All right, so we're in Mark chapter five tonight as we continue our series on encounters with Jesus. And tonight we'll be looking at not just a one-on-one encounter with Jesus, but an interaction between Jesus and two desperate people. Mark five, verse 21 to 43. This is the situation where Jesus heals Jairus' daughter. He resurrects her. And then he also heals a woman who has a bloody discharge. And so it's one of those interesting passages in the Gospels where we have a miracle inside a miracle. There are two stories that go on. Jesus almost seems to be interrupted as he's going to Jairus' house to heal his daughter. And we have a double miracle. And as we study this, as we've said before, we're learning about who Jesus is and why He came. And so this is supposed to help enhance our understanding of the person of Christ and His saving work. So may we see Jesus tonight. Let's read together Mark 5, verse 21, and we'll read to verse 43. And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him, and he was beside the sea. Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet and implored him earnestly, saying, my little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live. And he went with him. And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for 12 years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, if I touch even his garments, I will be made well. And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, who touched my garments? And his disciples said to him, you see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, who touched me? And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease. While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler's house some who said, your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further? But Jesus, overhearing what they said, Overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, do not fear, only believe. And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John, the brother of James. They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. And when he had entered, he said to them, why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead, but sleeping. And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside, and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. Taking her by the hand, he said to her, Talitha kumi, which means, little girl, I say to you, arise. And immediately the girl got up and began walking, for she was twelve years of age. And they were immediately overcome with amazement. And he strictly charged them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat. Let's pray. Father in heaven, as we turn our attention now to your word, we ask that you would bless us with understanding. Most of all, we pray that you would show us Jesus. We not only want to read about what Jesus did in the past, but we want to encounter him in the present. We know that he's the same yesterday, today, and forever. And we ask that you would reveal his beauty, his power, his love, his mercy, his compassion to us tonight. And may we be edified as we walk through this account of how he interacted with two very desperate people. And we pray that we would learn the lessons for us today. Be with us later this evening as we discuss these things. May we sharpen one another. May we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. We'll look at this passage tonight in four scenes. First of all, I want us to look at a desperate man. That's Jairus. And then secondly, a diseased woman. She's not named. And then a dead girl, also not named. Jairus' daughter. And then a mighty savior. A mighty savior. That's Jesus. So first of all, a desperate man. If you look in verses 21 to 24, we meet Jairus who is, we're told is a ruler, one of the rulers of the synagogues, which most likely tells us that he was a layman and he was responsible for the upkeep of the local synagogue where the Jews would gather to worship. And he most likely also was the one who would choose the scripture readings that were read in the services in the synagogue. And so he was a respected member of Jewish society. And you can see as he comes to Jesus, he comes running up and he falls down at his feet. And so you see a sense of desperation in that, just that here's a respected man who's racing up to Jesus and then throwing himself down at his feet and imploring him to come help him because his daughter is sick and she's at the point of death. And you can see this man's deep love for his daughter in that he calls her my little daughter. And it really stands out in the original. It's almost as if he's saying, my little girl, you know, my little daddy's little girl, if you will. Now, she's probably not very little at this point. She's 12 years old, we're told, later on in the passage. But in his eyes, it's still daddy's little girl, and she's at the point of death. And he's heard about Jesus, and so he's racing to him, and he throws himself down, and he asks for Jesus to come with him and help him. And throughout the Bible, we see that God will often use crisis situations like this, situations where people feel desperate, situations where people feel helpless and hopeless, even with those they love, to drive them to Christ. Desperation is not bad if desperation drives us to Christ. And that, in the case of Jairus, his desperation, wanting his daughter to be healed, was what drove him to Christ. And whether it's someone in our family who's sick, or it's someone in our, a friend or a relative who's not saved and we want them to be converted, or whatever it might be, maybe it's a tragedy that happens. I'm sure there's a lot of people in the wake of the recent Hurricane and tropical storm who feel desperate. God can use desperate times to drive us to Christ. And so we see this man going with Jesus and we see the compassion of Jesus in that he's willing to go along with Jairus. And so Jairus and Jesus and his disciples are going along. And then that leads us from a desperate man to a diseased woman. There's an interruption in the story. And it seems like an interruption in what Jesus has agreed to do for Jairus. He's supposed to be hurrying along to Jairus' house because he needs to get there in time before his daughter dies so that he can heal his daughter. So there's this great crowd following. And then you get the sense that there's this, the crowd's so big and there's so many people that they're kind of, everybody's touching everybody. Almost like standing room only, people are pushing up against one another. And then we're introduced to this diseased woman who is also desperate. And notice how her condition is described. We're told that she had a discharge of blood for 12 years. Now the significance there, one of the pieces of significance is that according to the law, she had a discharge of blood. She was what? She was ceremonially unclean, right? And so she really was supposed to be set apart, quarantined from society. She certainly, there would have been restrictions if she wanted to go even into the court of women within the temple. This woman would have been an outcast in that sense. And so probably even in that crowd of people, she might have even been trying to disguise herself or not wanting to be known and seen if people knew what condition she had. You also can see her desperation and that she's had this discharge of blood. And notice it says in verse 26 that she had suffered much under many physicians. So she had gone to doctor, after doctor, after doctor, after doctor, trying to get someone to figure out how to stop this bloody discharge. And so she, and perhaps these different physicians, have tried their different, think, first century Israel techniques to try to get it to stop. And so she's been through a lot. And also, not only that, she spent all the money that she had. And so you think about someone you know maybe who has a physical ailment, maybe they have cancer or some other thing, and they're constantly going to the doctor. The medical bills go what? They go way up. And so, and the debt that you can accrue, the medical debt for that sort of thing. Well, she spent everything that she has, she has no more money, and she's not any better for it, because notice how it says in verse 26, she had not gotten any better, but in fact, she had grown worse. And so all the medical attention she could get, all the money she could spend, she's still in a situation where she's completely desperate. And like with Jairus, it's her desperation that drives her to seek out Jesus, because notice we're told in verse 27 that she had, praise God, she had heard the reports about Jesus. And she, we're told, and most likely Mark or Peter or whatever source was used for the writing of this gospel, that we're told, like her inner thoughts, we're told what she was thinking as she came up. And what was she thinking? Verse 28, she thought, if I touch even his garments, I will be made well. So she's heard enough to know this is a miracle worker. This is a healer. And if I can only push through and just touch him, I'll be healed. And so she knows the power of God is all over Jesus. She's heard about him casting out demons with a word. She's heard about him healing crippled people and all the rest. And she's wanting to push through and get to him. And so as she pushes through, she touches Jesus, and notice the key word, Mark uses this word a lot in his gospel, in verse 20, immediately she's healed. So this isn't like, you know, kind of like the healings you see faith healers on television and things where it's like almost like a psychosomatic type healing. People think they're healed and then therefore they deceive themselves into thinking they're healed when they're not. This is a woman who had an actual physical sickness and she touched Jesus and immediately it dried up and she could feel in her body that she was healed of her disease. Now, as that's happening, Jesus perceives that the power has gone out. It's kind of cryptic, isn't it? He feels like the power has gone out from him and this woman has been healed. And he doesn't just say, you know, well, that was weird and keep going on. But he says something that seems strange even to his disciples. He says, who touched my garments? And they're kind of like, Jesus, look around. There's a crowd here. People are bumping. The question, Jesus, isn't who touched you. It's who didn't touch you. I mean, we're pushing in on one another. And there's really no other option there. It's not really surprising that someone bumped you. And Jesus is like, no, no, something has happened. Power has gone out. Someone has been healed. and he looks around to see and there's maybe I'm assuming he's walking and he stops and you know when you stop in the crowd everyone else has to kind of stop to or move around you and so people are noticing and the woman's thinking you know okay I'm busted I better come forward and and and confess and so she goes forward And she throws herself down before him, and she tells him, it says, the whole truth. So she relates about what's gone on in her life, perhaps 12 years of this bloody discharge, spent all her money on physicians, yet she had heard that Jesus could heal her. And she said, if I only touched your garments, I knew that. If I could touch your garments, I would be healed. And that's what happened. And Jesus draws out her confession of what happened so that he can identify what it was about her that led to her receiving blessing from Jesus. Because look what he says, verse 34. It's what Jesus always does. He says to her, daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your diseases. or your disease. So notice that Jesus identifies it as her faith, right? And so in this context, what is faith? Faith is when you actually have nothing else, you're spiritually, you're poor in spirit, you have nothing, you have no more money, you have no more sources of help, no help outside of you, and you know, but Jesus can help. Jesus can deliver, Jesus can heal. And so whenever Jesus healed somebody, we saw this back with the healing of the paralytic, Jesus always attributed it to faith. Faith, your faith has saved you. because the way Jesus ministers his grace to us is through faith, and our faith is accepting who he is and taking him at his word, that he is actually able to do the things that he came to do. So you have this Desperate man, Jairus, and he's like, you gotta come, my little girl, she's at the point of death, time is of the essence, hurry. They're rushing, rushing along, and then this woman with the bloody discharge comes up, she touches Jesus, Jesus is like, what's going on? All of that happens, it takes some time. You know, I'm sure Jairus is like, okay, that's great, she got healed, but we gotta go, my daughter's at the point of death. That's wonderful, praise the Lord, hallelujah, let's go. And what happens? Well, it's really sad. It'd be really sad if it was the first time you're reading this because we see that the girl dies during this intervening time. Verse 35, while he was still speaking, there came from the ruler's house some who said, your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further? So, notice the assumption behind that. What they're saying is, when your daughter was alive, when she was sick, when she was at the point of death, something could be done. But now that she's died, death has the final word, and there's nothing more that can be done. Now, like good Hebrews, maybe these friends who came from the ruler's house, maybe they had gathered that from the story of David. Remember when David commits adultery with Bathsheba, Bathsheba becomes pregnant, and then God says as a judgment, you know, this child's gonna die, and David prays, and he fasts, and he asks for the Lord to spare the child's life, and then the child ends up dying, And then David gets up, he washes his face, and he worships the Lord, and his servants say, what's up? Why did you do that? That's the Logan International Version, but that's what they say. They say, why did you, why, can you move on now? And David essentially says, well, while the child was alive, there was hope. But now that the child is dead, God's made it providentially clear that it's over. Nothing more can be done. And so these are highlighting death is something that cannot be reversed. It cannot be undone. It has the last word. And we can understand why they may have been thinking that way. Jesus, however, he doesn't agree with their assessment of things. Because he's overhearing this, he's hearing what Jairus is being told, your daughter's dead, leave Jesus alone. And Jesus encourages the faith of Jairus in spite of the fact that his daughter is dead. He says, do not fear, only believe. So basically Jesus is asking Jairus, he's encouraging, he's exhorting Jairus to keep on believing past even when it seems impossible, when there's death, when your daughter's gone. It's one thing to believe she's sick and at the point of death Jesus can come and be his healer and like he's with these other people. Clearly Jairus, these people don't know about Lazarus, right? And so They think, you know, there's no more hope. But Jesus says, have hope, don't fear, only believe is the spirit of what's being said. And now you see, you almost get this sense that Jesus is almost like rolling up his sleeves. He's about to do a great work because from that point on, in verse 37, he only allows Peter, James, and John to come. Those are his inner three. And so he only allows them to come with him. It's almost like you get the idea that even at that point, he already is anticipating what he is about to do with respect to his humanity. And then they get to the house of the ruler of the synagogue. And you're right in the middle of kind of like a first century Jewish time of mourning because the girl's dead. And so the family, the friends, they're all out in verse 38. They're weeping and they're wailing loudly. So back in those days, they didn't have celebrations of life. They had mourning, that's how they thought of someone has died, you should mourn that. And your mourning was a monument to the love that you had for that person. And also your mourning was an act of wisdom. Ecclesiastes chapter 7 and verse 2 says, it's better to go to the house of mourning than the house of feasting, that there's wisdom to be gained in mourning. We're a very positive type culture. We all want to put a positive spin on everything, but we know that there is hope beyond the grave as Christians, but we also know the Bible says we do grieve. We don't grieve like those who have no hope, but we do grieve. There's a Christian grief that we can have. And these Jews are grieving, they're wailing. This was a scene. And then notice how when Jesus shows up here, he says something that it almost seems insensitive and out of touch. Insensitive and out of touch. Because look what he says in verse 39. He says, why are you making this commotion and weeping? Why are you... Why are you making such a fuss almost, right? The child is not dead, but sleeping. So number one, that seems insensitive. This 12 year old girl has has died. What a horrible picture of this fallen world. Twelve year olds die, right? We live in a world where this where there's that kind of misery in it, where children die. They seem so young and their life is cut short. And and Jesus says, why are you why are you weeping? And then he says something that seems crazy or are foolish because he says, the child's not dead, but sleeping. And when it says in verse 40, they laughed at him, the idea there is they laughed him to scorn. I mean, this isn't a comedy routine, right? He's in the middle of a context where they're mourning, they're grieving. And he says, why are you grieving? She's not dead, but she's sleeping. Now we know that Jesus is not being insensitive, right? Is that fair to say? Jesus is a sympathetic Savior. He loves these people. He cares deeply for them. We also know that Jesus is not a fool. He knows that she's not sleeping in the way that we see things. But he's showing a different perspective, that what happens when you sleep? You wake up. You wake up, and the idea here is that this girl is going to wake up, is the idea. He's starting to intimate what he is about to do. Well, they're laughing at him, and so, interestingly, notice also, as they're laughing at him in unbelief, he separates them, he puts them all outside. All of those who are laughing at unbelief are not going to see the miracle. He pushes all them outside, but then he puts all of those who go inside, the child's father, Jairus' mother, and those who were with him, Peter, James, and John, and they go into where the child was. It's such a sweet picture. So they would have taken the corpse and had it out for viewing purposes, basically, until they do their whole mourning process. And so it's Jesus, the mother, the father, the corpse of the girl, right, 12-year-old girl, and Peter, James, and John. And it's just this beautiful picture of Christ with that family, his love, and he wants them to see it. He wants his disciples to see it. Peter, James, and John, they're gonna be preachers of the gospel, they are, and of the kingdom, and he wants the mother and father to see what is about to happen. So, lifeless child there, and what does Jesus do? Well, it says in verse 41, he takes her by the hand, and he says to her, Talitha cumi, that's Aramaic, which means, little girl, I say to you, arise. Now, that is significant, so, Jesus speaks with tenderness to this girl with the same kind of tenderness, little girl, that Jairus said of her. My little daughter, my little daughter is at the point of death, remember that? And Jesus then takes her and says, little girl. And so Jesus has a love for this girl that's even greater than the father's love, right? Her own biological father's love. And so you see that. And also, what is it about the Aramaic that's recorded? You know, we know Jesus sometimes spoke in Aramaic. There's debate about what conversations he had in Aramaic and Greek. And it's not impossible that he was bilingual to Greek as well. But these words were spoken originally in Aramaic. John Mark, we believe, who wrote Mark, his eyewitness source primarily was Peter, so Peter was there. Peter heard Jesus say, telethukumi, it's literally what he heard him say. And there's a couple of places in the Gospels where we actually get the Aramaic words recorded in the Greek Gospel, transliterated, the Aramaic words in there of what Jesus actually said. Kind of Bible trivia, you think about that. There's not a lot when Jesus heals the, The blind man, and he says, epaphra, be opened. That's one place. When he's on the cross, and he says what? Eli, Eli, lama sabaphani, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That's another. Typically, it's in a place where there were eyewitnesses to hear what he said, and where it was like a very significant moment, right? The cry of dereliction was very significant. And I can't help but think that maybe part of this is You know, Peter's told this story. Let me tell you about one of the miracles that Jesus did. The girl, we thought we were going to see Jesus go heal her. She dies. You should have seen Jairus's face when he was told she's dead. There's no more hope. Jesus says, keep believing. We're going to go. We got there to the funeral. Everybody's weeping. Everybody's crying. And Jesus says, hey, Why are you weeping and crying? She's not dead. She's sleeping. And then he took us inside the house, and then she was there, dead. And people say, Peter's told this enough to know people are going to ask, well, what did he say? Well, he said, Talitha Kumi, and she died. Got up, her chest started to rise and fall again, her eyes started to flutter, her color returned and she stood up. You would never forget that. You would never forget that moment where he said, little girl, I say to you arise. And the girl got up and she began walking and they were immediately overcome with amazement. And then what does Jesus do? Does he say, go tell the whole wide world right now that this is what I just did. What was almost secretive, wasn't it? The people, he then let everybody come into the house to see it. But he says, he strictly charged them, strictly charged them that no one should know this. And he says, and get the girl something to eat. Being dead works up an appetite. And that's an amazing thing. Now, why is this story in the Bible? Well, it's in the Bible because it happened. But also it's in the Bible because it's showing us something about Jesus. When Jesus performed these miracles, we see his mercy, his tremendous mercy for the most desperate, helpless, hopeless situations, right? We see his compassion. We also recognize the reason Jesus came. Jesus came to conquer death. These people thought death has the last word, death is the end, but here's one who actually can reverse death, who can call someone from the grave to come back and inhabit their body. And the apostles saw it, our parents saw it, what an incredible thing. And we recognize that the miracles that Jesus performed, especially the resurrections, are not just showing his present power to heal or deliver, but they're also, they're pledges of what he will do when he returns. Because remember what Jesus says, he says, one day, there's coming a day when all who are in the tombs will hear the voice of the Son of Man. And they will be resurrected, and some will be resurrected into life, and some will be resurrected unto judgment. And so when Jesus did this, of course, this girl, let's assume she grew up and she died, you know, full of years at some other time. It was a resuscitation, really. But Jesus teaches us that there's coming a day when there will be a resurrection unto life, that he will call us forth from the tomb. He will say to all dead girls who are in him, in union with him by faith, little girl, I say to you, arise. Our little son, little boy, I say to you, arise, that there will be a great resurrection. And so these miracles were to prove who he is. that he is the resurrection, the life, that whoever believes in him, even though he dies, yet will he live. And whoever lives and believes in him will never die. And so there's a very powerful, powerful interaction with these two desperate people. So let's pray together and we'll go discuss these things in our groups tonight. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you that Jesus is a compassionate Savior, that no matter how desperate our situation may be. no matter how hopeless it is, no matter how much we've spent and how many other solutions we've turned to, that He is willing and He is able to help us. And we thank you for His willingness to go with Jairus. We thank you for His willingness to heal this woman with her physical problem. We thank you for His love for this little girl, 12 years old, but cold and dead, and yet He said, little girl, I say to you, arise. And we pray that we would know the Savior's mercy, that we would know His power, that we would know His love, and that we would be confident that He is able to reverse the effects of the fall and raise the dead to life again. We ask that you would give us hope as we think about Jesus and as we speak of him to others. And we pray that you would bless our discussion this evening as we think about these things. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.