Mark 5:21-43 - The Clothes and Comfort of Jesus

Well, you're back, I'm back, and we're looking forward to Tabernacle Talk together today. We are in Mark chapter 5 and beginning in verse number 21.

Here we've got two stories that are of Jesus' work after he gets back from exercising the legion of demons out of the man over there in the region of the Decapolis, the region of the Gadarenes, and we read in verse number 21 of Mark 5 that after

these incredible displays of power over nature itself, over hosts of demons, it gets a little smaller, it gets a little closer to home. And after you see these amazing works that Jesus does, there would almost be an expectation of like, okay, how is

he going to ramp it up for the next like challenge? Like yeah, if you cause the wind and the waves and the seas to be still, like that's really impressive.

It almost seems more impressive to change someone that was just completely out of their mind and now they're completely whole again. And you also manage to have 2000 pigs jump off of a cliff. Like that seems like a very impressive feat.

So we might expect that there is an even greater thing that Jesus is about to do. And so we'll find what that is in Mark 5. It says, when Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side.

So now he's back over on kind of the Capernaum area. A large crowd gathered around him while he was by the sea. One of the synagogue leaders named Jairus came and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet and begged him earnestly.

Okay, just want to note here, the falling at his feet, like that's a honoring, that's a worshipful thing and especially because of how unpopular Jesus was with the religious leaders at the time. The fact that Jairus did this is incredible.

So he falls at Jesus' feet, he begs him earnestly, okay, there's that word begging again that keeps showing up. He says, my little daughter is dying. Come and lay your hands on her so that she can get well and live.

Man, there is faith that he believes in what Jesus can do and he believes that even in this instance where there is incredible personal emotions and danger involved, it's his daughter that he believes that Jesus is the one that can save her, that can

heal her. Verse number 24, so Jesus went with him and a large crowd was following and pressing against him. So, here you got kind of a mob situation and they're all walking with him. He's getting jostled.

And then verse 25 tells us about a specific person that was in that crowd, that mob, and what she did. It says, Now a woman, suffering from bleeding for 12 years, had endured much under many doctors.

She had spent everything she had and was not helped at all. On the contrary, she became worse. Okay, so here's a woman and she has an issue of blood, a bleeding issue.

And we actually, however many weeks ago now, went over these types of things in Leviticus. This was something that would make a woman normally temporarily unclean, but she has been having this issue consistently for 12 years.

So she can't go into the synagogue. She can't, you know, she's supposed to keep away from some people, not touch anyone.

A lot of the things like anything she sits on, anything that she handles, it has to be washed before someone else can use it for anything. So this woman is kind of a pariah and she has sought for help from doctors.

I think that line there, she had spent everything she had and was not helped at all. On the contrary, she became worse. Man, this was true of this woman and her physical state.

I think it's true of us and our spiritual state that we can spend everything we have.

We can spend our money, we can spend our time, we can spend all of our love, all of our emotions, all of our resources on trying to gain favor with God or trying to bring joy or gladness out of situations instead of getting it from the Lord.

And when we do that, when we spend everything we have, we're not going to be better instead, we will become worse. We can become embittered at God or at people. And the answer for this woman was in verse number 27.

Having heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his clothing. For she said, if I just touch his clothes, all be made well. Man, what faith that this woman has.

That though, again, in the crowd, this was something you weren't supposed to do with Levitical law.

Everyone that would have touched her would have become ceremonially unclean and would have had to go through a whole plethora of things in order to be clean. But she doesn't care. She's pressing to Jesus.

She goes through the crowd. I'm sure that there were people that they wanted to get closer to Jesus. They wanted to see this incredible, miracle working man.

But this woman had a need of Jesus. So it didn't matter who jostled her. It didn't matter all of the hoops that she had to jump through to get to Jesus.

She was going there. Man, I think for us today, how intent are we in pressing through to Jesus?

That if we say, if I can just hear from His word, if I can go to Him in prayer and He hear me, if I can just go to His people, His body, if I can gather with them, hey, I know that I can press through for this next portion of what I need to do that

God has for me. I know if I pursue Jesus, that everything can be made well. Verse number 29, she touches His clothing and instantly her flow of blood ceased and she sensed in her body that she was healed of her affliction.

One moment with Jesus, one touch of the hem of His garment was more powerful than all of the doctors, than all of the money that she could spend. Everything that she could do was nothing compared to touching something that was touching Jesus.

He has more, I love the song, Tear Off the Roof by Brandon Lake.

He actually, I mentioned the song a few weeks ago when we were in Mark 2 and it talked about, you know, obviously the tearing off of the roof for the paralytic, but then the second verse talks about, he is like written from the perspective of this

woman and the phrase is he has more in the hem of his garment than the entire camp of the enemy. There's power in the presence, power in the blood, power in the name of Jesus. And I think this woman would absolutely testify to that.

So she goes, she touches him. She is clean. She is healed.

Verse number 30, immediately, Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He was aware of what happened. And it says he turned around in the crowd and said, who touched my clothes?

Now again, as I often state, whenever Jesus or God asks a question, it's not for information, it's for examination. So he says, who touched my clothes?

Verse number 31, his disciples said to him, you see the crowd pressing against you, and yet you say, who touched me? They're like, Jesus, it would almost be easier to ask, who hasn't touched you? Because everyone's just crowding around.

Verse number 32, but he was looking around to see who had done this. Jesus cares about the people that come to him for healing, for rescue, for salvation. He cares.

You are not just another cog in the machine to him. You are his child, you are valued, you are important, you are precious to him. Verse number 33, the woman with fear and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before him.

She's worshiping him too and told him the whole truth. Verse number 34, daughter, he said to her, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be healed from your affliction.

Here he tells her, it's not that my clothing is magical.

All of these other people, they might have had slight eye issues, they might have had a tummy ache, they might have had some sicknesses and all of their touching of Jesus' clothes just enthronging and whatever, it didn't heal them of all of their

earthly afflictions. He says, but your faith is what made this possible. I love the old song, faith is the victory that overcomes the world.

Think of Hebrews chapter 11, without faith it is impossible to please him, for he that comes to God must believe that he is, that he exists and that he rewards those who diligently seek him. And he says, faith, that belief that God will work.

Faith is not just a blind belief, faith is God will do what he is able and what he promised to do. And here she had faith that what Jesus had done for others, that he could do for her.

And she believed in him, she believed in the power of God working through this Messiah. And so Jesus says, go in peace and be healed from your affliction. When Jesus comes, there is peace and there is healing.

And man, if you feel turbulent, if you feel afflicted, come to Jesus, cast your cares on him, bring him your problems, your problems in your family, your problems in your health, your problems in your job, whatever the circumstances, bring it to

Jesus and say, God, I am in desperate need of your peace. I need your healing. I need you to work.

Two weeks ago and this week, I've been praying like, God, there's all these storms and God, I need you to give me just little victories, victories that I know, hey, this was a God thing. This wasn't me. This wasn't my intelligence.

I know this is you. And that's what I want to see. I don't want to see what I can do.

I want to see what God can do that I can just say that was all the Lord. So, all of this is happening as he's walking from the boat to this leader of the synagogue, Jairus' house to heal his daughter who is dying, who is sick.

So there's been this kind of interruption. Verse number 35, while he was still speaking, people came from the synagogue leader's house and said, your daughter is dead. Why bother the teacher anymore?

Here there's these people and they say it's too late. There's no hope. Healing he can do, but he can't raise the dead.

Verse number 36, when Jesus overheard or ignored what was said, he told the synagogue leader, don't be afraid, only believe. Man, what a charge.

In a moment where there could have been crippling fear that would have resulted in the synagogue leader saying, hey, you shouldn't come, you weren't fast enough, Jesus says, don't be afraid.

Here this is not a condemnation of normal nerves and anxiety and deep grief that he would have felt. He's not saying that.

You can think even of Jesus as he's going to raise Lazarus from the dead in John chapter 11, and he weeps when he sees the unbelief in the people of Israel. As the people remarked, wow, how much did Jesus love Lazarus?

So Jesus knows what it's like to go through all of those things. Here do not be afraid is not a rebuke, like it's a comfort, it's a blanket. It's me telling my son, maybe at nighttime, hey, it's okay, everything's all right.

You don't have to be scared. Dad's right here. This is what Jesus is saying.

This don't be afraid is the comfort of the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, who has come to do miracles, to work a new creation in this world that was so sin sick. And then he says, don't be afraid, only believe, have faith.

Hey, this woman, her faith healed her, her faith saved her. And he says, I want you to have that same faith, believe. Verse number 37.

He did not let anyone accompany him except Peter, James and John, James brothers. So they're that kind of inner circle of fishermen. I wonder what Andrew was like that he was not included in that particular group.

When I get to heaven, I'll ask about it because there's James and John, who actually were related to Jesus. I have to look at the relation again. I think it was Jesus' cousins or second cousins, if I remember correctly.

Verse number 38, they came to the leader's house and he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. So this was very common during that time.

When someone died, you would have professional whalers that you would have come in and they would weep for the deceased.

That way it was clear, hey, this person was so loved and so we're going to hire someone to cry for them, to cry for their passing. In certain circumstances, I don't know, it's a very weird habit to me at least.

So verse 39, Jesus went in and said to them, why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but asleep. They laughed at him, but he put them all outside.

Man, this world laughs at Jesus. They laugh at the claims that he is God. They laugh at the claims that he is omnipotent, that he is all powerful, that he is omniscient, that he is all knowing, that he is all good.

They don't believe those things about him and here these people didn't believe in Jesus and it says, but he put them all outside. They weren't going to be the ones that saw this work of God.

Says he took the child's father, mother, and those who were with him and entered the place where the child was. Then he took the child by the hand and said to her, Talitha com, which is Aramaic, which is translated, little girl, I say to you, get up.

Immediately, the girl got up and began to walk. All throughout, Mark, I hadn't noticed this until I saw one of the cross-reference things. All throughout the Book of Mark, the entire time, Jesus is telling everyone, hey, get on up.

When he's doing some healing, he's encouraging them to get up. And he does it for the paralytic. He does it here for this girl.

He'll do it several other times that we'll see throughout the different passages. I'm gonna look at one more of these. Yeah, he has some other ones where he says it.

And immediately, the girl got up and began to walk. She was 12 years old. At this, they were utterly astounded.

And this word astounded, it's to be amazed, to be astonished. And it's like to be displaced, to become separated from something is the thought of the word. So they just got shocked.

They were flabbergasted. They had no idea that Jesus could do this because she was dead. And with simply a word, it didn't take a large verbal spoken prayer or ritual.

It didn't take, even when you look at some of the Old Testament stories, it didn't take praying and breathing into her seven times. It's just a word. And when Jesus gives the word, we too will rise from our sleep.

We will be resurrected with him, as even 1 Thessalonians 4 details for us. Verse number 43. Then Jesus gave them strict orders that no one should know about this and told them to give her something to eat.

Man, Jesus all throughout the Book of Mark, he wants people to believe in him because of his words, because of the truth that he's expressing, not just because of the miracles.

Like, he's God, he is good, he loves his people, he loves his creation, and he wants to bring it back to that original design of very good.

And so here, he brings the dead back to life, but he doesn't want people to believe in signs and miracles for Jesus being the Messiah. But he wants them to believe in the word of God that he's saying.

So he tells them, hey, I told them that she was asleep, she was not dead. Now she's going to come out. And I don't want you guys to say, hey, she was dead.

And Jesus brought her back to life. He says, I said she was asleep.

And that's what they need to believe, which in one sense, even as we look at how that that word is used in the rest of the New Testament, there's a sense in which Jesus was not just speaking proverbially, but that he describes all of those asleep in,

as 1 Thessalonians 4 would put it, those that sleep in Christ will God bring with him when he comes. So as that happens, Jesus says, I want people to believe in me, not because I do things, but because of who I am, because of the truth that I'm

expressing. So he says to them, just like he said to the demons, just like he said to the man that was healed from leprosy, he says, don't tell anyone. He says, but give her something to eat. He cares about the needs of this little girl.

He doesn't care about his fame and his notoriety and how much of a crowd could be amassed, how much money could be given to him if people only knew that he could raise the dead. Instead, he cares about getting food for this little kid.

Jesus cares about the smallest, the 12 year olds. Jesus cares about meeting the needs of those that maybe people might overlook, might not think about.

In that moment, I'm sure that it wasn't on Peter, James or John or the parents' minds of, oh yeah, we should probably get some food for this girl. But Jesus knows what we need.

And he brought it to those five people to say, hey, here's what this person needs. And I'd encourage you, maybe there might be a time where the Lord encourages you and your heart to go, okay, this person needs, man, they need something from me.

It might be a text of encouragement, might be a call, might be a drop by, maybe they might need a gift card, maybe I can grab a meal or a coffee or something with them and just encourage them.

And man, what a difference that can make in someone's life here as Jesus cares about this little girl. May we be reminded to care about those that could be overlooked and unappreciated.

Well, that concludes Mark chapter five, where there's this faith. You have the faith of a woman who was absolutely at wit's end and couldn't do anything for herself.

She had tried everything she could, but when she turned to Jesus, Jesus made everything possible. You can work all you want, you can put in all the effort you want, but are you turning to Jesus?

Are you calling on him to work to do what only he can do?

And then there was this synagogue leader, Jairus, that had faith that despite impossible circumstances, that he believed in Jesus, that Jesus told him not to be afraid, and he believed in the comfort of God Almighty, and found that even death itself

was no match for this messiah. Thanks for tuning in today. Hope that it would be an encouragement to you, and tomorrow we'll start off in Mark, chapter 6.