Apprenticing Under the Master January 15, 2006
Mark 5:21-43
Jesus Raises a Dead Girl & Heals a Sick Woman
It’s been a long time since we’ve been in Mark, but if you don’t mind, I plan to return to Mark periodically. We still have much to learn from Jesus in Mark as we “Apprentice Under the Master”
In this story, Jesus has just returned from the region of the Gerasenes on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. The people of the Gerasenes didn’t want Jesus to stay in their region after he freed the man from the legion of demons. Either they were afraid of his power, or they were upset that the demons had killed the pigs and they were left with a sane man and no pigs. The people on this side of the Lake, however, embraced Jesus. A crown gathered around him as soon as he made landfall on the beach.
Through the crowd comes one of the leaders of the synagogue, a man named Jairus, comes. Other religious leaders had rejected Jesus, he threatened their position among the people. With Jesus, everyone came on equal footing to God, there were no super saints and sinners, they were all sinners in need of forgiveness from a loving father. It made it very difficult to accept Jesus as a leader, they had too much to lose. But Jairus was in danger of losing too much without Jesus. His daughter was ill to the point of death. Have you ever had a sick child? It becomes pretty easy to give up your pride when the one you love is sick, you would crawl on your knees up the hospital stairs if it would do anything to heal them, if it would do anything to get the doctor’s attention.
Jairus comes through the crowd and falls at Jesus feet, begging Jesus to come and put his hands on the little girl so that she would be healed and live. Jairus is desperate, and his prayer is a desperate prayer. It’s okay for those of us in desperate situations to pray prayers of desperation, to beg God for salvation and healing. Jesus, and thus God, does not stand on ceremony, you don’t have to hold your tongue just right to have your prayers answered, you can pour your heart out to him and he hears you.
1 Peter 5:7 “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you!”
Verse 24 says it so simply “So Jesus went with him.” The man’s begging doesn’t bother Jesus: He has compassion on him and his love for his sick daughter. He ignores the crowd, and goes with Jairus.
The crowd that gathered went with Jesus, they were all trying to get close to him, they were jostling and pressing in on him. In the midst of the crowd was this woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. Her ailment must had kept her weak, but there was the element of shame attached as well. She would have been considered ceremonially unclean for those 12 years, unable to worship in the temple or to participate in the festivals or other religious ceremonies. It would be like being kept out of church and not allowed to participate in Christmas or Easter or Thanksgiving, weddings, funerals, celebrations of births, nothing.
Anyone one who touched here would be considered unclean for a time until they had followed the cleansing rituals. She would have had to float under the radar for 12 years. The doctors had attempted to help her, but they had only made her worse and poorer for their failure. She remain an “untouchable”
She had joined the jostling crowd in the hope that she could just touch the healer’s robe and be rid of this curse forever. She doesn’t want to have to explain her self to the man, she just wants a quiet, anonymous healing.
She gets close enough, reaches out and touches the hem of his coat and instantly she is healed. The cause of 12 years of bleeding was removed and stopped.
But Jesus has felt the healing power go out from him and he stops and asks, “who touched my clothes?” The disciples look at him like he’s lost it. It’s like someone from the mosh pit asking, “Who brushed up against me?” They say, “Oh. Come on Lord, everyone touched you.” Jesus keeps looking around, finally, the woman, terrified, falls at his feat and confesses that she stole the healing.
Jesus says “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.
Who knows why Jesus brought her out of her shame and made her show her face. Maybe it was so that she wouldn’t walk away and a day or so later think to herself that Jesus had nothing to do with it, she simply got better, her body healed itself. Now there was no doubt. Jesus healed her.
In him there is no shame
Psalm 34:5
Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.
Jesus heals the woman but Jairus is still there, waiting.
Even as Jesus is proclaiming her healing, some people come from Jairus’ house to say that they were too late, the girl has died.
From their tone of voice, I’m inclined to think that they didn’t believe that Jesus could have healed her in the first place. Jairus was just living in denial that she was going to die, he was grasping at straws to go visit this healer. Now what they have been telling him all along is true: there is no hope, she’s dead. “Why bother the teacher any more?”
This was less information than it was intervention – Jairus needed to face facts and come down to reality.
Jesus turns to him and tells him some new reality – “Don’t be afraid: just believe.”
They go to the house – the village mourners are already there. Jesus chastises them for their loud wailing – “she’s not dead, but just asleep.” And you can tell that these paid mourners tears were only for show, since they turned so quickly to mocking laughter. Jesus sends everyone out, keeping on the parents, Peter, James & John. He walks over to her and says, “little girl, get up!”
The girls got right up, she stood up and walked around. Everyone in the room was astonished except for Jesus and the girl. Jesus knew she would be hungry, so he asks them to get her something to eat, and to tell no one about this.. The last command would be a little difficult since everyone in town knew she was dead and now she’s walking around.
In this one story, Jesus heals two impossible cases – the woman with an incurable, 12 year malady, and a little girl who’s illness killed her.
There is nothing impossible for the healer. Remember Gabriel’s words to Mary? “There is nothing impossible with God.”
Do you have an impossible problem? There is nothing that is impossible for the healer: nothing is impossible for God.
The simple message of this story is that Jesus is the healer, and he can heal even impossible cases.
We will have a time for you to come for healing at the end, but we are also looking at the passage as apprentices, to watch how the master did it, and to copy his actions.
You might say, “but this is Jesus, and I’m not him, I can’t heal people!” The reality is that if you are a Christian, if you have given your life to Jesus, he gives his Spirit to you, and the same power that Jesus felt leaving him to heal the woman exists in you by the Holy Spirit.
I don’t think that most of us believe this, but it is true, Jesus actually said that we would do greater things than Him!
Cutting metal with water under pressure – the hole can’t get proud, it only works because of the power behind it
Now if you are like me, you have all kinds of questions around that verse, like “how come we aren’t seeing it?” “Why haven’t Christian eradicated illness if we have all that power?” “why are some people healed and others not?”… These are all good questions that I’m not going to deal with today.
What I want to say is that I think that God is ready to heal allot more than we are ready to pray. I think that what we as Christians need to do when we encounter a friend with a problem is to get these 5 little words across our lips: “Can I pray for you?”
Now Jesus had people coming to him and asking, because they had heard that he could heal. We might have very few people coming up to us and asking us to pray for them, but maybe if we asked people if we can pray for them more often, we would have more people asking us to pray for them! I’m blessed in that it is my job to pray, and people who know what my job is will come and ask me to pray for them. They’re not so sure about this church thing, but they want me to pray for them. I can’t tell you what a blessing it is when someone who isn’t a church person comes to me and asks for prayer, or when I get the nerve to ask them if I can pray for them that they say yes.
I’ve got a clip from a testimony time in Bill Johnson’s (Bethel) church in California that demonstrates what God can do if we ask total strangers if we can pray for them.
Words of knowledge…
Start at 21
Now I know that we aren’t in California, and your name isn’t Chad, but I think that if there is a Canadian way that we can ask friends, neighbours, co-workers, family… if we can pray for them when something is wrong, we will see more healings.
Some thoughts on praying for people in person
Prayer is very intimate – we want to be sure that people are okay that people are open to being prayed for and that they understand how we are going to pray.
Praying for friends & neighbours can be more difficult, because we have to see them after, and they know us.
Jesus is always motivated by compassion. I think that there are two extremes that we can fall into when it comes to praying for people to be healed. One extreme is just not doing it because of lack of faith, or boldness, the other extreme is boldness masquerading as faith. There can be much damage because of our uncompassionate prayers. We can be more interested in the power to heal than we are in the person who we would like to see healed! This is the first sin seeking God’s power and not his character. Adam and Eve were told that they would be like God without obeying God. God’s character is compassion; he backs it up with his power, not the other way around. We must first be compassionate – before you offer prayer, pray silently and ask God how you and He are going to love this person today.
Jesus is much more concerned with showing compassion than he is showing power.
How to pray for some one
Ask, “can I pray for you?” make sure they understand that you want to pray in person, give them the “out” of praying in your own prayers.
Tell them how you are going to pray – ask before you touch them
Pray simple, short prayers – “the longer the prayer the lower the anointing.” - Steve
“Lord Jesus, would you show Jim how much you love him by healing his knee right now? Amen.”
Ask them if anything has changed – you may need to pray again
If God gives you words or images while you pray, ask about them – if they don’t relate, just leave it
You may want to ask if they want to believe in Jesus for salvation – they are your friend, you do not want to be pushy, but you also want them to be in right relationship with God.
Let them know you will continue to pray for them,
Two groups up at the front
1 – if you want prayer for healing, you just want to touch the hem of his cloak; you just want Jesus to say to you “get up.” Come and someone will pray for you.
2 – if you want some practice in saying “can I pray for you?’ we’ll do a short clinic up here at the front – we’ll partner you up with another person and we’ll pray for each other.
