por John Davis

Mark 5:21-42

Faith in the God-Sent King

Introducción:

In this text we have two severe crises and one great need in the midst of these crises.

The great need is to have faith that Jesus Christ is the God-sent King whose Kingdom triumphs over all kingdoms.

On the surface it may seem that the great need is to be delivered from a crisis, and in both of these instances the external crisis was resolved. But the deeper crisis in the lives of these two people and the disciples is the crisis of faith.

Do we believe that the kingdom of Jesus triumphs over the kingdom of Satan? Even though that kingdom is not here in its fullness, is the kingdom present and growing?

Both of the miracles that take place are signs and promises of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. They are not ends in and of themselves nor are they ultimate final deliverances. Eventually both people that are delivered will die. The ultimate deliverance is that from unbelief to faith.

    The most difficult challenge in life is not simply to endure great suffering. The most difficult challenge is to have faith in the midst of suffering that the Kingdom of Jesus triumphs over the kingdom of Satan.

    I know that someone may say after seeing the outcome of these stories that “of course it easy to believe when your crisis is resolved.” But if you read carefully you see that faith was present before the crises were resolved. The resolution of the crisis did not bring them to faith, it strengthened an already existing faith. The record of these miracles strengthens our faith in Jesus Christ (John 20:31).

    Both of these miracles display Christ’s power over the ultimate enemy – kingdom of darkness and death. According to the OT law a dead body and a hemorrhaging body had the same uncleanness because the loss of blood or bodily fluid was the loss of life. Ultimately, His resurrection will declare emphatically that He has power over death and the grave. In some sense our call to faith is a bit easier because we live in this side of the resurrection.

Today I want us to see that God calls us to believe that Jesus Christ is the God-sent King who Kingdom triumphs over all kingdoms.

34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

36 Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”

Colossians 2:6-7 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

2 Cor 5: 7 We live by faith, not by sight.

Is Jesus the One sent by God who ushers in a kingdom that invades and plunders the kingdom of Satan?

The Invitation to Faith

21 When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. 22 Then one of the synagogue rulers, named Jairus, came there. Seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet 23 and pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” 24 So Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years.

    Jesus crosses over the Sea of Galilee from Gerasa on the east side of the lake to Capernaum in Galilee. This is His year of popularity as his fame spreads. A huge crowd gathers around him. But Mark focuses our attention on two individuals. One is a good Jewish man names Jairus who is president of the synagogue. The other is an unnamed, impoverished woman who is ritually unclean because of her illness.

We see from these two intertwined stories that what often invites people to Jesus is the crisis that they find themselves in.

    Both Jairus and this woman are in the middle of a crisis. Jairus has a daughter who is near death. He is helpless, broken hearted, and desperate. The woman is at the end of herself. She has exhausted her resources and has been disappointed by every available means of help.

    On the one hand we have a father who is hurting because he looks at the pain of someone he loves. On the other hand we have someone who is hurting because her life for 12 years has been one of physical suffering and enduring one disappointment after another.

    There is tremendous social significance in this story. We have a male of high status in society and a woman who is a marginalized outcast because of her physical condition.

Jesus is prepared to help anyone who comes to him in faith. His kingdom incorporates all strata of society – those on the top and the bottom of the social scale. They all enter the same way – faith.

    Jairus and this woman are you and I and everyone. We suffer for the love we have for others and we suffer for our own personal pain. We find ourselves helpless to relieve the suffering of those whom we love and we find ourselves frequently disappointed by all efforts to solve our own personal dilemmas.

Life eventually brings everyone to a point of crisis and sometimes to many crises. Desperation is often a catalyst for spiritual growth. It often drives people to Jesus. Desperation is not fun but it’s useful.

    Your crisis is God’s invitation to come to the end of yourself and to come to Christ.

    Think for a moment of what it took for this man to come to Jesus. He was a man of position and pride. We know that many men who held similar positions were antagonistic to Jesus. Religious rulers were threatened by the growing popularity of Jesus Christ and the power of His teaching. He risks his reputation and friendships by this bold public act.

    Unlike Nicodemus who came to Jesus at night to ask him questions, Jairus comes to Jesus on a crowded lakeshore and prostrates himself before Christ. He forgets his position and his pride and falls on his knees, begging for help. Matthew uses the term for “worship” to describe this act of respect and urgency.

    He is a helpless father with a needy 12 yr old whom he is responsible to protect and provide for – but it helpless.

Ultimately, this is how anyone must come to Jesus – in a simple, desperate faith that is rooted in knowledge of our own helplessness and hopelessness and His ability to help. (Mark has told us much about Jesus –the beloved Son of God, the Messianic king who invades and plunders the kingdom of Satan; the one who declares the arrival of His kingdom and calls everyone to repent and believe the gospel.

In other words, when Jesus preached the gospel, He was preaching “the gospel of the kingdom” (Matt. 24:14)—that the kingdom of God was breaking into this present world through the life, death, resurrection and ascension of the Messiah. The gospel, then, is the message of the Kingdom. Repenting and believing is the means by which we are included in the gospel story of God’s work throughout history. God is redeeming for Himself a people out of a fallen world; we enter into the gospel story by grace through faith alone.

To declare Jesus and to declare the gospel is the same thing. Jesus does not bring the gospel—he is the gospel, because the gospel is that God has broken into history and accomplished everything necessary for our salvation.”

At this point in the life and ministry of Jesus, the death and resurrection have not taken place. The gospel at this point includes the announcement of His kingdom and the evidence of his invasion and plundering of Satan’s kingdom.

Faith in Jesus at this point in Mark’s narrative means believing that He is the one sent by God to bring in the kingdom that triumphs over sin, disease, and death. Today faith includes the heart of the gospel – the substitutionary death and resurrection of Jesus.

Why not begin to see the crisis which you face as God’s invitation for you to come to Jesus Christ in faith?

We not only come to Him this way in salvation but we keep coming throughout life. Our peace is found in our coming to the end of ourselves and in faith trusting only Him.

    As Jesus responds to this man’s plea and begins to go with him, their journey is interrupted.

The Clarification of Faith

25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. 30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” 31 “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?'” 32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

In this large crowd there is a desperate woman suffering for 12 years, impoverished as a result of trying to find a cure, and hopeless because all available medical knowledge has been exhausted. She suffers from continual loss of blood that makes her ritually unclean according to the Mosaic Law. Whatever she touched became unclean. If people in the crowd knew her condition they would have ostracized her.    

This woman takes a great risk just by being a in a crowd of ritually clean Jews and then by touching a holy man like Jesus. Her response of “fear and trembling” when she is exposed is understandable. She would face condemnation and ostracizing by the crowd. She knew that she had not approached Jesus in a socially proper manner. She simply wanted to sneak in and sneak out (Borrowed).

Jesus says, “Who touched me?” “What strange words,” the disciples thought! Everyone was touching Jesus, as the crowds pressed against him. The disciples aren’t as spiritually perceptive. They aren’t aware that it was a touch that was rooted in faith. God honored the faith of this woman and released healing power from Jesus to her. Jesus was aware that it was more than an accidental touch.

Jesus wants us to understand the nature of true faith. He wants to remove any errors from us of magical thinking. He also wanted her to move beyond impersonal action to a real personal interaction with him. We to know that it wasn’t the touch but God through Jesus himself who secured her healing.

She came to the right person for the right reason – he could help her.

Rather, the woman was healed because she touched Jesus believing that God would heal her if she could only but touch the one whom he had sent. This was the reason why God’s healing power had gone forth from Jesus just as soon as she touched him. This becomes clear in verse 34 when Jesus “said to her, `Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.'” Jesus not only heals her, he then pronounces a divine benediction upon her–”go in peace and be free.” This benediction refers both to her emotional distress (“peace”) and physical illness (her suffering).

How often religious people rely on relics to promote spirituality – a picture of Jesus, a cross, the Shroud of Turin, the bleeding heart of Mary, or a type of Christianity that says do this and this and everything will be right. You don’t need to be “touched by an angel” or to touch an angel. God is interested in one thing only – FAITH in Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 11:6

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Jesus makes clear that faith is not a private matter. By asking, “Who touched me?” he calls her to confess him before others. “Private faith” is an oxymoron. Baptism is about making a public confession of faith in Jesus Christ. An “unbaptized Christian” is also an oxymoron.

Jesus calls all who follow him to confess him publicly:

Matthew 10:32-33

“Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.

Psalm 107:1-2

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.Let the redeemed of the LORD say this– those he redeemed from the hand of the foe,

Jesus wants her restoration to be complete.
What she needed was more than physical healing. She needed peace and wholeness in her soul and she needed to be reintegrated into society. Her suffering also included the emotional effects of all that has taken place over 12 years. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go (keep going)in peace and be freed(Keep on being whole) from your suffering.”

“You faith has saved – delivered – both from brokenness of body and brokenness of soul – Go in peace! (Peace comes from knowing you are forgiven. You are delivered from sin and the resultant alienation from God that disturb the soul).

While all of this is going on with Jesus, his disciples and this woman, what do you think an anxious father is thinking during these moments of delay when he has an emergency?

The healing of this woman is both a test of his faith and encouragement to his faith. He will need the encouragement because shortly he will receive word that his daughter had died. God uses delays to test and encourage our faith.

This woman participated in an aspect of Jesus’ kingdom that preceded an even more radical one in the raising of Jairus’ daughter.

The Triumph of Faith

35 While Jesus was still speaking, some men came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue ruler. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher any more?” 36 Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.” 37 He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. 38 When they came to the home of the synagogue ruler, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. 39 He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” 40 But they laughed at him. After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. 41 He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means, “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”). 42 Immediately the girl stood up and walked around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. 43 He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat.

When news comes that the daughter has died during this time of delay, Jairus would naturally be shaken and would be inclined think there’s nothing more to be done. Jesus answers, almost rudely, pitting his words against those of Jairus friends. “They say, ‘give up’, I say, don’t be afraid only believe    

The entire history of responding to redemption is summed up in Jesus’ words to Jairus: “fear not only believe.”

This is faith – believing that Jesus is the Messianic King who truly has power over the ultimate enemy – death. Can His kingdom truly invade the kingdom of Satan when Satan’s kingdom appears to have triumphed?

    Jesus takes just three of his disciples (the inner circle) who will later bear witness to his power (“in the mouth of two or three witnesses, let very word be established”).

    When Jesus tells the mourners that she is not dead but is sleeping, they laugh because they are not people of faith. “Sleep” is the biblical term that those who believe in resurrection use to describe death.

    Here Jesus confronts and is victorious over the powers of darkness and the ultimate enemy death. He demonstrates the ultimate victory over the kingdom of Satan. Here he truly invades and plunders Satan’s kingdom. (Ca. Hebrews 2:9-10)

His power over death (physical) confirms his power over spiritual death also (Eph 2:1 – “and you have he made alive who were dead …”)

HIS COMPASSION FOR THE GIRL

    He shows compassion on the girl by commanding silence about the miracle she doesn’t become a curious object and he asks that she be fed. How considerate and caring Jesus Christ is. Plus their immediate silence allows him an escape from the crowds who would seek mob him.

Conclusión:

    This is the Christ in whom we are called to believe. Because in his death and resurrection, he is victorious over the ultimate enemy of death we can trust him, knowing that in Christ ultimately all of our crises come to resolution, either now or in his coming again.

I watched a documentary on the healing ministries of Bennie Hinn and the German evangelist, Bannke. My opinion is that they perpetrate a fraud which leaves behind many people who are disillusioned and disappointed. They would look at a passage like we looked at today and conclude something like this: “Whatever God did for anyone in the gospels, He will do for us now.”

However, it is clear that God does not answer in the same way every cry of a desperate father or of a woman in despair. We must understand that these miracles are signs and promises of the kingdom of Jesus, i.e. they are intrusions of the eternal kingdom into the present and they guarantee the future. They demonstrate that Jesus is the Messianic King and that all who believe in him will share in his final and complete deliverance. We are a people of hope who wait for the full and final resolution of the sufferings of this world. Jesus answers all of our cries for relief from suffering – sometimes now and always finally when his kingdom is completely established.

We hope in Jesus who in His glorious coming will put an end to sin and death.

We are called to live by faith!

Heb 10

19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful

You need faith that the Jesus is God-sent king whose kingdom triumphs over the kingdom of Satan.

If through faith in Jesus, who died and rose again, you have entered His Kingdom, you will share His triumph. We experience it here partially, but look for the day of the final and perfect expression of the Kingdom of Jesus.

John Davis

El 10 de septiembre de 1970 comprendí el gran amor de Dios por mí, pecador y rebelde. Aquella noche recibí el perdón de Dios y una nueva vida a través de Jesucristo, que murió en mi lugar y resucitó para ofrecerme perdón y una nueva vida. He sido pastor principal por más de 30 años plantando dos iglesias en Buckingham, PA y Queens, NY y sirviendo otras dos iglesias en Brooklyn, NY y Roslyn, PA. Actualmente soy el pastor principal de Grace Church of Philly.