1. Mark 5.21-43 (also in Matthew 9.18-26; Luke 8.40-56)
2. Bible as a Compass
Just before the outbreak of the First World War, a small ship named the Endurance set sail from Briton with a crew intent on being the first to cross the South Pole. The ship reached Antarctica, but became ice-bound in the Weddle Sea. Soon they had to abandon their ship and the 28-man crew took to their lifeboats.
They were trapped on the ice for over a year. A desperate decision was made to take four men in a 20-foot lifeboat across the roughest sea in the world to a whaling station on South Georgia Island some 800 miles away. At the helm was a man named Worsely. All he had to guide them those 800 miles to South Georgia Island was a map, a watch, a sexton, and a compass, but it was all he needed if he used them well. A mistake as minor as being off by only one degree would have proved disastrous.
The four men in that boat endured seas that raged higher than a ten-story building. They were constantly cold and wet from the waves that constantly drenched the boat. They had only the most meager of rations. The journey did not take days, but two weeks. But Worsley, whose most sophisticated tool was a compass, managed to get that lifeboat the 800 miles to South Georgia Island and eventually the entire crew of the Endurance was saved. As a result, Worsley was a hero.
The whaling captains who sailed those waters considered him one of the wisest navigators in the world. Worsley was brilliant, but all of his brilliance would have been worthless if he not used the compass. Worsley was wise because he used the compass to guide him. Being wise is a matter of using the compass you've been given to get where you need to go. Fools choose not to use the compass.
3. The story in Capernaum of Jairus and the Woman with the Issue of Blood need to be read together. Tonight we will emphasize the woman, but there are parallels with Jairus and us.
4. The Story Reveals three Actions
I. The Action of Compassion
A. Jesus Demonstrates the Incarnation of God's Compassion
1. This is a key quality of God -- 1 Peter 3.20b-21
when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. 21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
2. Filled Full in Jesus --
Matthew 15.32 (the 4000) Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, "I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way."
Luke 15.20 when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. 21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
B. Jesus Demonstrates Unexpected Compassion to Two Women
1. Rabbis ignored the testimony of women
2. Yet, who is first to get the news of the Resurrection?
3. Jesus Partnered with women in his ministry -- Luke 8.1-3
4. Here a sick woman and dying girl
5. His compassion towards you and me -- Acts 17.26-28
26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for "'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, "'For we are indeed his offspring.'
II. The Action of Desperation
A. The Prominent Jairus
1. Synagogue Ruler -- well known (Nasi)
2. Reminder of the Prominent Judge, Jair (Yair) in Judges 10.3-5
3. He went outside his comfort zone and approached the unauthorized Jesus for healing
a. Risked Humiliation (note -- he fell at Jesus' feet)
b. Rejection of the People
4. Compelled by the love for his 12 year old daughter -- Nowhere else to turn
B. The Unknown Woman
1. Her Unclean State -- Leviticus 15.19-33; Ezekiel 36.17
a. Not a moral condition; state of being in which we all find ourselves from time to time
b. Woman's monthly cycle; Dead bodies, etc.
c. 12 years of isolation and loneliness
2. Nowhere else to turn
a. Spent all of her money on doctors -- Mark 5.26
b. Willing to risk:
1) Animosity of the crowd
2) Rejection of Jesus
3) Disappointment if this failed
III. The Action of Application (i.e., the Power of Faith in Action)
A. The Bold Touch of the Woman -- on the fringe
1. Fringes -- Numbers 15.37-41
37 The LORD said to Moses, 38 "Speak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner. 39 And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after. 40 So you shall remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God. 41 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I am the LORD your God."
2. Abused by Pharisees -- Matthew 23.5
5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long,
3. Significance
TZITZIT AND TEKHEILET
* Tassel -- 8 strands; tied in 5 double knots -- between knots specific windings; each is symbolic --
* Torah (5 knots) -- declaration of God
* Tetragrammaton (4 windings) -- YHVH
* Theology (8 strands +5 knots = 13) -- count with alphabet; word in Hebrew has numeric value (Chai = 18 -- life); "ONE" = 13
* Total -- 613 commandments; Tzitzit = 600 + "ONE" = 613
Folklore had grown up at this time -- great power of Great Rabbis' Tzitzit; this woman was thinking in her faith -- If I can lay hold of the totality of God -- nature and revealed will -- if I could touch wholeness of God she could be made whole -- Yeshua (Jesus) is the wholeness/fullness of the Godhead
This is a statement of the Messiahship of Yeshua (Jesus)
4. "Corners" = "Wings" -- Malachi 4.2
2 But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.
5. Other times as in Matthew 14.34-36
34 And when they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret. 35 And when the men of that place recognized him, they sent around to all that region and brought to him all who were sick 36 and implored him that they might only touch the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it were made well. (Also in Mark 6.56)
B. The Soft Touch of Jesus
1. Jairus' Request was faith-based, but the daughter died
2. "Believe" -- Mark 5.36
a. Don't fear (antithesis of faith) -- 365 commands not to fear
b. In this, God would be honored -- John 11.3-4
3 So the sisters sent to him, saying, "Lord, he whom you love is ill." 4 But when Jesus heard it he said, "This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it."
3. Jesus touched the 12 year old girl's body -- a potential problem -- Numbers 19.11-13
11 "Whoever touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean seven days. 12 He shall cleanse himself with the water on the third day and on the seventh day, and so be clean. But if he does not cleanse himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not become clean. 13 Whoever touches a dead person, the body of anyone who has died, and does not cleanse himself, defiles the tabernacle of the LORD, and that person shall be cut off from Israel; because the water for impurity was not thrown on him, he shall be unclean. His uncleanness is still on him.
a. He could have done nothing -- it was a great mitzvah to prepare the dead body for burial; usually reserved for the family
b. He could have merely spoke -- Lazarus -- John 11.43
c. Chose to touch -- in spite of uncleanness
d. We learn -- God's touch makes clean, not the opposite -- Isaiah 53.5 -- by his stripes/wounds we are healed
e. Food for the girl -- no illusion/apparition
1. Compassion
WHAT ARE WHALES WORTH? During the 1988 presidential election, an unexpected shift of attention occurred. Instead of the evening news focusing on the candidates, all eyes were on three gray whales that were cut off from their migratory route by a frozen sea of ice. At first, only a few Eskimos with chain saws attempted to rescue them. But when the media brought the whales' plight into our living rooms, volunteers flocked to the scene with heavy machinery and a determination to set those stranded whales free. But volunteers' ingenuity and energy were soon exhausted. Enter the National Guard. Their helicopters dropped a five-ton concrete basher to break up the ice. Then, in a cooperative effort with the United States, the Soviet Union dispatched two of their ice-breaking ships to facilitate the rescue. After three weeks and an expenditure of $1.5 million, the whales were freed.
The heroic and noble rescue sparked a sense of compassion throughout the world. But it did something else too. By showing how willing we were to save a couple of ocean-going mammals, it underscored how hesitant we are to join hands in rescue efforts that involve mankind. How many people would have pitched in to help the homeless? How many would have dug in their pockets to help free a family from a New York ghetto? How many would have opened their homes to an unwed mother? So willing to save the whales. So reluctant to save our fellow human beings.
Yet, Jesus came with the compassion of heaven to save the lost (Luke 19.10 cf. Ezekiel 34.11, etc.).
2. There is a level of desperation for all of us
a. HE GOES NUTS
From a passenger ship, everyone can see a bearded man on a small island, shouting and desperately waving his hands.
"Who is that?" a passenger asks the captain.
"I've no idea. Every year when we pass, he goes nuts."
b. Matthew 5.6 6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
