We read the same passage in our English Bibles, Mark chapter five, 21 to 43. I tried to separate the two stories, and then I realized I may not do that because they belong together. One fits within the other, and they both deal with a situation of complete hopelessness. And you begin to see that both are called daughters, And both are connected to 12 years. They belong together. The one was the 12 years of issue with the blood. The other one was the daughter who was 12 years old. And Jesus called the one daughter, and the other one was the daughter of Jairus. So they really belong together. So we'll read 21 to 43. This is really the climax, you could say, of the miracles of Jesus in this part of the Gospel of Mark. When Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side, remember he just healed the demoniac on the other side, a great multitude gathered to him and he was by the sea. And behold, one of the rulers of the synagogue came, Jairus by name. And when he saw him, he fell at his feet. begged him earnestly saying, my little daughter lies at the point of death. Come, lay your hands on her that she may be healed and she will live. So Jesus went with him and a great multitude followed him and thronged him. Now a certain woman had a flow of blood for 12 years and had suffered many things from many physicians. She spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse. What a situation. It just got worse and worse. And when she heard about Jesus, she came behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, if only I may touch his clothes, I shall be made well. Immediately, the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction. And Jesus immediately knew in himself that power had gone out of him, turned around in the crowd and said, Who touched my clothes?" His disciples said to him, You see the multitude thronging you, and you say, Who touched me? And he looked around to see her who had done this thing. But the woman, fearing, trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came 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 affliction. And while he was still speaking, some came from the ruler of the synagogue's house who said, your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further? As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, he said to the ruler of the synagogue, don't be afraid, only believe. And he permitted no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. Then he came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue and saw a tumult, and those who wept and wailed loudly. When he came in, he said to them, why make this commotion and weep? This child is not dead, but sleeping. And they ridiculed him. But when he had put them all outside, he took the father and the mother of the child, and those who were with them, and entered where the child was lying. Then he took the child by the hand and said to her, Talitha Kumi. which is translated, little girl, I say to you, arise. Immediately, the girl arose and walked, for she was 12 years of age, and they were overcome with great amazement. But he commanded them strictly that no one should know it, and said that something should be done or should be given her to eat. Oh, thank you for taking my paper. Okay. So really, this passage belongs together. So our focus is the entire passage, but we're going to draw some of the themes in there. And really, it really comes to the point of complete hopelessness. Perhaps we feel that sometimes in our own lives, and to know that as Christ who has the power to give hope. He is the hope. And he also shows great compassion. We see both of these things here this morning. But you know, I was reminded of a song that we sang this past year with the students of Hope Academy. It's in this little book, His Story, His Glory. It covers the whole Bible in song, 70 verses, 7-0. So it would take a long time to sing through that. But there is one beautiful verse that made me think of this passage, made me think of this verse, actually. And it goes like this. Hear the final Adam. Who's the final Adam? Jesus. Hear the final Adam crying, Father, take this cup away. Hear the son himself denying, I will do your will today. Adam left creation cursed. Christ, his legacy reversed. God has given us His story that we might proclaim His glory. What does this have to do with our passage? Mark 5, 21 to 43. Everything. In Adam, what happened? We left this creation cursed. We brought the curse upon ourselves. And you see it right here. A woman, a hopeless woman, with the curse of the bleeding for 12 years. And then the death of a daughter, 12 years old, right? A bereaved father and a bereaved mother. These are all consequences of the curse that came into the world because of Adam's sin. Christ, however, comes to do what? To conquer and to reverse to reverse the curse on man and on creation. And he does that through the cross and the resurrection. Only in him. He is the hope. I mean, you think about it, the principle in nature is that everything goes from order to disorder, right? You have a young tree and it gets old and it wears out and it breaks. But here you see the opposite, something that is old and broken, Christ restoring and making new. It's only Christ where you see that reversal that comes through his death and resurrection. He's the hope of the hopeless. And we saw that in the first part of Mark chapter five, he expels the demons from the demoniac and he transforms them into a missionary, a preacher of the gospel. We saw that last time. Today we see how he heals the outcast woman and restores her to fellowship. Fellowship in Christ. And how he raises a girl, a dead girl, to life, giving her food. When you think of food, you think of celebration. You think of feast. That's what Christ has come to do. He's the hope of the hopeless. And our purpose this morning in this sermon is that whatever your circumstance in life, whatever it may be, whatever, however hopeless it may be. It doesn't depend on your faith. It depends upon Christ and trusting in Christ. We're going to look at these people this morning, these two girls, the father of this girl and this woman. Their faith was far from perfect. Far from perfect. It was just, they had to look to Christ. And that's what we see this morning. Christ is the hope. He's the one who triumphs. He's the one who obtains victory over hopelessness, as we see here this morning. We're going to see one who is so powerful and at the same time, so compassionate. That brings us to two points. The woman without hope and the daughter without hope. Two simple points. The woman without hope and the daughter without hope. And we're going to see that this woman had more than just a bleeding problem. She had another problem, which was even far greater than that. But you know how the story begins. It begins with Jairus' daughter. What do we read in verse 1 or verse 21? when Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side. Remember where he was? He was on the east side of the Sea of Galilee in Decapolis. And what was he doing there? He was going to minister, and he ministered mainly to one person, to a demoniac whom he took from the graves, from the tombs. He cast out the demons, 2,000 demons. Where did they go? Into the pigs, went over the cliff and drowned. Jesus brought rest to this man, and he became a preacher of Jesus Christ. But you know, the rest of the multitudes, the rest of the people there, they said, not for us. Jesus, please leave. We don't want you here. And so he departed. He goes across the sea again and goes back to where he was before and goes to Capernaum, probably to Capernaum. And what we read there, the opposite, great multitude gathers and uses the word thronged, right? A little bit later, thronged around him. They were just pressing upon him a great multitude. And out of that great multitude comes a man, walks towards Jesus. He was a head ruler of the synagogue. What kind of man was he? A man with a high profile, a prestigious man. He was one of the rulers of the synagogue from a prominent family. His name was Jairus. Now what that means is he was probably a president of the board of elders, and he was responsible for the worship service of the synagogue, finding preachers, looking after the order of worship, supervising the property. So he was a big man, an important man, a high official. Also likely from Capernaum. And he probably heard about Jesus, but think about this man Jairus. He was probably with the, who tended to side with the other leaders among the Jews. And what were they doing to Jesus? They were scheming against him, plotting against him, sneering at him, mocking at him. After all, Jesus is not one of us. And now, You see Jesus, by God's grace in Christ, tackling one of the main people among the leadership in the synagogue. And how does he do that? By bringing about this hopeless situation in his life. Remember, hopeless situations come into our lives. And it's not that God is not out of it. He's the one that often brings these situations into our lives so that we may go to him. And that's what happens here. This man had a great need. His 12-year-old daughter was at the point of death. You know 12-year-old girls. They just love to play. They love to run around. They love to help a mummy make lunches, maybe help do dishes. And here she was, speaking in Aramaic to her mom and to her father. just a lovely girl a lively girl just running around probably with her friends and now almost dead just like that we don't know what the sickness was but she was dying and now this man this very important ruler again it's not by chance it's all in God's providence that You see Christ tackling one of the main leaders and he uses this situation to draw Jairus to himself, to come to him. And what does Jairus do? He just falls on his hands. He falls on his knees and it says there, and he begged much. That's literally what it says. He begged much. He kept on begging over and over and over and over again, saying, my little daughter, lies at the point of death. Come, lay your hands on her, that she may be healed and she will live. You know, nothing could be done with her. But do you see something in this man, Jairus? Completely hopeless, but there was a glimmer of faith. Perfect faith? No, no. But it was faith nonetheless. I mean, you could say, yeah, but look at his faith. You know, he's thinking that the only time Jesus can do something is if Jesus is in the room with somebody to heal that person. In other words, the only way Jesus could heal his daughter, if he could be with her in the room, his faith was far from perfect, far from perfect, but he still had faith. And this is the point. He still had faith. And this is because Jesus was drawing him to himself. Jesus uses this circumstance to draw Jairus to believe in him. You already see Jesus' power over his unbelief. He's drawing Jairus to himself. Jairus sets his hope on him. You see his faith, right? What does he say there? Again, in verse 24, he says, Let's see if I can find that again. You place your hands on her that she may be healed and she will live. There you see her faith. She will live. He believed. He believed that Christ was able to do that. You can do it, Jesus. You can take me out of this hopeless situation. Christ knows that Jairus' faith should not remain where it is. It needs to develop, to grow, but there's faith. but it's being tested. Christ is now going to test his faith in two ways. What's one of those ways? I mean, Jesus agrees to go with Jairus to the house, but what's going to slow Jesus down from getting to his house? The crowds. Think of a, think of an ambulance in slow traffic. They want to get somewhere very quickly, but it's just slow. So this is one obstacle. this no doubt would have been an obstacle to Jairus' faith. You can imagine, hurry up, hurry up, we've got to get there. And then on top of that, there's something else that happens. Another person in great need comes to Jesus. Now notice that this person is not like Jairus. Jairus has a, you see the name here, Jairus, but This woman's not even named. She's a woman. She's so poor. Jairus, you know, he's bold enough, confident enough that he just comes to Jesus as he is and to him, but she goes behind him. Completely different status, a different status, a different approach. Very, very poor, a poor woman with a flow of blood for 12 years, we read here. And think of that, now that she would stop Jesus, or that Jesus would stop for her, that would make things take even longer for them to reach Jairus' home. This woman had gone to many, many doctors. The doctors could solve nothing. She tried so many remedies, so many solutions. There was nothing. Nothing worked. Totally hopeless. Instead of getting better, what's it saying? She got worse and worse. How discouraging. Do you know what was worse than that? What was worse was not only her medical problem, but she was totally ostracized from her, from, from society. If you look at Leviticus 15, 25 to 27, you know what it says there? Leviticus 15, 25 to 27. She was considered ceremonially unclean. Let's look at that passage for a minute. Leviticus 15, this was the law of the Jews that also applied to her. Leviticus 15, 25 to 27. What do we read there? It says there, if a woman has a discharge of blood for many days, Other than at the time of her customary impurity, or if it runs beyond her usual time of impurity, all the days of her unclean discharge shall be as the days of her customary impurity. She shall be unclean. Every bed in which she lies all the days of her discharge shall be to her as the bed of her impurity. Whatever she sits on shall be unclean as the uncleanness of her impurity. whoever touches these things shall be unclean. He shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening." Did anybody touch her? Her husband probably divorced her. She's at home all alone. She could not be allowed to go into the synagogue. She was not allowed to worship the Lord with the people. Completely ostracized, completely isolated. from society, barred from access to God in the temple and in fellowship with his people. And that for 12 years, hopeless, 12 years. Sometimes we feel hopelessness for three years or four years. This is 12 years. This woman was living like this, not only with this pain, it was called a plague. This is literally a word. The affliction is a plague. It was extremely painful. And then on top of that, being isolated, alienated. That's like death. That's like death to her. Her situation was completely hopeless. She heard about Jesus. And Jesus also draws her to himself. And unlike Jairus, who comes out to Jesus in the open, she is so ashamed. She is so poor. She is so humble and so humiliated. She doesn't want to be seen. She doesn't want to be noticed. She comes from behind and just touches just the fold of his garment, the fold of garment of Jesus, and just touches it. And she's saying, if only I may touch his clothes, I'll be made better. I'll be made well. You notice that all along it's Jesus who touches. Right? The lepers and so on. But in this case it's the reverse. The woman touches. She doesn't want to be noticed. She doesn't want to be seen. She's so ostracized. And what happens? Immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up and she felt in her body that she was healed of her plague. quickly, secretly. Why was she like this? She's embarrassed if everyone needs to know about this. That's one thing. What an embarrassment. But there's something else here. She knew that by touching Jesus, she was doing something against the law. And by touching someone, she would make that person unclean. And then you see Jesus looking around and saying, who touched me? Who touched me? And the disciples are saying, what? What do you mean, who touched you? There's a throng, there's crowds of people around you. What do you mean, who touched you? But Jesus, the sense there is Jesus kept turning and looking around and his eyes were fixed on the lady herself. And you can imagine that lady. What is Jesus thinking? What is Jesus, how is Jesus going to respond? And you see fear in the inside and she's shaking on the outside. That's the word there, she's trembling. Who is she? She's nothing. She's scared. She confesses and she tells the whole truth. And we know our whole story don't we? It's written in here. Jesus wants her to go public with her faith. That's the point. Because it's about Jesus. She was acting selfishly. She just wanted to make herself better and not have any glorification go to Jesus. She was just doing it for herself. But Jesus says, no, no, no, it's about me. It's about my glory. It's about my honor. And Jesus wants her to go public because it's about Christ and that others may bear witness to the Christ who is performing the sign. Wow, she touches the clothes of Jesus. And understand, it was more than just a physical touch. It was a touch of faith. Faith, a finger of faith, just a finger of faith, touched the hem of Jesus' clothes. She not only touched Jesus, she believed. She believed that Jesus would heal her. She believed that she would be made well. And what do you see Jesus doing? What does he call her? Daughter. Wow, what an endearing expression. Daughter, your faith has made you well. You go in peace and be healed of your plague. She's a daughter, a daughter in the kingdom, fully accepted by God through faith, restored in fellowship. If anyone is hopeless, she would have been the most hopeless of all in her situation. She heard about Jesus' ministry. She knew that Jesus touched unclean people without becoming unclean himself. But now she touches him. He cleansed those who were unclean. And here you see the reversal of the curse in Christ. Uncleanness does not spread to Jesus, but cleansing comes from Jesus to the woman. Why? Because Jesus takes the uncleanness of his people on the cross. He's going to pay the price for the uncleanness. He's the one that brings cleansing. Think of Isaiah 64, verse six, right? It says that we are all like an unclean thing, a rag, right? Jesus takes that upon himself and brings cleansing. Now, in terms of an application, we can question, we can ask questions about the woman's faith. I mean, did she not think that Jesus was aware that she touched him? I mean, what kind of faith is that? I mean, did she think that there was something magical, something magical in his clothing? Was there not something superstitious in her faith? Perhaps. Sometimes there's a lot of wrong things in faith. But her faith was real. Her faith was real. In spite of some of those misunderstandings, her faith was real. And Jesus honored her imperfect faith. And God still does the same thing today. Your faith is far from perfect. Our faith is far from perfect. We think many wrong things, perhaps. We have many wrong ideas. We have errors mixed with it. But this should never stop you. This should never stop you from coming to Jesus. Your faith is never perfect. It never is. It's not dependent upon our faith. Except to say we need to believe. We need to have faith in the One. who can heal, who can restore. It's dependent upon Christ. Christ saves through faith. Our faith does never save us. Our faith does not save us. It doesn't. Christ saves us through faith. And she, Jesus saw that in the woman. The point is, come just as you are broken, unclean, filthy, like this poor woman, become Truly trusting. That's the point. Simple faith. Truly trusting. Come to Him for the cleansing of your sin. You feel hopeless in that? In your sinfulness? Come to Him for the cleansing of sin. As one song says, Foul I to the fountain fly, wash me, Savior, or I die. He's the hope of the hopeless. Scripture says, for he that is God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us. For what purpose? That we may become the righteousness of God in him. That's reversal. Scripture also says, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. All old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. That exchange on the cross, Jesus dying in my place and him giving his righteousness to me through faith, right? A great reversal occurs in that. What is that great reversal? A new creation to all who believe. And Christ confirms that here also to us this morning. But we should move on and return to the dying daughter of Jairus where we began. And that brings us to our second point. The daughter without hope. When is Jesus going to reach Jairus' home anyway? To lay his hand on his dying daughter? When is he going to do that? When is he going to lay his hand on her? Well, you know what? The crowds continue to move so slowly. And then of course this This ordeal with the woman, that even takes it longer. And then Jesus is asking the question, who touched me? What's Jairus thinking at this point? What's going to happen to his daughter? This caused even further delay. Is he going to make it on time to Jairus' house? We read in verse 35, while he was still speaking, some came from the ruler of the synagogue's house and said, Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further? Let me ask you, did they show trust in Christ? No. As Jairus' friend saw it, all hope was gone. There was still hope while the girl was sick, but not any longer. This fun-loving daughter, the only child, was dead. Think of it, that was his only child, his only daughter, dead. But you know what? Sometimes we come to that hopeless, sometimes God's people even come to that hopeless state where we say, there's no hope, there's no point. But you know what? It's never about our timing, but God's. And we have to learn that also regarding circumstances in our own lives or the lives of those whom we love, God is at work. At times, God is with Jairus, brings us to the point when everything seems to be hopeless. But you know what? He brings us to our knees. And he brings us to our knees so that we can see our need for Christ. and so that Christ may receive the glory, that Christ may receive the praise. In times of hopelessness, as we see in this story, there's always one of two responses. One response is to turn away from Jesus, not to trust in Him, not to pray to Him anymore, never to go to church anymore. That's what they're saying, eh? Don't bother Him. Why bother with Him? Why bother with Jesus? And the other response is, continue to trust, continue to pray. Notice that Jesus' response to Jairus' friends in verse 36. Jesus pays no attention whatsoever to these doomsayers. He pays no attention to the words. What does he say to this ruler of the synagogue? He says, you don't be afraid. Only believe. Keep on believing. That's what he's saying. Keep on believing. Of course, Jesus doesn't say what he will do, but he's saying, you put your trust in me. Don't be anxious. Don't be afraid. You firmly believe in me. Trust in me for your circumstances. Jesus is about to show that he reverses the power of death by raising the dead to life. Jesus is out to accomplish. Not only a healing, but a full resurrection has not yet occurred in this gospel. All the healings that we've heard up to this point, you could say are pointers. They point to the promise of the resurrection of the dead to life. It all points to that, right? These are signs that point us to the great resurrection to come when we will receive full restoration. Mark has been building all along from the lesser healings to the greater healings, preparing us for this very climax, the raising of Jairus's daughter from the dead. You know, if we stay in our hopelessness without turning to Christ, we will never see, and we can never see the rewards of God's blessing, which is ours only by faith. We'll never see it. It only comes by trusting in Him, then we see it. If we don't trust in Him, we're going to stay in our hopelessness. Notice, what do you see here? Those naysayers, Jesus does not permit them to come into the house. The crowds are to stay outside. Who goes in with Him? Peter, James, John. father, mother. He comes inside and who does he see? These people playing flutes and wailing and weeping and crying out loud. They're mourning over the death of the daughter. By the way, these are professional players. They would be hired so that they could mourn and cry for the dead. What do they do? They ridicule Jesus. Why? because Jesus had said, why are you making all this commotion anyway? The child's not dead, but sleeping. And that's why they ridicule him. But even then, Jesus chases them out. He drives them out because there's no belief there. By the way, when Jesus says she's not dead, but sleeping, he's not saying that she's in a coma. No. But like sleep, her death is temporary. Sleep is temporary. And that's what Jesus is saying, her death is temporary. What he's saying is that death does not have the final say. Life does. Life triumphs. And you see that other places in the Bible too, those who sleep in Jesus, those who die in Jesus also sleep in Jesus. And notice Jesus takes a child by the hand. By the way, when he takes a child by the hand, what's he doing? He's having contact with the dead. Again, that was also forbidden in Levitical law. No one was to touch a dead body. And here, Jesus, here you see the reversal, right? The unclean does not come to Jesus, but you see the power of cleansing coming from Jesus, the power of life coming from Jesus to the daughter. In Jesus, all this changes. In him, we are cleansed. In him, life overcomes death. He takes her by the hand, and you see the empathy of Jesus. He speaks in her language so that she hears him and understands him. She says, Talitha kumi, little daughter, little daughter or little girl, I say to you, arise. That's what it means. You see the reversal here? Christ brings hope out of hopelessness. She walks. She eats. That's the purpose. God restores us in Christ so that we can fellowship and feast once again. She eats. You know, this is the first resurrection in Mark's gospel. But it points ultimately to Christ and his resurrection for you. He died for you. He was raised from the dead for you. You believe this, don't you? You believe this? Without believing in Him, you have no hope at all. There is complete hopelessness. And His resurrection from the dead is the great reversal the bringing us from hopelessness to hope. And that's what we preach, the sure hope of the resurrection of Christ from the dead. And you look at our world today, it's filled with people like Jairus's friends, heralds of doom and messengers of despair. You see it in our world, hopelessness is the theme in art. It's seen in the theme of music, despair, suicide. It's seen in the disposal of human life, tear that little baby out of the womb, put him in the garbage. Medical assisted suicide, life no longer has value, there's complete hopelessness, give him the needle, let him die. all this climate warning change, right? The earth is going to burn up in three years. There'll be no human people left on earth. It's just messages of hopelessness, hopelessness, hopelessness, hopelessness. And that's what Paul says. Those who are hopeless say, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. But in the midst of the doomsayers, what do we hear Jesus saying to us? Don't be afraid. Believe. Don't be afraid. Only believe. Our hope is based on what? Not on our faith. Our hope is based on His promises. And we're called to believe those promises. Never think our hope is based on our faith. Our hope is based on His sure promises, and we need to believe those promises. Jesus says, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this? Embrace this promise by faith. That's it. And you too will live by faith. You know, there's more. There's more than the resurrection even. There's also the promise of a new creation. a new heaven and a new earth. Once the Apostle Paul say in 1st Corinthians 2 9 I has not seen nor ear heard nor has it entered into the heart of men the things which God has prepared for those who love him. Is that full of hope? You know what? You have the message of hope and our hope, the hope that we have in Christ should express itself also in showing our compassion to those who have no hope. That's how the true hope of the Christian life is expressed. Showing compassion to those who have no hope that they too may see our witness that there is one much greater, and that's Christ himself. Let me close with this little illustration. A little girl wanted to know what Canada looked like. And her dad tore a map of the USA from a magazine and then cut it into small little pieces. And he told her to go to a room and see if she could put it together. And after some minutes, she returned and handed the map correctly fitted and taped together. Dad was surprised and asked how she had finished so quickly. She said, on the other side was a picture of Jesus. And when I put them back, then our country just came together. Jesus comes to put our lives back together. May the world see that. May our city see that. And may our nation see that. Jesus comes to put life back together.