Mark 5: 21-43
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The New
Testament Witness of the Apostle
Peter |
The Pulpit at Pilgrim's Rest Christ Covenant Reformed (PCA) |
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In this passage we read of two individuals who counted for little in the culture of the time of Christ. The woman especially suffered from being ostracized, because of her condition she could never even enter into the courts of the Temple. And all who came in contact with her must perform rituals of cleansing - thus she was like the lepers of the time a cast off from society. Sometimes when I read about the sanitary rituals of the ceremonial law - I wonder if what the Lord had in mind was an interest in causing people to wash themselves more often than they wanted?
We have to remember that before indoor plumbing and away from the Roman Baths, that taking a bath involved a lot of work. The water had to be heated and placed in an appropriate sized container. In America - the Saturday Evening Bath was a ritual well into this century. In the Middle Ages perfumes were applied liberally where cleanliness was not nearly as habitual.
So to touch the woman even to be brushed against her inadvertently meant a time consuming ritual cleansing. For this reason alone, she should not have been in the crowd pressing close to Jesus according to the courtesy of the time! But this woman, like the mad man we read about last week had a desperate medical need. Here was one of those twenty per cent of diseases without any psychosomatic overtones. None of the feel good injunctions or medications had eased her suffering. Real surgery as we might know it had only been known in Egypt and probably not even very well in the century of this incident.
Yes, what doctors there were had tried all the known remedies and found their treatment in her respect to no avail. So she has heard of the wonderful healer - Jesus, the Son of Man whose patients were delivered from the problems that plagued them. What hope had she of catching His attention, of gaining an audience. Yet she came, and immediately the crowd moved off in the direction of Jairus' home. Perhaps she heard the exchange and not wishing to delay the journey she resolved only to press through the crowd and catch ahold of the hem of his garment. So great was her faith that she would be content with this alone. No trouble, no bother and she could be healed. And so it happened, a wondrous feeling of wholeness spread through her body and she knew the medical salvation of being healed.
But then the unexpected - Jesus turns and asks loudly "Who touched My clothes?" Immediately we notice the loutishness of His disciples who have learned so little in seeing so much! "Lord", they incredulously declare, "here we are on this crowded road, barely able to make any headway, with the people pressing on all sides and you want to know who touched you?" Mark does explain in the verse before that Jesus did indeed sense that "power had gone out of Him." My commentators suppose that the healing ministry may well have taken a physical toll on Jesus. Not that the work was impossibly difficult for the Son of God, but as Dr Cole observes that "perhaps we may see the key where Matthew (7: 17) saw it, in the application of Isaiah 53:4 to the Lord's healing ministry. 'Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sickness.'"
I know from experience that counseling is the hardest work that I have ever done. You have to really be specially prayed up and prepared to listen to many many things you would rather not hear and then be able to discern what the person has not told you. You do this all the while, knowing that even if you get it right, give the appropriate biblical advice and are convinced that the person understands it - the odds are they will not act upon what has cost you so much time and preparation. School counselors in many cases are burnt out halfway to retirement, they have heard so much and know the restrictions upon them that they cannot even function in many cases. On a bad day, just listening to the daily soap opera at school weighs heavy, and even a two hour nap after school is barely enough to get on with other work. No wonder, so many career educators retreat to their office and post minions in the way of gaining any access.
So in whatever glorified sense we see in Christ, we still need to remember that He must make do with a body much as our own. And even if His spiritual reserves are altogether greater and different - He can still be worn down and need time away from the crowds to rest and recharge.
In this instance, He knows for certain that power has gone out and He would know to whom. My commentators say that the purpose in knowing is that the one healed and saved might confess it before men so that others may see and know the great works of God. The woman immediately confesses and just as quickly Jesus assures her "Daughter, you faith has made you well, Go in peace and be healed of your affliction." Her worst fears of public display are forgotten, so great is her faith in Christ that what the Spirit has done in drawing her to Christ is sufficient to cleanse the body whole and spirit to.
Meanwhile, the purposeful journey that she had not meant to interrupt, has been interrupted and messengers arrive from the home of Jairus. Jesus is informed that He may trouble no further because the little girl has already died. "Why trouble the Teacher any further?", Jairus is admonished. Immediately Jesus encourages the saddened father. "Do not be afraid; only believe." Now sensing the need for privacy - Jesus, the father and only three of the disciples hurry on to the house where the mourners have already begun their wailing. Of course Jesus knows the truth here, but for these sad handers here who have come only to show their form of mourning to the influential leader, they are to be left in the darkness where their hearts already are.
Notice the derision and false piety of these people who hoot a Jesus for saying that the little girl is only asleep. So they were put out of the way. I enjoy this part of the passage because too often over the years I have seen professional wedding and funeral personnel take their duties too seriously. Early on in working with a mentor in preparation for my first funeral, I was told, never mind what others may have in mind - you are in charge - so take charge and do things decently and in order. That same mentor who performed Sherry's & My wedding, finally had enough at the wedding rehearsal and banished the pushy flower peddler to the hall way. The girls who couldn't please her plan for traipsing down the isle were simply told to walk slowly and when the wedding came on the morrow everything went very well indeed. Twice in my own career - I too have had to remind the hired help, who was responsible and in charge! So we see Christ set that pattern for all who would minister in His name in times such as these.
Now in this particular case, I am not one of those weak and lame theologians who would explain this miracle away as a brief coma or feverish delirium! No, the revelation record here clearly says that the daughter of Jairus was indeed dead.
And Jesus here would show the family and His disciples that He is the Lord of life! In this intimate moment Peter remembers the family language that is used by Jesus. The words in Aramaic are uttered as a familiar home language. You see, most of Palestine was bi or even tri-lingual. The universal language of the region was indeed Greek during this period. Like the Amish in my home county - an ethnic family language was used within the home. So Jesus speaks tenderly, lovingly in that homey language.
Many years ago, when I was a part-time assistant in northern Iowa, I had the honor of serving in three German Evangelical congregations who had come into the greater presbyterian family when my own Scot's denomination had united with the bigger multi-ethnic body that would define Presbyterianism in the seventies. Towards the end of my assistantship there, one of the older men in the area died and the Senior Pastor asked me if I was ready to do a funeral. Since I had already done several, I began preparation. I learned that the gentleman in question had been a veteran of the Great War and that He had fought bravely for Kaiser und Koniglich Franz Joesf von Osterreich und Ungarish. (Austria - of the Central Powers). I thought that that ought to be at least acknowledged and I asked the Pastor for an old German prayer book so that at the appropriate moment I could lead the ancient Iowa Germans in the family language of their youth in reciting the Lord's Prayer.
Absolutely not - I was told and immediately I was to forget coming up for the funeral! I was appalled, times of death are intimate affairs, those are times to put your heart on your sleeve and cry who those who are saddened and sing with those who are joyous when saints are going home to be with their Lord. Only some years later did I learn what a common hireling that pastor really was. He really did not care for the sheep enough to comfort them in their family language!
Jesus shows us here and also in the report about Lazarus that He did feel the pain of those who suffered in a way that we have already noted and cannot truly fathom. And so, the Lord of heaven and earth takes the hand of the dead little girl and gently, kindly in familiar words admonishes her spirit to "Talitha, cumi," Can you hear the whispered power of that incredible command? "Talitha, cumi," Just as He had healed the helpless woman who had no earthly hope in being healed, so here to one dead and gone with her whole life cut off at age twelve, the Lord of life shows us the power of His Name and being. "Talitha, cumi,"
As we gather here today, we are reminded of the passing conditions and diseases with which we and our little ones have been afflicted this past winter. We are indeed thankful that the Lord provided weather cold enough to kill off many of the germs this winter. We are also thankful that as we grow older, we have built up immunization within our bodies for very many of those germs that are common enough to infect the younger ones.
Perhaps, like the older woman in this passage we are weak and frail - there are truly physical conditions that wear us down and out. Yet in the comparative figures shown in this short passage Mark shows us the contrast in bright shades of black and white. No matter how much we may emphasize with the older woman and her condition, that figure is contrasted with the wasted youth of the wee one who would never know adulthood. Still today, we view the death of younger people as a far greater tragedy than any other age group. When teenagers die suddenly - the whole community is distraught. Where is the promise of a long life for one so tragically cut off?
Mark would show us here that the Lord of Life has us all, old and young alike in the palm of His loving hand as the old spiritual goes. The natural realm of earthly life is His to govern as He wills. Life itself is under His Lordship as He is about to prove in these verses. Mark tells us what he heard from Peter many years later. "Immediately the girl arose and walked." Life is indeed restored much to the joy of the parents. But they are cautioned not to let the facts be spread abroad until the proper time. He has told the crowd out in the courtyard that the little girl was sleeping even as He described Lazarus sometime later.
Let those who sleep spiritually believe the same, after all to them, Jesus is only just another teacher and no matter how many miracles they might see they will never guess the truth. Just this week, Newsweek magazine has an article about the wideness of the appeal of Jesus. And so we are given a smorgasbord of opinion of who Christ was. Buddhists, Jews and others have their opinion. And while the article does close with a minimal Christian emphasis - a "christian" liberal expert condones the same sense of a popular book that was supposed to brainwash us theologically in Seminary entitled Which Jesus? As I remember, that book (which I burned when I became more theologically astute) was being pushed so that the future leaders of liberalism would become willing participants in the thoroughly modern mantra that any and all opinions of Christ are sufficient. Ha, indeed. Those who believe that are ones who would still be standing outside wishing that Christ had not disturbed their mourning.
One final point in this passage that I believe Mark had in mind when he recorded it is this: Like the little girl, like the mad man, like the suffering woman and all the others touched physically and spiritually by Jesus - we too must be raised from the sleep of death in sin and sadness of the human condition. If you have not already heard the familiar voice of Christ in the language of your family, do hear it now "Talitha, cumi," Arise in the light of Christ's love, know His power and His love and accept the salvation that He would give to you who hear His voice.
Since many of you have already heard His voice, and lived lives in gratitude for His mercy, like the mad man and the Apostles who finally understood what had taken place, we like Peter through Mark must tell the same story and sing the same praises for the salvation that has graciously become our own. Just as Jesus encouraged the parents of the little girl to give her something to eat, so must we feed all of those who need the body and blood of our risen Lord. Here, and in the raising of Lazarus the disciples should have learned that He would have the power to raise Himself because here was One who had power even over life itself. And if they didn't realize it here in this incident, than when Lazarus was four days dead and buried - they should have known. That we have, thanks to their reports and more - the Lord of life has raised us miraculously from the death of sin. Praise be the Lord our Savior and our God. Amen.
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Cole, Alan. |
Tyndale New Testament
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Keener, Craig S. |
The IVP Bible Background Commentary:
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Pringle, William. |
Calvin's New Testament
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"Bringing the Light of the Reformation to Scripture" (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1995) |
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B2b26 |
26 March 00 |