King of Life

This morning we come to the last of three extraordinary miracles that Mark records, which are all intended to prove the divinity of Jesus. We saw that Jesus is the king of nature, because he spoke to the storm, and it obeyed his word. We saw that he is the king over all earthly and heavenly authority, because he spoke to an army of demons, and they fled. Today, we see that Jesus is the king of life. Jesus is the savior who reaches into the mire of this sinful world, finds us, just as we are, in our helplessness, and pulls us up out of that mire to a new life in him. To see that, let’s read Mark 5:21-43. From this text, see two points: Jesus redeems us from corruption, and Jesus restores us to life.

First, from verses 21-34, see that Jesus redeems us from corruption. This story involves two miracles with some important connections. We are told in verse 22 that a ruler from the synagogue comes to Jesus with a need. The ruler was the chief director who determined everything about the worship service and teaching. Like the scribes and Pharisees who had been harassing Jesus from the beginning of his ministry, this man was a person of high importance. But, unlike the scribes and Pharisees, he has a deep need that only Jesus can address. His young daughter is near death, and he needs Jesus to come right away to heal her before she dies. But, as Jesus is going with this ruler, Jarius, he runs into another need. A woman with an unexplained, incurable discharge of blood touches him and immediately receives healing. At first glance, these two needs seem unrelated and incomparable, but I want you to hold three connections in your mind as we go deeper into these miracles. First, in both cases, Jesus is asked to work a miracle for those who are insignificant or outcast from society. Yes, Jarius is an important man, but his young daughter is not. She has two strikes against her – she is a child, and she is a girl. Her father certainly loved her, but society saw her as second class. Remember, In Luke 18:15, when the children wanted to see Jesus, but the disciples forbade them because he had more important matters to tend to. The disciples weren’t being harsh. They were reflecting the attitude of their day. Children didn’t matter. And girls mattered even less. The woman with the issue of blood had the same problem. She was a woman, which made her second rate, but even worse, she had a medical condition that made her unclean. So, technically, she was required, in a crowd such as this, to announce her presence so that all could avoid her. Second, in both cases, the need was one of life and death. For the woman with the issue of blood, she was at her wits end and likely on death’s door, desperate for healing. For Jarius’ daughter, she is literally dead. In both cases, they need to be rescued from the clutches of death. Lastly, in both cases, for Jesus to act, he will have to make himself ceremonially unclean. Because the woman had an issue of blood, she was ceremonially unclean and anyone she touched would be considered so as well. For the little girl, to handle a dead body made one ceremonially unclean.

With these connections in mind, let’s consider the first miracle. As Jesus is heading to Jarius’ house, the crowd presses in on him, and this poor woman sneaks up behind him to touch his garments, in hopes that, just by this small act, she might be made well. This woman had been through so much. She’d been dealing with this discharge of blood for twelve years. Scholars believe that it was probably something related to her menstruation, and so it carried the additional pain, awkwardness, and shame associated with that. Mark tells us that she’d tried to find help from every physician she could find, and they’d only made matters worse. And, it’s thought, given her desperation and the fact that the disease was getting worse, that she is probably weakening and nearing death. So, you can understand her approach. She must do this in secret, because she is unclean, and she can’t imagine that Jesus would want to be near her if he knew. It is urgent that she try this one last thing – after all, what could it hurt, given that she’s tried every other possible remedy. And, she has just enough hope to believe that maybe, just maybe, if she can touch him, she will be healed. With all of this uncertainty and desperation, she reaches out and brushes his outer garment, and Mark says in verse 29, “Immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed.” 

At this, Jesus turns to find who had touched him because he sensed that the power of His Spirit had healed someone. Now, there is a bit of a mystery here. Why does Jesus ask, “Who touched me?” Did he not know? We’ve already read that he can perceive thoughts, and in this very instance, he had already sensed that he had healed someone. I think Jesus knew exactly who he had healed. In fact, I think he was in that crowd so that this woman would exercise her mustard-seed-sized faith and touch his garment. But, he asks who touched him for two reasons. For one, he needed to confirm to this woman that her faith had made her well. So, he confronts her and draws out her confession, and then in verse 34 he tells her, “Your faith has made you well.” 

But, he also asked her that the miracle might be publicly seen, too. Remember, this disease brought great shame upon this woman. She was an outcast, shunned by the whole of society and disconnected even from the worship of God. To even touch Jesus was to violate the law and bring him into her shame. But that is not what happened. Instead of being brought into shame with her, the power of Jesus raised her up and made her whole. Oh, sinner, hear the Gospel in this today! Jesus can and will cleanse you of all unrighteousness. As Isaiah rejoiced in Isaiah 61:10, Jesus clothes us in the robe of his righteousness. Our righteousness is as filthy rags, but his righteousness makes us white as snow.

This leads me to my second point – Jesus restores us to life. In the midst of this amazing scene, a messenger comes to tell Jarius the bad news that his daughter is now dead. Jesus challenges Jarius to trust him, even with this horrible news, and they continue on to his home, where they find the chaos of paid mourners who have already gathered to honor the little girl’s life. The fact that these paid mourners are already present shows us two things. It shows us that there was a considerable amount of time between Jarius getting the news and then arriving. It was custom for the family to hire mourners, and the Talmud even had requirements for how many mourners a family should hire, based on the size and status of the family. You could imagine that this would take some time, and so it’s probably the case that Jarius’ wife or sons contracted with these mourners because of how long it would take Jarius to arrive. Along with that, it also tells us that the girl is actually dead. We moderns make a common mistake of assuming that people were stupid we came along with our medicines and X-Rays and heart monitors. We assume that before us, no one knew anything about the body. But, the ancients understood it far better than we think, and often times, they understood it better than the average person does today. And, keep in mind, these are professional mourners – they knew what death looked like. This matters because there is an important question that arises out of what Jesus says in verse 39. There, Jesus says that the girl isn’t dead but sleeping. At this, the mourners all laughed at him, and rightly so, because they knew the truth. So, why would Jesus say it? Some suggest that it’s because, being the Son of God, he knew the reality of comas, and so he knew that she wasn’t really dead. I don’t think that’s it, though. I think the answer is found in verse 43, where it says that he strictly charged them to tell no one. He told the mourners that she was asleep so that it would minimize the extraordinary nature of what he was about to do.

With that, Jesus does the most beautiful thing in verse 41. He takes the little girl’s hand and commands, “Little girl, arise.” Again, Mark notes, “immediately the girl got up and began walking.” Like with the woman in the crowd, Jesus’s actions reverse the effects of sin and shame immediately. With this girl, for Jesus to touch a dead body would make him unclean, but because he is the King of Life, he is not affected by death, but instead he turns death into life. This is why Paul sings in 1 Cor. 15:55-56, “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Oh, sinner, see that Jesus is the King of Life who can reverse the effects of sin and death. He can restore life where there is only death. He can take away the fear of death and the grave. He can give hope where there is only despair. And, he has proven that he can do this through his resurrection from the grave. Won’t you trust in Christ today and be cleansed of your shame? Won’t you come to him today and receive the hope of eternal life?