Jesus’ Daughter - Mark 5:21-34 Series

Mark 5:21 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 One of the synagogue rulers, named Jairus, came. 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. 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."

Introduction

Three Households

It was just a typical, ordinary day in Galilee. And this teenager named Jesus woke up that morning and it was just like any other morning. You may have heard that we don’t know anything that happened in Jesus’ life between age 12 and age 30, but this morning I’m going to tell you about something that took place when Jesus was in his late teens—maybe 18 or 19 years old. Jesus was just going about his normal, daily routine in Nazareth—nothing special. But about 20 miles away, in the upper-class section of Capernaum, a man and his wife were beside themselves with joy. They just had their first (and, it would turn out only) child – a beautiful, healthy little girl, and they invited friends over and were laughing and celebrating. Like most parents, their minds were filled with thoughts of the future – hopes and expectations, wondering what life would be like for that little one, who she might someday marry and all the rest. I want you to listen for a moment to the sounds of laughter and rejoicing coming from that house.

And now listen as those sounds fade as we move a few blocks away to another house. This house is quiet. A young woman is sitting by her bed, alone, and she isn’t laughing at all. In fact, she is really starting to get scared now. You see, a few weeks ago she realized something was wrong in her body. She didn’t want to tell anyone at first, but this month, for some reason, her period just didn’t stop. It has been several weeks now, and she realizes she needs to see a doctor.

That would be enough of a concern medically, but for her there was much more to it than that. In Leviticus 15 it says that when a woman has this kind of problem, it makes her ritually unclean until it stops. Blood symbolized life, loss of blood was a symbol of death, and so it made a person unclean. The woman would be unclean, anything she touched was unclean, and any person she touched was unclean. So she hasn’t been able to go to the Temple or enter a synagogue for almost a month now.

And on top of the medical aspect, and the religious and social aspects, there’s also the personal side. For a woman to have a problem with her uterus—that’s not like some other diseased body part. That goes to the heart of her womanhood, especially in that culture where 99% of a woman’s value was in her ability to bear children.

And so there she is, sitting alone in her room wondering about the future. What if they can’t do anything? What if this keeps going for months … or a year? Her life would be ruined. She would be looked at as nothing but a contamination in a culture that already had a low enough view of women.

Now, this couple with the new baby and the woman with the bleeding didn’t know each other, had never met, and from this moment on their lives go in opposite directions. The man with the new daughter is on a track of success. He climbs the social ladder and eventually was appointed as a ruler of the synagogue... , which was an influential and respected position in the community. He loves his family, and as the years go by he takes great joy in watching his daughter grow up and begin to mature.