Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Mark 5:21-43
Pastor: Pastor Berg
Sermon Date:  July 4, 2021

Desperation makes people do crazy things. When you’re at the end of your rope, when you’ve exhausted seemingly every other avenue, you’re willing to do just about anything. Fall down on your feet and beg even? “When Jesus had again crossed over in the boat to the other side, a large crowd gathered around him near the sea. Then one of the synagogue rulers, named Jairus, came. When he saw Jesus he fell at his feet and repeatedly pleaded with him,  “My little daughter is near death. Please come and place your hands on her so that she may be healed and live.” 

We’ve seen this scene before, when someone so overcome with grief just keeps talking and babbling. Though it’s somewhat shocking to see a man in Jarius’ position reduced to this. But should it be shocking? This is a faltering father who has run out of options. He’s at the end of his rope. He’s on his hands and knees begging for help. And we hear almost in passing, “Jesus went with him.” 

Imagine the relief that Jairus must have felt! He knew that Jesus could help. This was not a hunch. This was not a hail mary kind of fling. Jairus knows that Jesus can help. “Come and put your hands on her and I know that she will live.” Relief to be sure, but also urgency. Imagine Jairus’ hurry! He wants to get Jesus to his daughter as soon as possible. If there had been an ambulance, he would have been yelling at the driver to step on it! And so off they go to save his little girl. And then…

A disruption. Like the guy that won’t slow down and get over in traffic when he hears the siren, someone slowed down the rescue team–namely, Jesus. The Holy Spirit, in his literary brilliance, inspires Mark to give us another one of those story sandwiches. You’ll recall what Pastor Schlicht said a couple of weeks ago, where the meat of the story helps to explain the whole sandwich. Well, believe it or not, Jarius’ plight at the beginning is just the bread. Verses 24-34 are really the meat. 

“A large crowd was following him, pressing tightly against him. A certain woman who was there had a discharge of blood for twelve years. She had suffered much under the care of many physicians and had spent all that she had. Yet instead of getting better, she grew worse. When she heard what was being said about Jesus, she went up behind him in the crowd and touched his robe. She said, “If I just touch his robe, I will be healed.” Immediately her flow of blood stopped, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. “

The disruption is a woman, a woman who like Jairus is also desperate, also at the end of her rope, broke medically, emotionally, financially. She couldn’t bring herself to speak to Jesus, to approach him. She wasn’t so bold. She’d been suffering with bleeding for 12 years…interestingly the same age as Jairus’ daughter. She’d gone bankrupt on physicians. Everything they tried only brought more pain, more disappointment. In a true example of blind faith, she believed that if she only touched Jesus’ robe, she would be healed. And it worked. “Immediately her flow of blood stopped,” Immediately she was healed! Imagine her relief! Imagine her joy!

“At that moment, Jesus knew that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?” Jesus’ could have kept walking. He had a little girl to save. You can picture Jairus tugging on his sleeve, trying to move the crowd out of the way. But Jesus stopped. He wanted to talk to the woman and he wanted to prove a point to Jairus. He wanted to give this woman a chance to confess, who had touched his clothing. 

“His disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing tightly against you and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?” His disciples thought he was crazy. Not the first time we’ve heard people think that about Jesus! The whole crowd was touching him. What did he mean? Didn’t he realize what an impossible question this was to answer?

“Nevertheless he kept looking around to see who had done this. The woman was trembling with fear since she knew what had happened.” The disciples didn’t know, but she knew what had happened. She knew what he meant. She knew he was talking to her. Like a good sermon, preached to the whole congregation, she heard in his words God’s words to her. She must have been terrified. Would she be in trouble? Would he reverse her healing? Would he charge her? She’d spent all her money. “She came forward, fell down in front of him, and told him the whole truth.”

Jesus had stopped the procession to talk with this woman. All the while Jairus is tapping his toes, tugging on Jesus’ sleeve, Jesus looks at this woman who had abandoned herself to his compassion. And he does not scold her. He does not lecture. He consoled her. He spoke good news to her. He sent her away in peace. “Daughter,” he said. What a way to address her! “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your suffering.” 

Can’t you see yourself in this woman? Desperate, at the end of your rope, nowhere else to turn? Do you feel like an interruption, a disruption for the God who is certainly too busy to deal with such a trivial thing as your problems. And yet what do we see, time and again?  Busy with many things, the God of the universe, Jesus in God’s service always stops for us. We are his disruption, and in the midst of all the hustle and bustle that presses upon him, he calls us to confess, to lay our sins at his feet. And what do we hear from him? Words of peace. He saves us and heals our afflictions. He sends us away whole, having been purified of all unrighteousness, remaining in him by his power and his grace.

But what about Jairus? Picture him standing there, his daughter’s life slipping away. This woman would be the death of her! What was Jesus thinking? Didn’t he recognize the urgency? If she died, what good could he be? Now was the time to heal her! But Jesus moves at his own pace, and death must die when he speaks. Jairus needed to chill. He could tap and fret all he wanted and Jesus could still save his daughter if he wanted. And Jesus wanted to save her. He had every intention. That’s why he went in the first place. She was as good as saved. Jairus needed only to wait. 

But as Jairus was processing all of this, “While [Jesus] was still speaking, people from the synagogue ruler’s house arrived, saying, “Your daughter is dead. Why bother the Teacher anymore.” How that word, “Daughter,” must have resonated in Jarius’ ear, having just heard Jesus use it to talk to that other woman. How it must have stung to hear the word “dead,” after it instead of “saved.” Here Jarius faced a crossroads: see Jesus only as a teacher, now unable to help and save; or see Jesus like this other woman and trust him without question.

And it’s at this moment, when Jairus is knee-deep in despair, that Jesus spoke what he speaks to the despairing, without any irony or hint of humor, out of all the crowd Jesus looks directly at Jairus and says, “Don’t be afraid. Only believe.” How ridiculous! Like a friend telling a woman with cancer not to worry, Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid!” Don’t be afraid? Death just swallowed up Jarius’ daughter. He’d just lost one of the most precious gifts of his life. He had failed her. He had failed to bring her salvation. He’d let some woman ruin it all, and Jesus tells him not to worry, not to be afraid?

But notice, this isn’t a request. This is a command. It’s a gospel imperative. “Don’t be afraid.” Nearly 100 times the Bible speaks these exact words. From the angels who announced Jesus’ birth to angels who told the women at Jesus tomb that he had risen, to Jesus himself to his disciples and here to Jairus. “Don’t be afraid.” Why not? Because Jesus has defeated death. Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus defeated death by his own death. As surely as Jesus lives, you will live. “Don’t be afraid. Only believe.” 

Jesus goes with Jairus and when he gets to the house he takes Peter James and John with him. And he enters the house and it’s quite the scene. There’s a commotion. Uproar. Crying. Wailing. Upon seeing the scene, Jesus says something that seems like nonsense, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.” How those words must have jolted Jairus! With the same word that had been announced to him, Jesus says, “Contrary to popular belief: She’s not dead, she’s sleeping.” She’s not dead. Except she was. Everyone there knew it. And so the crowd did what people today still do when God says the dead live, when Jesus speaks life to the deceased. They laughed. The gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing, but not to the perished. But Jesus wasn’t deterred.  A little mocking will never keep him from saving his people. 

“But after he put everyone out, he took the father of the child, her mother, and those who were with him and went in where the child was. Grasping the hand of the child, he said to her, “Talitha, koum”! (When translated, that means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise!” Immediately the little girl stood up and began to walk around. (She was twelve years old.)” Such is the power of Jesus’ word! It raises the dead. His Word gives physical life to the physically dead. His Word gives spiritual life to the spiritually dead. Immediately! Just like the other daughter, when Jesus speaks, it is so! 

Whatever trial comes our way, whatever grief befalls us, when death is ready to outrun us, there’s nothing we can do except look to Christ in faith. Listen to what he says. Listen to his voice in spite of what your eyes may see and your ears may hear and your mind might think. When all seems impossible, Contrary to Popular Belief, hear Jesus say again, “Don’t be afraid. Only believe.” Amen.