to listen now to God's word from Mark chapter 5 beginning in verse 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. Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet 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. And he went with him. And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for 12 years and who had suffered much under many physicians and had spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, if I touch even his garments, I will be made well. Immediately, the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, who touched my garments? And his disciples said to him, you see the crowd pressing around you and yet you say who touched me? And he looked around to see who had done it. 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. And he said to her, daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease. 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? But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, do not fear, only believe. And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John, the brother of James. They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead. He's sleeping. 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. Taking her by the hand, he said to her, Talitha Kumi, which means little girl, I say to you, arise. And immediately the girl got up and began walking, for she was 12 years of age, and they were immediately overcome with amazement. And he strictly charged them that no one should know this and told them to give her something to eat. Thus ends our reading in God's word. Let's pray. Lord, we come this morning to two amazing stories here in your word, each of which testified to the power and the mercy of our Savior. We pray, Lord, that you would help us to grasp and perceive that this morning, taking hold of these truths in the hand of faith. We pray, Lord, that your spirit would illuminate our hearts and minds, that we might not see and understand these things in a fleshly way, might receive them spiritually to the praise of your great name. This we ask in Jesus' name, amen. Well, there are many things in this world which might make us afraid. That's something that we learn from the earliest days of youth. For the young child, the typical sources of fear are what we might call more common, more concrete, tangible things. children tend to fear things like the dark, or spiders, or thunder, or snakes, so forth, maybe all of the above. And maybe, as an adult, some of those fears have stuck around for you. But for grown folks, the most potent sources of fear, I think, are usually a little bit more existential. What do I mean by that? Well, as grown folks, we tend to fear social troubles like conflict and rejection and loneliness. We fear the negative effects brought about by aging and disease. And we fear that great enemy which is coming for us all, death itself. Being afraid is not a pleasant thing. But it is a commonplace component of life in this fallen world. And if you can identify this morning active sources of fear in your life, things which you dread, things which fill you with worry and anxiety, things which make you terrified, then you are in good company. Because Mark chapter 5, verses 21 through 43, tells two interwoven stories about two different people, both of whom are driven by fear to some extent. In these verses, we meet with a man who is initially afraid because his daughter is dying. Then he is afraid because his daughter is dead. We also meet a woman who is initially afraid because she is suffering from an incurable disease. Then she is afraid of what Jesus might do to her when she reaches out to him for a cure. Fear is a thread which runs through this passage. We have two people who are fearful, and both of them in their fear reach out to Jesus with desperation. seeking his help. And when they do, both of them are challenged by Jesus to lay their fear aside and trust him. This passage, then, is a testament to the power and trustworthiness of Jesus Christ. It is also a call of faith in the powerful and trustworthy Jesus. Because what we find in these verses is that Jesus's power to save extends to those suffering under the threat of disease and death. Two of the things which we most dread. And therefore, in the words of Christ, we should not fear, but only believe. That's the thing which we will draw out as we consider the three parts of this story. In this text, we see that there is a request in verses 21 through 24, an interruption in verses 25 through 34, and then a resuscitation in verses 35 through 43. We begin with a request. After his encounter, with the demon-possessed man on the far side of the sea, that's what we considered last week, Jesus immediately returns to the western side of the shore. That is the area where most of his ministry has been conducted up to this point. It's where he's best known. And so upon Jesus's homecoming in Galilee, we see that a familiar scene begins to develop. He's there beside the sea when a crowd spontaneously forms around him. Certainly not the first time we've seen this. It won't be the last either. Within this crowd, we're told that there was one man who came to Jesus with a request. That request is encapsulated in verses 21 through 24. The text reports, then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet. The first thing that I want you to note there is the irony in that description. We're told, on the one hand, that Jairus was one of the rulers of the synagogue. He was one of the elders who maintained the local synagogue facility, and who oversaw the services and the worship that was held there. Consequently, he was a man with some social standing in his community. But on this day, this upper class synagogue ruler humbles himself, stoops down, and falls at Jesus' feet. Why? Why would he do the sort of thing that would potentially cast aspersions on his fittingness to serve as a synagogue ruler? Well, he has a serious problem, and he is going to present that problem to Jesus along with a request. Verse 23 explains that Jairus implored Jesus earnestly. He begged him. And he begged him, 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." The problem is that this man was losing his little girl. She was very sick and he was afraid, with good reason, that she would soon be dead. But he had heard about Jesus. Remember, Jesus had developed a name for himself in Galilee at this point. The miracles wrought by Christ had become well-known in that region. And thus, this fearful father comes with the last-ditch effort request that Jesus lay his hands on the girl and make her well. They had seen things like this happen before. Maybe Jesus would condescend to doing it for this man also. And we notice that Jairus doesn't quite show the same degree of faith as the Roman centurion elsewhere in the Gospels. Remember him? That centurion who trusted Jesus and trusted that he could heal his servant from a distance. He didn't even need to come down to the house. Jesus commended his faith as the paradigm picture of what faith in Christ looks like. But Jairus wants Jesus to come down. He wants him to come down to the house and he wants him to touch his daughter. That's how he thinks this has to work. But even if his faith is not the greatest faith we see in the New Testament, it is real nevertheless, and Jesus shows no disdain towards him. Now, he immediately goes with the man in order to address the issue with his sick child. Jesus meets the man where he's at. Congregation, this is just the first, there's more to come, just the first indication in our text of Christ's disposition towards those who come to him in their desperation and trust him. Even when presented with weak and underdeveloped faith, Jesus powerfully and compassionately responds to the requests of needy ones who seek him. In the words of the Westminster Confession in its chapter on saving faith, this faith is different in degrees, weak or strong, maybe often in many ways assailed and weakened, but gets the victory. growing up in many to the attainment of a full assurance through Christ, who is both the author and finisher of our faith. Friends, that's good news. Faith in Christ, if it is real, if it is sincere, will get the victory, even if it is weak and wavering at times. When we grasp after Christ with the open hand of faith, we need not fear that he will flee from us just because we are not one of the giants of the faith. Now, this passage in many ways indicates to us that he receives those in need with great compassion. So we can turn to him in our fear. That does not mean that when we turn to him, that everything will go exactly as we want it to go. That is evident from Jairus' own experience as we see in verses 25 through 34. It must have been a great relief to this man when the miracle worker from Galilee decided to respond to his request favorably. His daughter was beginning to look like a lost cause, but there might be hope after all if Jesus was going to take up the case. Yet just when Jesus sets out to care for this girl, there is an interruption as we see in this middle portion of our passage. Now Mark the Evangelist likes stories within stories. We've stated that before in our study of the book. He likes sandwiches. Bread on one end, some meat in the middle, more bread to close it up. He likes to start one story, interrupt it with another one, and then finish the first story. We see that structure here. But there is no reason to believe that this is an artificial structure, especially in this case, because the other Gospels tell this story in a similar way. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are all agreed that Jesus was interrupted on the way to Jairus's house. By whom? Well, the great physician's house call was first interrupted by the crowds who slowed him down. We are told that the great crowd followed him and thronged about him. The life of Christ would have been a nightmare for introverts who need their personal space. Maybe that's you. Maybe you like to have a little distance between you and others. You would not have wanted to be Jesus. People were always right up in his business. He was surrounded by countless individuals just about everywhere that he went, and they had no misgivings about jostling him and getting in his way. But the real interruption here wasn't just the crowd. He was used to that. The real interruption stemmed from a singular individual within the crowd. Providing some background information, verses 25 and 26 inform us that there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years and who had suffered much under many physicians and had spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse. Such a woman stands in sharp contrast with Jairus. He was an upper class ruler of the synagogue. She was an impoverished, unclean outcast. And the text is explicit about her poverty. She had spent all of her money on medical quacks who had not been able to help her at all, but in fact, they had made her condition worse. The treatments had been to her destruction. We can also deduce that she was an unclean outcast because of her specific malady, her specific disease. The diagnosis supplied here is not precise. Mark has no interest in providing us with this woman's medical chart. But the fact that her bleeding problems had gone on so long strongly suggests that this was some form of menstrual bleeding. And the Mosaic Law in the Old Testament clearly teaches that the menstruating woman under the Mosaic Law was considered unclean until the bleeding stopped and a time of cleansing was complete. You can read more about that in Leviticus chapter 15. And the implication of those laws for this woman, which were still in effect, is that she had lived as an outcast for 12 years. She was unable to participate in normal life like everyone else. She couldn't just sit down and have tea with her friends. She couldn't just go up to the temple and worship. She couldn't go in, probably, to that synagogue which Jairus oversaw. Her existence must have been miserable. Can you imagine the fear that she must have felt when it first began to dawn on her that this problem was not going away? Well, fearful of an unending life as an unwell outcast, this woman had grown desperate for a cure. We read here of the help she had sought from doctors. And after the doctors failed her, Her desperation eventually compelled her to place an inkling of faith in the capabilities of a man named Jesus. She had heard about him. Like Jairus, this woman had heard what Jesus was able to do. And like Jairus, she was under the impression that the main way to benefit from Jesus's powers was to touch him. You needed to touch him. And so she walked with the crowd that was around Jesus, she worked her way up to him, and she grabbed hold of the hem of his garment. Verse 28 gives us a glimpse into her frame of mind. For she said, if I touch even his garments, I will be made well. She had a, we might call a quasi-magical view of Jesus up to this point. She treats him almost as if he were some sort of good luck talisman that could exude good health if you got close enough. But despite her imperfect understanding of the way in which Jesus's power worked, it worked. It did work. being among the crowd headed up to Jairus' house, she caught up with Jesus, she discreetly touched his garment, and we are told that immediately the flow of blood dried up and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turns about in the crowd and said, who touched my garments? The moment the miracle happened, the woman felt something and Jesus felt something. She knew that she was healed and He knew that He had done the healing. And Mark uses this very peculiar phrase. The commentators, they all agree this is peculiar. But he says that Jesus perceived in himself that power had gone out from him. What does that feel like? I have no clue. The point of this saying is that this woman's pursuit and presence were not unknown to Jesus. He knew that something had happened. Now there is some debate as to just how much Jesus knew. Some have taken his question, who touched my garments, to mean that he was truly ignorant of who had been healed. And that would seem to require that the healing did happen somewhat mechanically and apart from Jesus's conscientious control. And it's true that Jesus's real human nature was limited in certain ways. He could not see out of the back of his head, for example. But as one who also possessed a divine nature, it would be, I think, wrong to conclude that he healed her unwillingly. Now how you put all of this together, that's a difficult question. But these are the necessary parts of our Christology, and so we've got to try to hold them together. I think it would be wrong to conclude that he did this unwillingly, and so there must be some sense in which he anticipated this woman's approach. And there must have been some sense in which he granted the healing. Calvin goes so far as to say is that Jesus knew that the spirit was drawing her to him. I don't know. I don't know. But I think Jesus knew to some extent what was happening. And so the question, who touched my garments, doesn't need to be interpreted as a sign of total ignorance. But it does suggest that Jesus wanted to call the woman forth from the crowd And according to his human nature, he could not see her. Therefore, he sought after her vigorously. Nevertheless, the disciples, they think the whole thing is a lost cause. They say to him, you see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, who touched me? I mean, I don't think this was intended to be offensive, but they see his request and his question so silly that it's almost a joke to them. There are dozens of people touching Jesus. Why would he ask who touched him? Everyone's touching you, Jesus. That's a pointless question. But Jesus knew that someone had touched him with a touch of desperate faith. Different. That's different. Jesus knew that someone had been healed. And thus He continued searching through the crowd for the perpetrator of this extraordinary touch. There were, no doubt, many people who jostled Him and bumped into Him that day as they were walking up to John Russell's house who weren't healed of anything. But this woman had touched Him with faith, and that had made the difference. And it is in this moment that the woman who was once afraid of her disease becomes fearful of Jesus. Verse 33 says, 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. She was an unclean woman. According to the Levitical law, Her touch could have made Jesus unclean. Her problem could have become Jesus's problem. Now, we've already noted in the Gospel of Mark that Jesus seems impervious to becoming unclean. His cleanness conquers the uncleanness that touches him. But she didn't know that. And yet she walked right up to him and grabbed his clothing, putting both of them at risk. She probably feared, and with some justification, that he might be mad, that he might be angry. That's the sort of thing that a normal person would be angry about. Maybe Jesus would lie to her if he found her. Maybe he would rebuke her if he was able to identify the one who had done it. But she had been healed, after all. And so rather than retreating to fear, the woman chose to step forward in faith and recount the whole story. She must have told Jesus something of her illness, and of her search for healing over many years, and of her belief that he might be able to make the difference. Maybe she told him about the feeling that she felt the moment that she touched him. We don't know. We're not told the whole story from her end, but we are told that she told him the whole truth. And then when she had told Jesus the whole truth, she got the same response that Jairus had gotten. Here's your second indication how Jesus treats those who come to him in faith. He did not smother her imperfect faith with lectures or rebukes. He did not immediately commence to correcting her wrong-headed notions about how healing works. Instead, He simply commends her. Jesus said, daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Be healed of your disease. You see, her faith was imperfect, but her faith was in Christ, and so her faith conquered her fears. And Jesus used that faith to save the woman from her disease. And she could now live in peace, having been made whole by the Christ. But saving this woman was not without its consequences. Remember, when this woman approached Jesus, he was already on a mission. This was an interruption. Jesus was in a hurry to get somewhere, but her touch had stopped him and slowed him down considerably. And the sad outcome of that momentary stop is recorded in verse 35. The little girl hadn't made it. People came and they greeted Jairus from his household. They reported that his daughter was dead, and they argued that Jesus was no longer needed. He hadn't made it in time. There was no one left to heal. He could go home. But Jesus overheard this and He challenged Jairus. Don't listen to them. Do not fear. Only believe. That's the theme of this whole text, is it not? Do not fear. Only believe. In other words, Jairus, you just watched me heal a woman of a chronic disease that no one else could touch. She had it for 12 years and now it is gone. Do not fear. Only believe. Do not fear your future. Do not fear your daughter's future because of this bad report. You have come with belief. Continue believing in me and believe in my ability to save. If I can deal with disease of this sort, perhaps I can deal with death. faced with the death of his own dear daughter, Jairus was called to faith in Christ. And apparently he did choose faith in Christ because he didn't send Jesus away. He didn't go on by himself to the house of mourning. Their march continues. But at this juncture, Jesus begins to whittle the group down. There's too many of them. The crowd, and most of the disciples, are left behind. Peter, James, and John, that's a group that we're going to see become Jesus's inner circle. They're the only ones that are allowed to go to Jairus's house. And when they get there, the band is already assembling. We have the luxury these days of planning funerals over long periods of time if we want to, need be. With all of the preservation methods and refrigeration, all this sort of stuff, there's time. But in that day and age, if someone died, the body was not going to get any better than it was that moment, so you needed to get on it. And so it was obligatory to quickly hire mourners to weep and to wail over the deceased. Funerals at that time, they were not just a family affair, they were a community affair. and the number of mourners that you hired to come and cry and weep over the death of your loved one that was frequently dictated by the wealth and the status of the deceased family. In the case of a synagogue ruler, the assembly may have been impressive. Many were there weeping, wailing, doing a job to mark the death of this little girl. They were causing a great commotion when Jesus arrived. But Jesus is having none of it. He asks those present, why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead, but sleeping. Now this was a baffling claim, and it does continue to baffle people today. Does Jesus not know the condition of this girl? But I think the meaning is easy enough to understand when you realize that Jesus is not intending his words to be taken willingly, literally. The mourners were pretty certain that the girl was dead. That's why they scornfully laughed when Jesus suggested otherwise. But Jesus knows something that they don't. He knows that the little girl's condition is a short-term problem. She has not finally and permanently succumbed to that great enemy death. The interruption had not derailed him. Taking care of one person had not rendered invalid his ability to take care of another. He had not lost control of the situation when the woman with the discharge of blood grabbed his garment. Very soon, this little girl would be resuscitated, just like someone waking up from a good night's sleep. And with this baffling declaration made, Jesus then put everyone out of the house except for Jairus, his wife, and his three disciples. He did not intend to put on a show for skeptics, not at the expense of this little girl. He plans to show, in this case, his power and trustworthiness only to those with the faith to receive him. And the miracle itself is very simple. There's nothing especially elaborate about it. Jesus simply takes her by the hand, and we're given the exact Aramaic words that he used, talitha koumi, which means in the Greek or in the English, little girl, I say to you, arise. Now don't you think that somebody had tried something like that already? Wake up, wake up. Didn't work. But when Jesus said, little girl arise, we are told that immediately, just as quickly as the woman who had been healed when she grabbed Jesus' garment, this 12-year-old daughter of Jairus got up and began walking. She was alive and well. She went from dead to alive, just like that. And everyone, as you can imagine, was overcome with amazement, even those who had come with faith to believe. Because Jesus had shown them something that they had never seen before. He had not just conquered disease, as he had done in the past. This time, he had saved a child from the clutches of death. And you might think that everyone would have immediately figured all this out, but despite that fact, that Jesus' exploits would soon be known, those who had witnessed the miracle were not supposed to spread the word at this time. Jesus was going to try to keep it quiet. Because many people would be impressed with this work, and the crowd which would accumulate even further would not further his interests. He had work to do. And so Jesus tries to keep things as quiet as he can while the girl very human description here, eats and regains her strength. Brothers and sisters, do you see in these two interwoven stories the power and the trustworthiness of Jesus? He can save from disease and death. And even when we think He's too late, if He intends to be there, He's right on time. And for this reason, we should heed the command that was given to Jairus. It ought to ring in our ears day by day. When filled with fear and faced with life's greatest obstacles, we need not fear, but only believe. We need only to believe in Christ Jesus and His ability to deliver us. That doesn't mean that we will be spared every hardship in this life. The woman with the medical condition bled for 12 years before Jesus healed her. Likewise, Jesus did allow Jairus' daughter to die for a time before he resuscitated her. We know from the story with the Roman centurion that if Jesus wanted to heal her on the road, he could have healed her on the road. He could have stopped and prevented her death, but he lets her die so that he can resuscitate her. And she would go on to die again another day. So Jesus' presence in our lives does not mean that everything will go hunky-dory until the end of time. It certainly didn't mean that for Jairus or his little girl or this woman. But when Jesus heals from disease and resuscitates from death in the scriptures, what is he doing? He is giving us temporary pictures of his permanent work, which he is going to do for all who repent of their sins and trust in him. Through Christ's death and resurrection, He has done what is necessary to secure eternal health, well-being, and bliss in glory. He's done what is necessary for all who place their faith in Him. He may or may not heal you of your disease or your personal malady in this lifetime. There were plenty of people living in Jesus's days who did not get healed. But you can be sure that if you trust the crucified and resurrected Lord, disease and death will not get the last word in your life. That will not be the end of your story. Through faith in Him, that desperate faith which reaches out through fear, you will be saved from your worst fears on the last day. You will live eternally with Jesus in heaven where such things are no more, where they cannot reach. And so at the close of this text, I would say to you again what Jesus said to Jairus. Don't fear, only believe. For Jesus is powerful, compassionate, and worthy of your trust. If you don't believe that, just read it again. Let's pray.