Sermon Notes: Mark 5:21-43
Mark’s Big Idea: Jesus is the divine Son of God and the suffering servant Messiah who inaugurates the kingdom of God, who atones for sin through his death, burial, and resurrection. Jesus calls his people to a costly discipleship of self-denial and suffering with purpose and joy.
Author: John Mark
Audience: Gentiles who are being told the good news of the kingdom of Jesus.
Followers of Jesus who are growing up into maturity in Christ and learning how to live under the rule of his increasing kingdom on earth as in heaven.
Occasion: Mark, as Peter’s missionary helper, is writing a gospel “tract” for use on the field as they preach the good news to Gentiles.
Genre: Overall, historical biography.
Key words and phrases:
“implored earnestly”, “at the point of death”, “lay your hands on her”, “discharge of blood”, “suffered”, “grew worse”, “she heard, she came, she touched”, “power had gone out”, “your faith has made you well”, “immediately” (v. 29, 30, 42), “dead”, “do not fear, only believe”, “child is not dead, but sleeping”
Lists: None
Contrasts and comparisons:
Physicians are contrasted with Jesus in v. 26-29
Fear is contrasted with belief in v. 32
Contrast Jairus and the woman with Jesus’ hometown next week in Mark 6:1-6.
Expressions of time:
When v. 21
Then v. 22
While v. 35
When v. 39
Each of these expressions of time show us how these events are mashed up and happening in a fast succession.
We can see Jesus’ patience for and with his image-bearers as they are suffering, recognize him as their solution as an act of faith, and therefore he is eager to help them.
Terms of conclusion:
So that v. 23 - Here, Jairus asking Jesus to physically place his hands on his sick daughter indicates he believed in a needed connection between Jesus and his physically touching his daughter.
There is precedent for this in his day. There were many so called healers who would provide their services for a cost by laying their hands on a sick person and healing them.
I believe something greater is happening here. I’m sure Jairus has tucked into his mind the healers for hire.
But as ruler of the synagogue responsible for the maintenance of the synagogue, organizing worship, care for the scrolls, study, and knowledge of the faith of his community, Jairus may see what John Mark and the other gospel chroniclers are laboring to make plain, and that is Jesus is the greater Elijah and Elisha.
We do well to note that Jesus’ healing here, and other healings witnessed to are just like the one’s Elijah and Elisha performed (1 Kings 17:17-24; 2 Kings 4:18-37).
John Mark’s point is NOT that Jesus is trying to imitate Elijah or Elisha’s ministry, but that Jesus is the One Elijah and Elisha are imitating as they see with eyes of faith the LORD Jesus and do in faith what he calls them to do.
You see, Jesus, Creator Son of God, appointed Elijah and Elisha to minister in such a way that when He would come in the flesh, men like Jairus who are in desperate need like the people Elijah and Elisha ministered to, would remember what was written, recognize the moment, and respond in faith.
I believe Jairus recognizes that Jesus is like the prophets he knows so well as the ruler of the synagogue would know. I believe Jairus recognizes that if he can get Jesus to come to his daughter, they have a shot like the families he has read about in 1 and 2 Kings who needed Elijah and Elisha.
Jesus will show that he is more than those prophets. Jesus will show Jairus that he is the One those prophets were getting their instructions and power from.
Verse 23 “Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.”
What does the text say?
Jesus has just healed a man with a Legion of demons, and he crosses back over to the Jewish side of the Sea of Galilee.
A crowd gathers to Jesus. Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue greets Jesus in this crowd and asks Jesus to come and lay his hands on his daughter who is sick and near death so she can be healed.
Jesus is willing, and he goes with Jairus.
As they are going to Jairus’ home, the crowd is following along, and there is enough of them following and following so closely that a woman who has been suffering for 12 years with an issue of blood is able to get close enough to touch Jesus’ clothes and him not know exactly who it was.
This woman has suffered at the hands of the doctors of the day, and she has no more financial means to afford more useless care. She has heard about Jesus’ ability to heal.
She is desperate enough and has faith enough that she believes all she needs to do is touch Jesus’ clothes and she can be made well.
She goes for it. The crowd around Jesus is so packed and tight that she was able worked her way close, touched his clothes, and slip back visibly undetected. But something changed.
Instantly the woman is healed. She feels it in her body.
Just like she felt the healing surge into your body, Jesus recognized someone touched him in a way different than the crowd who was packed in around him. He felt the power leave him. So, he asks who touched his clothes.
His disciples are surprised he’s asking such a question because everybody is bumping up against him and touching him and his clothes.
Jesus makes it clear that someone touched his clothes differently because he felt the power to heal leave his body.
The woman, who is considered unclean according to the law (Leviticus 15:19-17), and hoping to avoid detection for every reason we can imagine, now knows she can’t avoid it. She presents herself in fear and trembling and told Jesus the whole story.
Jesus responds in the most glorious way: V. 34 “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
The story is not over. While Jesus is still speaking to the woman, someone has come from Jairus’ home with the most awful news. Jairus’ daughter has died, and there’s no need for Jesus anymore.
Jesus overhears the news, and he doesn’t wait for Jairus to say or do anything. Jesus seizes the initiative and tells Jairus, “do not fear, only believe.”
Jesus somehow gets rid of the crowd following him and only allows Peter, James, and John to go with him, and they continue on to Jairus’ home.
When they arrive, there are all these hired mourners making their hired commotion. Yes, it was common for folks to hire professional mourners in this day. Weird. I know.
Jesus enters the house and makes a strange statement to their ears that questions their need to be there. Jesus tells them the girl is just sleeping. So, theY laugh at him.
Jesus uses this moment he’s crafted to put them all out of the house. Jesus only allows his guys (Peter, James, John) and the girl’s parents to go in where their daughter has passed and is lying.
What does Jesus do? He takes the 12 year old girl by the hand, decrees to her to “arise”, and immediately she gets up and starts walking.
Her parents are overcome with amazement, and Jesus instructs them to get her some food and to keep quiet about what he has done.
What does the text mean?
NOTE: I have been nervous about this text since we started the gospel of Mark. I would prefer to not preach it.
The reason is that it challenges me to keep believing when the Lord has not answered some of our asking, seeking and knocking, and I don’t know if it is a lack of faith, if it is asking for the wrong things or asking with wrong motives, or we fear the Lord’s purpose is beyond what we are asking for.
Jesus himself asked the Father to let the cup of the cross pass if possible and submitted to the Father’s will, and the Father did not grant his request. But the Father raised him up.
I don’t want to misrepresent Jesus in any way, so I’m going to try and let the Word speak and not read my fear and experience onto it OR overlook the call to believe and know and expect that God can and will work wonders for his people who will just place a mustard seed size faith in him, ask, and then receive what they ask for. I mean, the Lord went so far as bending time for Joshua and Hezekiah.
What do we see? 3 Observations.
1. Do not fear, only believe.
Jesus speaks a present tense imperative (command).
Do I only believe in what circumstances allow, or do I believe in the God who makes all things possible?
This is the challenge before Jairus and the woman.
It is the challenge before us. One thing is necessary...to believe.
The present tense of the imperative means to keep believing, to hold onto faith in the Lord rather than give in to despair.[1]
Here, the word translated “believe” is the same word translated as faith elsewhere. Same root word.
You could translate this, “Do not fear, only keep having faith.”
This is a command. Jesus commands faith from Jairus at this crisis moment.
NOTE: The noun use of “believe” or “faith” carries a more formal weight as the comprehensive disposition of the Christian life. Like Romans 12:23.
Romans 14:23 (ESV) 23 But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.
So, the disposition of the Christian life is faith. That’s the noun use.
The verb form Jesus uses here demands an immediate present focus on Jesus, his ability, and his desire to help in the crisis.
The noun, like used in Romans 14:23, describes the resulting life posture of the person who responds to the crisis according to Jesus’ command to have faith.
The NOUN (Romans 14:23) disposition of a life of faith is only cultivated through obedience to the COMMAND to believe in the crisis.
The only way to train a life of faith is through crisis.
Jesus is discipling Jairus how to live by faith.
2. Do not fear.
Jesus’ command to believe is mashed up with the command to not give in to fear.
“Do not fear” being in connection to “believe” helps us understand a law God has created.
Jesus instruction to Jairus is a negative command connected to a positive command.
Fear is the negative (do not). Believe is the positive (only believe).
Don’t fear. Only believe.
Fear and faith cannot be roommates. Just to make sure we understand this, Jesus added the adverb “only” to the command to believe. It is fear, or it is faith. It cannot be both.
Fear robs us of the peace of faith. The peace of faith, rooted in God’s love for us, casts out fear.
1 John 4:18 (ESV) 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
We will deal with this in our application.
3. Why did Jesus charge the family to keep it a secret?
We have one of our themes here, the Messianic Secret.
Mark is full of Jesus telling folks he heals to keep it quiet — and they usually don’t do it. Why would Jesus want folks to keep quiet about what he will later tell us to go preach?
There is a mystery to God’s plan in Genesis 3 about who the seed of the woman is and how the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent dragon. Until the right time, God keeps the Skull Crusher’s identity shrouded in mystery to keep the enemy from impeding God’s work.
In fact, the Lord will successfully lure the seed of the serpent into his trap by his humble ministry and refusal of popularity. He will play them into putting him to death through his willingness to go to the cross and keep his identity on the down low, and the force of evil will not realize that by his death he tramples over death, the curse, and crushes the Serpent’s noggin.
Listen to how Paul speaks about this mystery that God and his faithful are supposed to understand has been revealed in the gospel in 1 Corinthians 2:6–8:
1 Corinthians 2:6–8 (ESV) — 6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
We know the mystery now because it is the good news in its fullness from Genesis to Revelation. This is why Jesus labored to keep his identity a secret.
From Genesis 3, the enemies of the cross have been trying to wreck God’s plan. The genealogies of the Old Testament are there to show us the teams, and the Serpent’s seed have been trying to destroy the woman’s seed since God’s declaration.
Jesus intends to keep things as shrouded as he can until the resurrection.
I believe Jesus makes his comment about Jairus’ daughter being asleep, then kicking them out of the house, so that when she emerges alive, the professional mourners can’t witness what he does and are thinking that maybe Jesus was correct and she was just sleeping from the sickness and not dead.
So, when Jesus tells her family to keep it to themselves, they are working with Jesus to make sure his going to the cross is not impeded.
Gospel Connection.
Jairus’s daughter and the woman both epitomize laws of uncleanness. Touching or being touched by either person makes the clean person unclean.
Jesus not only comes in contact with them, but he heals them.
Jesus takes sickness that causes uncleanness and he touches the dead to take death away.
Matthew quotes Isaiah 53:4 in his gospel in chapter 8 verse 17 after Jesus has healed Peter’s mother-in-law, telling us that Jesus is who Isaiah promised as Jesus has taken our illnesses and born our diseases.
Jesus does the great exchange in healing. He takes the uncleanness and dispenses healing. He takes death and gives life. Jesus, in his work here, shows us what he will do for our sin on the cross.
2 Corinthians 5:17-21 describes this great exchange in our salvation where God the Father makes Jesus the Son of God to be sin for us so that in him, we get to become the very righteousness of God.
Application
How do we put this to work? How do we root out fear so we can live in the peaceful confidence of faith?
1. Gratitude
To understand gratitude, we have to start with Thanksgiving. Follow me here.
Thanksgiving and gratitude are very similar but not exactly the same.
The Hebrew words “yadah” (verb) and “todah”(noun form of “yadah”), often translated as “praise,” are also used for “thanksgiving.” See 1 Chronicles 16:7.
In God’s economy, to praise is to give thanks. When we praise God, we are thanking him. In the Old Testament, thanks and praise are inseparable.
Paul will instruct Christians in the New Testament to “give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thess 5:18).
Thanksgiving, which is praise, is central to the Christian life. It is the posture we are called to maintain in both blessing and hardship, and thanksgiving comes from a deep internal place.
Gratitude represents the inner emotional response to our situation that gives birth to the external thanksgiving the Old Testament calls praise. We can’t give thanks as praise out loud unless we are grateful in the quiet recesses of our soul. I’m sure we can fake it, but the Bible calls us to lament also so we don’t have to fake a thanksgiving we don’t feel in our soul.
Let me say it another way: Gratitude is the internal certainty about our status with the Lord and his good to us and for us that gives birth to Thanksgiving, to praise.
If we are commanded to give thanks, then we have to cultivate it with the internal work of being grateful.
How?
2. Self-regulation
Follow me here, ok.
Regulation, being in control of ourselves, our whole system, helps us to connect to the Lord so we can hear him and interact.
Fear keeps us spun up, ungrateful, lacking thanks, and unable to be quiet to hear the Lord.
Psalm 131 (ESV) 1 O LORD, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. 2 But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. 3 O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time forth and forevermore.
Gratitude and regulation help us to calm and quiet our soul in that place of being completely at rest like Psalm 131:2. We are in a place to take Jesus at his word rather than being spun up in fear.
This is how I get myself to Hebrews 11:1 faith: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen.”
I can’t be assured of my hope in the Lord doing what he said, and I can’t have a deep conviction about what is not yet seen if I’m in spun up in fear and angst.
I have to cultivate gratitude and thanks, get under the influence of the Spirit in self-control regulating myself. When I do that, I’m in a place of not fearing but believing the Lord.
I’m calm, quieted, and like the Psalm says. Comfortable with the Lord.
What does this place of grateful, full of thanks, regulated self-control, assurance of things hoped for and conviction of things not seen lead to?
3. Prayer
Mark showing us that Jesus cares, is able and willing, and those who believe coming to him to get his help should lead to us learning to pray.
When we are grateful, and under the influence of the Spirit producing the fruit of self-control, we are able to align ourselves with the Lord’s kingdom will, and this is prayer, and this is how Jesus taught us to pray.
“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.”
When we get aligned with the Lord’s will through the difficult work of gratitude and self-regulation that helps us to feel the comfort of the Lord, we are able to align ourselves with the Lord’s will, and then we know how to pray in faith.
1 John 5:14-15 (ESV) 14 And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
4. Pray
Lord, help us be grateful.
Lord, help us control ourselves by the Spirit so we can be grateful, thankful, and able to hear you and interact with you.
Lord, help us align with your kingdom will so we can have Jairus’ and the woman’s confidence to come to you.
[1] James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Mark, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos, 2002), 166.