Two "daughters"
“When Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side,"
--because when you roll with Jesus you get to where you need to be no matter what. You're getting to the other side with Him.
"a large crowd gathered around Him while He was by the sea."
--imagine a large crowd, like the crowd at a football home game or the crowd in Times Square on New Year's Eve or just imagine being immersed in a concentrated group of people haha--
"One of the synagogue leaders (a man who had great influence over the people like Pastor or Samonim), named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at His feet and kept begging Him,
“My little daughter is at death’s door. Come and lay Your hands on her so she can get well and live.”
--You know when you're desperate for something when all pride and image goes out the door and you get on your knees with tears and snot and persistence for what you want! That's how you know what or who you love....it hurts to feel like you're losing it or that person, and the more it hurts the more you will do whatever it takes to keep it.
--Some people beg God for money or beg God for health or beg God to get into the school they want, because begging shows how much we need and love something or someone. That's why when we break down before God in worship it just shows how much we need and love God.
--Jairus loved his daughter, so when she was sick and dying he got down on all fours because someone he loved was slipping away and Jairus wanted to keep his daughter with him.
--When something we love feels like it's slipping away, our reputation, our money, our Beauty, our image, we can measure how much we loved something by how painful it is to let it go.
--When it feels as if God is slipping away, or you are slipping from His presence do you cry out desperately? Yet, even when we do not love Him He loves you. And is relentless in chasing you because that's what love does, love never gives up. God loves us because when we run from Him it hurts Him and He will do whatever it takes to have you back, even dying for you. But love is not a one way street. We love God back only when we first realize how much He loves you.
"So Jesus went with him, (Jairus) and a large crowd was following and pressing against Him."
--Now, Jesus had a task to do. He was set on seeing Jairus's daughter, they were on the move. Sometimes we get a call during the day to do something, and we set our steps to get that task done, a program, a meeting with someone, homework, bible reading or hanging out with a friend...but sometimes God interrupts our task...
"A woman suffering from bleeding for 12 years had endured much under many doctors."
--Imagine if some part of your body never stopped bleeding and you had to somehow block it or get dialysis done every month to stay alive. You went to doctor after Doctor but after spending $1000s of dollars none of them could heal your bleeding. You just kept bleeding. And people thought you were gross or unhealthy. You were viewed as sickly and a sad case of what they would never want. You were like trash to them, because what you were was something no one wanted to be. (Especially in that culture where blood was viewed as unclean if exposed). It would be equivalent to someone with AIDS or warts all over their face and body. So that wherever she went she was never considered pretty or valuable or precious. That was the case for this woman. Step into her shoes, for a moment. Become her because we are her.
"She had spent everything she had and was not helped at all."
--She turned to this and that hopeful thing or person trying to heal her brokenness. Trying to get better, trying to be whole, trying to be happy....maybe for some of us we try to fill our selves with achievements or making our parents proud or having a nice body because we think "then I'll be happy"...but you will find out sooner or later that spending your time, effort and money on getting that wholeness outside of Jesus will lead to nowhere...because eventually your achievements will be outdone by someone else, your parents may never be satisfied or if they are they will eventually pass away and with them gone who will you live for to be proud? Eventually your own bodies will become old and decay with age until your skin is a thin crepe like layer revealing your brittle bones and insides. All the help she was searching for was failing, and these failings lead her to desperately reach for Jesus. All she wanted was to be made well...maybe she stopped caring about what people thought and just wanted to live at this point or maybe she wanted to be well so that she could have more friends...we don't know for sure, but what we see is that she got to a point where she was desperate to be healed.
"On the contrary, she became worse.
Having heard about Jesus, she came behind Him in the crowd and touched His robe.
For she said, “If I can just touch His robes, I’ll be made well! ”
--Now step into her shoes. Here's a person who is the unloveable reject among her peers and fellow citizens. No one wants to be her and she knows this because she doesn't even want to be her! Have you ever not wanted to be you? It's a really terrible feeling. To not want to be you means you find yourself worthless and despicable. Yet there is a clear desire in her to be loved and accepted, heard and held, understood and valued. For that is the broken image of God in all of us. We were made for fellowship with a loving God. So she reached for Jesus in this moment of vulnerability. Knowing she was unclean and that Jesus would probably treat her just as all her peers had she wasn't going to bother him for his attention, but if the rumors were true and he was the Savior of the world then perhaps if she just touched the hem of his robe as he passed by she would catch some of His saving power and be healed.
Jesus was, after all, on his way to another sick daughter to heal her, the daughter of an important man of influence, a daughter who was so loved that her own father would beg Jesus to come heal her....but this woman, no one would beg on her behalf. She came alone. People probably were snickering and staring at her trying to touch the robe of Jesus like a crazy woman. She didn't care, she was too broken to care, she was so broken it brought her to this place of doing whatever it took to touch Jesus because in Him she had hope that if He was the Savior then He might be able to save her too.
"Instantly her flow of blood ceased, and she sensed in her body that she was cured of her affliction.
At once Jesus realized in Himself that power had gone out from Him.
He turned around in the crowd and said,
"Who touched My robes? ”
--Now, continue to be her in this moment. You have suffered bleeding in your body for 12 years which means you have suffered being the leper in your society, someone people pitied and did not want to be...you were rejected for 12 years and hated being yourself because you were never good enough for the love of others or never valued as someone worthy of anyone's time and care because you were gross to people. You lived as an outcast for 12 years and on top of that you were dying! You have been bleeding internally for 12 years spending $1000s of dollars in hospitals and seeing doctors who only left you worse than before. Then all of a sudden, in that moment of desperation and hope in the man passing by said to be the Savior of the world, you reach for the hem of His robe and instantly you know you are healed. What would you be feeling? What would you be thinking? You are healed! Your 12 years of pain has stopped! Can you imagine being her. Because you are her, just not always physically but spiritually. We were dying too, destined to utter darkness away from the only source of love, our Father who made us, because of sin in us. What sort of Jesus have you encountered? What sort of Jesus did she encounter? This woman who had been bleeding for 12 years and suddenly was healed just by touching the hem of Jesus's robe as he was passing by her on his way to heal a loved daughter. First of all I would be shocked, speechless, and just dumbfounded for at least the first few minutes. Then it would probably hit me: ...what just happened. I got what I wanted....but now what? I wanted healing....but was that all she wanted? I think that was all she was aware of wanting because it dominated her life, but once she was healed its kind of like...reality check...life is still just as it was before. But Jesus knew what she really wanted because He knows what is in all of us, that broken image of God in us. To be whole. To be loved. To be God's child. Even if she wasn't fully aware of that yet Jesus was and He cares for our needs even the ones we do not know about. He knows what we need because He was with God in the beginning when we were being made.
"His disciples said to Him, “You see the crowd pressing against You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me? ’ ”
So He was looking around to see who had done this."
--Jesus was searching for her. He knew very well who touched Him. He's God. He was asking and searching for her for her sake.
"Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came with fear and trembling, fell down before Him, and told Him the whole truth.
--She told him the whole truth. That she was unclean but she had the audacity to reach out and try and touch him. That she did touch his robe, even though she knew she was doing this selfishly because touching his robe meant that he would be considered unclean, but all she wanted was to believe that He was the Savior of the world. All she wanted was to be healed. It says she told Him the truth in fear and trembling because she now knew that He was God. And she had been a reject and undervalued human person for 12 years, if people rejected her then it made sense that Jesus would too...
“Daughter,” He said to her,
“your faith has made you well.
Go in peace and be free from your affliction.”
--This is the only place in the entire bible and in the ministry of Jesus that It is recorded of Him calling someone daughter. Because Jesus knew that more than healing her bleeding she was need of being healed of her rejection. In this crowd all around them, looking straight at the woman who was the town reject for 12 years and who had a reputation of being gross and unloveable, uncared for, pitied and never valued as a person, Jesus, who is known and famous for being the Son of God ...people are crowding around him just to hear him speak and to get a look at his face, this Jesus turns and stops in his tracks, on his way to the daughter of Jairus the well known pastor, he stops and turns around. Do you think He didn't know who touched Him? I think he knew exactly who had touched Him. He knew her well, and he wanted to make it known to all the crowd that this was His daughter. She was not only healed of her physical bleeding but she was healed of the greater internal emotional bleeding of having never been loved. He declared it before the crowd "daughter your faith has made you well." She was no longer unclean, no longer unloved, no longer without a father. The King called her daughter, claiming a new identity over her before all the people.
"While He was still speaking, people came from the synagogue leader’s house and said, “Your daughter is dead. Why bother the Teacher anymore? ”
--Jairus's friends came and said "well, too late now for YOUR beloved daughter Jairus. She's dead. While Jesus had stopped to help this woman, your daughter suffered the consequences and time ran out. She's dead"
"But when Jesus overheard what was said,..."
--Say what? What was that? Oh heck no. These guys think they know what's up. Oh, you think I don't see what you're doing? You think I'm just taking my sweet time as if I don't know what I'm doing? As if death itself could stop me? I'm Jesus. Recognize.
"He told the synagogue leader,
Don't listen to these suckers....jk
"Don’t be afraid. Only believe.”
Mark 5:21-36
Jesus knows what He is doing. Whatever situation you may be in, maybe you're the bleeding woman who has held rejection and pain for most of your life or you're Jairus on the verge of losing something or someone you love, Jesus is the Savior of the world.
Don't be afraid. Only believe.
--What I often pray nowadays, and this has become my practice or my dates with God, is to say:
"Here's my situation God."
I will not fear it for You are the Savior of the world.
Here it is, here's the whole truth of it, and here I lay it down to you. (Followed by snot and tears, most of the time haha because it comes from such a broken place of needing love.)
You are getting to the other side.
He is making all things new, even things you didn't realize were in need of being made new or things you thought could never be made new again because it died a long time ago.
This is Jesus.
He is never a moment too late.
Where you are when you find Him is where He intended to lift you up.
Look at Your Savior!
Some of you have kept your eyes on the things you see like your sickness, your addiction, your bad habits, your unloveliness, your rejection, your loneliness, or the impending possibility of losing out on something you want or someone you love. Lift up your gaze higher.
The Savior of the world has come and He has called you:
beloved sons and daughters.
Don't be afraid. Only believe.
Discussion groups:
Who do you relate with more and why?
Jairus or the woman?
What is the difference between the two?
Why does Jesus call the woman "daughter"?
What would you do if you were Jairus and people said it was too late?
Which daughter experienced the love of God more? How so?
Jmegrey
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