Sermon Tone Analysis

Mark 5:21-43

Mark 5:21-43

1. Intro

a. Good morning

b.

One Bible teacher begins his introduction to the fifth chapter of the book of Mark by saying that it is the St. Jude chapter of this gospel.

If you have a Catholic background, you might know that St. Jude was the saint of hopeless causes.

This is why Danny Thomas named the children’s hospital he founded St. Jude, because he desired to help those children who other medical facilities would have deemed “lost causes”.

c.

So when we come to this fifth chapter, we see Jesus interacting with people to whom the world at that time deemed to be “lost causes”.

Last week we saw Jesus liberate a man who was in bondage to a legion of demons, something no one thought was possible!

And this week Jesus deals with a woman who has suffered from 12 years of bleeding and a little girl who is at deaths door.

d.

But as we will see, we humans are far too quick to judge someone as a lost cause because in the hands of Jesus, there is no such thing as a lost.

We have seen He is the Creator God who has the power to speak commands to the wind and the waves and now we see that He is the Great Physician who has the power to heal all wounds, to cure every disease, both physical and spiritual.

e.

And you may think well, we have doctors and psychiatrists who can do similar things!

f.

But you see, what truly separates Him from earthly physicians and practitioners of any sort of psychiatric help, is that He is the Great Physician who can even raise the dead to life both spiritually and physically.

Ethan is a wonderful doctor, but not even he can do that.

g.

So that is what we want to explore today.

But first let us pray.

2. Jairus

a.

Last week we saw that after Jesus cast out the demons from the man who had been suffering at their hands for some time, the people who saw this miracle occur and watched the demons enter into the herd of pigs that were near by, instead of thanking Him, begged Jesus to leave.

They wanted nothing to do with Him!

b.

So Jesus and His disciples set sail once again and crossed to the other side of the sea of Galilee.

And since the word was out of all the miracles Jesus had been doing, as soon He got the shore, it did not take long for Jesus to once again be surrounded by a very large crowd who had come to see Him and perhaps even witness a miracle!

c.

Now we read in verse 22 that one man fought through the crowd desperately so that he could throw Himself down at the feet of Jesus.

i. Let’s take a look, “Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing Him, he fell at His feet.”

ii.

Now Jairus wasn’t just anyone.

He was a man of high esteem.

As we read in our verse he was a ruler of the synagogue.

The rulers of the synagogues were not rabbis but were those who tended the synagogues and essentially ordered the services held by the synagogues.

And this position was one that came with great esteem and honor.

iii.

And yet this man who was looked highly upon by his peers flung himself in humility at the feet of Jesus.

And we find out why in verse 23, “he implored 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.”

iv.

The grk.

Word used in this verse for “at the point of death” is the word eschaton.

It is the same word where we get the word eschatology, which in Christian terms simply means the study of the End Times.

The word eschaton means, “the end or at the utmost extreme”

v.

So what Mark is trying to get across is that this girl is not just sick and she is not just severely sick, but she is at the extreme end of her short life.

If you have ever been around someone who is at the end of their hospice care, than you have seen what sort of state this poor girl was in.

d.

And so the heart of our Lord Jesus was moved with compassion and he began to follow Jairus to his home.

3. The Bleeding Woman

a. Now the crowd still had not died down.

They were following after Jesus and His disciples as they were lead by Jairus to his home.

But as they were making their way, something happened that caused the disciples irritation and must have caused Jairus to be overcome with anxiety; Jesus suddenly stopped.

i.

He had felt something, something different than the pushing and shoving and touching of the crowd that had come up around Him.

He felt some of His divine power flow out of Him.

ii.

(Maybe add Holy Spirit communicating Christ’s power)

iii.

And Jesus asks in verse 30, “Who touched my garments?”

And the disciples, what kind of audacity do they have??

They are a bit exasperated and were thinking Jesus was being ridiculous!

And they say in verse 31, “You see this crowd pressing in all around you, don’t you?

Now why in the world would you ask something as ridiculous as “Who is touching me?”

The real question is who isn’t touching you?!”

iv.

Well, luckily for the disciples, Jesus ignored there somewhat snide remark and continued to look around for who had touched His clothing.

b.

And as He was looking, a sad and pitiful woman stepped out of the crowd and approached Him, so afraid that she was shaking.

We don’t know whether she fell before Jesus because of her knowledge of who He was or simply because the fear had her shaking so fiercely, she could no longer stand.

I believe it was a combination of the two.

c.

This terrified then told Jesus a heartbreaking story of twelve long years of misery.

And her story is given to us in verses 25 and 26, “And there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years, and who had suffered much under the physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse.”

i.

Last week I mentioned the dread that was felt by any Jewish individual who was declared to be unclean in the sight of God.

And if were to turn to the book of Leviticus and open it to chapter 15, you would see that a woman in this condition was considered to be unclean.

ii.

So this woman’s suffering was not simply physical, but it was social and spiritual.

Because of her condition, she was an outcast.

iii.

And not only that, but she was destitute, spending every last penny she had going from physician to physician seeking some sort of relief from her never ceasing hemorrhage.

But instead of finding a cure that would not just make her physically whole again, but social and spiritually whole, the problem only worsened, driving her deeper into despair.

iv.

And what a picture of the human condition this is.

There is an innate human understanding that we in and of ourselves are not whole.

We are missing something.

And when we experience physical suffering of various kinds this just intensifies that feeling, knowing this is not the way it is meant to be.

v.

And we often search and search for something to bring us into that wholeness.

To either fix us physically or emotionally or socially or spiritually.

So we spend untold amounts of money on self-help books, we obsess over the right filter to put on our photos to post to social media to gain some recognition, we consult religious gurus, get tarot card readings, we send in money to the televangelist who promises to send us manna from heaven that has been dipped in angel tears that is gift wrapped in the leather from the apostle Paul’s left sandal, and we even go to church, and we do all of these things and go to all of these places so that maybe we can feel that wholeness, to feel at peace!

vi.

Now remember, going to all of the physicians not only left her bankrupt, but it made her condition worse.

And just like that, all of these things that we attempt to do in order to make ourselves whole leaves us bankrupt, and not just financially.

Because no matter how hard we try, we always feel worse off than before.