally flawed and self centered, that we turn to God in desperation and faith. Can you do that today? Or are you still thinking it might work out with you trying harder to be good; trying harder to become a good Christian without Christ actually coming into your life and changing it completely? I don’t think we are desperate enough. We live in the midst of comfort; a comfortable country, a comfortable community with comfortable friends. That kind of comfort does not produce the sort of desperation that is really needed to come to God on our knees, willing to come to Him in faith and penitence so that our lives will be changed, so that our souls will be saved.

We are dead in sin, we are bleeding fountains of separation from God, and we need to understand that about ourselves so that our desperation will force us again to our knees before Christ, asking for His healing, His presence in our lives, His leading us everyday. We do this because we know God is faithful, we know God is good and wants His very best for us. His very best is Himself, it is not material blessings, or freedom from pain. God’s best is not a comfortable life but instead God’s best is Himself. Are we desperate enough to want Jesus more than everything? Or are we content to try and be a little better on our own power, in our own time and in our own way? What is it going to take before we recognize our lostness? When are you finally going to bend a knee and come before Christ, humbled, desperate for Him to help?

I hope you kneel before God today-if you have not already. It is my prayer that we will all take a moment to reflect on our relationship with God; if we think we are in charge and God is supposed to move only at our Word; or if we listen each day, each moment for His voice to direct our steps, to guide our prayers, to change us more and more into the people He created us to be. We come before God desperate because only He can heal the rift sin has created between Him and us. We have to be desperate for the healing from sin only Jesus can provide in our acceptance of His gift of His life sacrificed on the cross. That is the gift I offer you today-it is my privilege to offer you healing in Jesus name, but only if you are desperate enough, and only in your faith in Jesus Christ. Go ahead and take your faith to the foot of the cross- Jesus will meet you there and heal you. Amen.

Let’s pray.

End-Desperation about sin and its consequences.