If you will, turn with me in your Bibles to Mark chapter 5, and I'm going to be reading
from verse 21 through verse 42 of Mark chapter 5, verse 21 through verse 42.
We're going to be looking at a story which one commentator calls a Markan sandwich, because
what you have is, is you have the start of one miracle story, then another miracle story
is inserted, and finally you go back to the first miracle story.
We have to ask ourselves, why are these stories here in the Bible about Jesus healing people?
Part of it is, it's to show that He is God.
He has the power over our bodies and over nature.
But there's something else we've got to keep in mind, and that is the human dimension to
all this, and it just shows how weak we are.
Because everyone in this room has to deal with sickness, and we have to deal with death.
We think we are strong, we are powerful, but age, disease, and our own genetics at one
time or another leaves us all weak.
But Jesus is the answer to that weakness.
So let's see what happens here in this story about a dead girl and a sick woman.
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.
And one of the synagogue leaders named Jarius came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his
feet.
He 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.
So Jesus went with him.
A large crowd followed and pressed around him.
And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years.
She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors, and it spent all she had,
yet instead of getting better, she grew worse.
And when she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak.
Because she thought, if I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.
Immediately her bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was freed from her
suffering.
And once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him, he turned around in the crowd
and asked, who touched my clothes?
You see the people crowding against you as disciples answered, and yet you can ask, who
touched me?
But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it, and then the woman knowing what had
happened to her came and fell at his feet, and trembling with fear told him the whole
truth.
He said to her, daughter, your faith is healed you.
Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.
And while Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jarius, the synagogue
leader.
Your daughter is dead, they said.
Why bother the teacher anymore?
And overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, don't be afraid, just believe.
He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James.
And when they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw a commotion with people
crying and wailing loudly.
He went in and said to them, why all this commotion and wailing?
The child is not dead, but asleep.
But they laughed at him.
And after he put them all out, he took the child's father and mother and the disciples
who were with them and went in where the child was, he took her by the hand and said to her,
Talita, come, which means little girl, I say to you, get up.
And immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around.
She was 12 years old.
And this, they were completely astonished.
He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this and told them to give her something.
To eat.
Let's ask God to bless the reading of his inherent word.
Our Heavenly Father, help us to see ourselves in this story.
Help it to be more to us than mere history or just a theological fact.
And it will help us to love Jesus more.
I make this prayer in your name.
Amen.
I came across this story.
It belongs in the strange but true department.
It is about a young boy in 1865 in a small town in Wisconsin.
His name was Max Hoffman.
Now back then one of the diseases that people got because of the lack of a sewer system was
cholera.
He got cholera.
Three days later he died and was buried.
But his mother couldn't sleep at night.
She kept having dreams of young Max turning over in the grave.
She would wake up.
Her husband would try to calm her.
Seeing it would go away but it did not.
The dream reoccurred a second time.
So the father of Max went out, dug up the grave and sure enough as they opened it, Max
had turned over.
He wasn't dead but he was alive.
And later they fed him, he recovered and he went on to live to be 80 years old.
Now that is not a miracle story like what happened here in Mark's Gospel.
But it does tell us and this was quite common back then that weak people were often put
in a casket and buried.
But thank goodness there was someone who was able to rescue that young boy.
Well today's story in the Bible, it's about Jesus.
It's about a miracle.
But once again it's that human dimension of weakness that attracts me to this passage.
Because you and I are very, very weak and in the Bible we see Jesus helping people who
are very, very weak.
It's almost, he delights in doing that.
And if you go back to the Old Testament, God was helping the weak.
You read the Psalms, he looks with favor on the childless, those who are orphans and God
often helps them and it's true in the New Testament as well with Jesus Christ.
You are part of the weak.
I know in my own body I can tell that that weakness is there.
My knees are not what they should be.
I know from going to the dentist, he told me one time, well it's your genetics, that's
why you've got these cavities which have to be filled because it's the way your tooth
is formed.
There's nothing you can do about it.
And if it's not weakness in my own body, take a look around you.
None of us can fight age.
We may in our teenage years be very strong, very athletic and you could go on to win the
Olympics but what happens after a while?
You become very average and the body slowly decays.
None of us can escape that.
And if you are not dealing with the weaknesses of your own body, which believe me will happen
to all of us, there is being victimized by people who are out to destroy you and you
may not be able to do much about it because they have more power.
You're weak.
I'm weak.
We are all weak in this world but what we see here is Jesus helping two very weak, vulnerable
people.
Here's what we've got to keep in our minds about Jesus.
He is coming to this world to help the weak.
The part of the problem we have is we don't want to admit that we're weak.
When I was in high school, I remember the first time we had to write a real term paper.
It was from Mr. Bailey.
And Mr. Bailey was a very strict teacher and I went to him because I knew that I didn't
know what I was doing.
I had to admit I had an academic weakness.
So I went to the teacher and he helped me out.
I learned more about English from that man than anyone else but I had to admit I was
weak.
And so today for all of us, we have to admit that we're weak as well.
And if you look at this passage, you've got some people who are willing to admit that.
First of all, we have Jerryus.
Who is this person?
Well, we're told that he works in a synagogue.
He's a synagogue ruler and the synagogues were developed during the exile as a place
where God's people could meet, study the Word and worship God.
They would study the Torah, study the Bible and they would meet on Mondays and Thursdays,
Sabbaths and feast days.
And the one here is probably the synagogue in Capernaum.
It might have possibly been built by a Roman centurion who liked God's people and gave
them money to build it.
It tells us here that he's a synagogue ruler, in other words, he's like an elder in our
church in a deacon.
He's in charge of the administrative management of the synagogue.
He's the head of the board of elders.
And his job was to look out for the synagogue.
He was to take care of the building.
He was to oversee public worship.
He was to choose the public readers.
And how is he weak?
He's got a daughter who's sick and at the point of death.
And there's nothing he can do about it.
And I want you to notice here what he has to do.
He has to go to Jesus.
And he's got to forget his prejudice, perhaps, about who Jesus is because there are people
who didn't like Jesus.
He's got to forget his dignity.
As he goes and he bows down to Jesus, gets on his knees.
He's got to forget his pride.
He's going to be indebted to someone, to heal his daughter.
And he's got to forget his friends who may look a scant at going to Jesus Christ.
But what does this tell us about our relationship to Christ?
It tells us we have to come to Christ in terms of weakness, not in strength for our salvation,
for our vocation, for all.
Now I know that there are some people who when they join the church, they probably think,
you know, God must really want me on his team for all I can do.
You know, you come as a weak person who has a lot of needs.
And part of the reason that we are given these stories in the Bible is to point that out.
Because from the get-go, in the Garden of Eden, human beings were still dependent on
God.
Throughout the Bible, Israel was dependent on God.
The real problem we have is when we think that we don't need God, that we're not weak,
we can pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.
That is the American way, isn't it?
But we can't.
You have to have God.
One time when Sarah, our daughter, was very, very young, we were in, I think it was the
Shonies.
She got very, very sick.
She had gastroenteritis.
Now, in previous generations, that would kill you.
Jan and I did not know what to do.
We couldn't take care of it ourselves.
We had to admit we needed a doctor.
So what did we do?
We rushed her to the hospital.
But too often, when it comes to the Christian life, we're more like the Gene Hackman character
in the Poseidon adventure, who is a radical, renegade, methodist priest.
And in the early scenes of that movie, what does he say?
God helps those who help themselves.
And if you look at that movie, that's exactly what that movie is about.
But that's not true, is it?
Our understanding that we are weak, we are children of dust, has to be in our hearts
because you will never understand Jesus nor the kingdom of God tell you get that into
your heads.
And here is the point to ponder.
How am I weak?
But keep in mind, Jesus has compassion on the weak.
He delights to help them.
And here, you not only have a girl who's about to die, you've got this sick woman.
She's weak as well.
She's another character in this story.
And she has been subject to bleeding for years, some sort of hemorrhage she's having.
And the text points out here pretty clearly, the doctors aren't helping matters.
And if some of you have been to doctors, I'm all for the medical profession.
Let's be honest, sometimes those treatments, they don't seem to help, do they?
And here, you've got to understand something.
People back at that time, while they may have turned to doctors, they didn't think very
highly of them.
In fact, in the Mishnah, there is this section about vocations you would want your son to
have.
And this person goes through.
Now, if you're a donkey driver, they're the worst.
If you are a camel driver, well, they're all right.
If you are a sailor, they are the most saintly of all occupations.
But if you want to be a physician, the best of them are going to get henna.
In other words, they're going to hell.
That's how people felt about it back then, with going to the doctors.
Notice she had gone to the doctors.
She'd spent a lot of money, no help.
But then she comes to Jesus.
And remember, because of this flow of blood, she is socially weak.
She is defiled in terms of Old Testament law, so people are not going to want to deal with
her.
She's unclean, according to the law.
And her problem is she's an outcast.
Probably no one wants to marry this woman.
But I want you to notice the compassion here.
And this story gets a little tricky, because there's a big crowd, and she thinks that if
she touches the clothes of Jesus, she'll be healed, and she's right.
And then Jesus turns around and says, who touched me and his disciples are saying, what
are you talking about?
The reason Jesus is asking this is because he wants to get also at that woman's heart.
And that's what he's after.
And he says to her, woman, your faith has healed you because you came to me in your weakness.
That is what he's after.
And here we see Jesus's compassion on this woman for the spiritually lost, for those
who are sick, those who are hurting, he cares.
And how do you know you are in that category, that you trust Jesus that much?
Think of it this way.
How compassionate are you with those who are sick and hurting?
Or do you say, suck it up.
You need to be stronger.
Or are we willing to say, how can I help?
You've got to get in our minds the mindset of Christ.
Jesus could have said, stay away from me.
You're going to pollute me.
Stay away from me.
You're unclean.
Jesus could have upheld the Old Testament law at this point, but he allows himself to
be touched so he could cleanse and purify and restore that which is weak because he's
Christ the compassionate.
Our weakness, it's great, but the compassion of God is so much greater.
And he heals the weakness of the sick.
Look what that compassion leads to.
A person just touched him and they're healed.
In fact, in Luke 6, and this must have been true of Jesus, it's in the Bible, it says
in the people, all tried to touch him because power was coming from him and healing them
all.
Jesus came in this world to reverse the curse, to take away our weakness and to make us whole
again.
And that's what he's doing with this woman here.
See, humans, we weren't designed to be sick and weak.
We weren't designed to have hemorrhages, cancer, glaucoma, dementia.
When Jesus comes to heal all that, in one day he will restore us from all those weaknesses.
And not only that, he gives life to the dead, which is the ultimate weakness we all have.
All of us are going to be so crippled at one point in our life that we won't be able to
get out of a bed.
But Jesus cares.
Jesus cares enough to go and to touch and to revive a small girl, maybe 12 years old.
That's the compassion of our Lord.
He doesn't leave her out.
He heals the young, he heals the old.
He heals those who are of the upper class, such as Jarius, but also a woman probably.
Nobody wanted to touch.
That's what the Savior does.
He overcomes disease, he overcomes death.
Here's the point to ponder, you've got a king who cares, who cares for you in your situation.
And we must not think that Jesus is out there somewhere, he doesn't know, he's not concerned.
He will act in time to heal.
And I think now, you know, we've done so many futiles lately, haven't we?
And now there may be another one coming up.
And I remember talking to Mary on her weakness.
And the only thing I could tell her after I read some scripture was, at the time of our
greatest need, God's grace will be with you.
And how could I say that?
Because I believe Jesus is compassionate in helping those in their weakness.
All of us who believe in Him, who trust in Him.
Peter Marshall was a very famous Presbyterian minister, and he one time told the story of
a little boy who had an incurable disease.
And the little boy liked to read.
And he liked to read King Arthur.
And one time he was reading about King Arthur and the last battle that he went through.
And he asked his mother, mother, what is death like?
And the mother was grieved.
So she said to that little boy, do you remember when you used to come into the house after
playing all day and how tired you were?
That you just crawled into bed with us because you were so tired and weak from playing all
day.
And then in the morning you woke up in your own bed.
And it was because your father and his strength carried you from our bed to your own bed where
you're meant to be.
And that is the story of Jesus Christ.
Because one day that weakness is going to get to all of us.
But when we are weak, He is strong.
And that is the Savior we have at Warrington Presbyterian Church.
So let's pray.
Our Heavenly Father, there's so many messages today about how we should be strong and how
we need to be overcomers.
But the truth of the matter is, unless you intervene in our lives, we are lost and we
are weak and we will perish.
But help us to see, Lord, you're with us every moment.
And when we're at our weakest, you will be there just as you were for Israel in the Old
Testament, just as you were for Jerius as a daughter and a sick woman who needed your
healing touch.
Hear our prayer this morning.
Amen.