06/08/2026
https://youtu.be/g9CXwUlhlr0
June 7, 2026 – Mark 5:21-43 NIV
21 When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. 22 Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. 23 He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.”24 So Jesus went with him.
A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years.26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”29 Immediately her bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”
31 “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”
32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
35 While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher anymore?”
36 Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”
37 He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. 38 When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. 39 He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” 40 But they laughed at him.
After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. 41 He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”). 42 Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. 43 He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this and told them to give her something to eat.
Jesus has returned to the Jewish side of the Lake and such a great crowd has gathered around Him that He can hardly walk. In the Greek we are told that they are “squeezing” Him in.
The leader of a synagogue has been pushing his way through the noisy crowd, searching for Jesus. When Jarius finally spotted Jesus. How he recognized Jesus we don’t know, but Jarius immediately started waving his arms over the heads of the people in front of him, trying to get Jesus’ attention. Waving his arms and even jumping in order to be seen, Jarius began begging Jesus to come and heal his gravely ill daughter. The crowd was so constricting and so noisy that Jesus couldn’t hear him, much less notice him. Jarius began shouting, shoving people out of his way.
They started backing off from this seemingly madman. Again, Jarius shouts and this time at the top of his lungs. Jesus stops and turns around. Jarius immediately prostrates himself at Jesus’ feet and continues begging for Jesus’ help, repeating himself over and over again, (and that’s what the original text says). His child isdying.
Still begging, Jarius looks up at Jesus. Jesus nods “yes.” He’ll do it. Jarius quickly gets up, motions for Jesus to follow him and walks in the direction of his house, repeatedly turning to check and make sure Jesus was still following. Yes, Jesus is following. Jesus always follows, even you, even me.
The crowd has become even louder as news spread about where Jesus is headed, and not only louder but more constricting, as well. This they have to see.
Look! There’s someone pushing through that crowd gathered around Jarius, someone else desperately trying to reach Jesus and it’s a woman! It’s a woman who, given her medical condition, should have never been in that crowd in the first place. She was considered “unclean.” Everyone she’d brush up against in that crowd would have been made unclean. She had taken her life in her hands leaving her house, (where she had been a literal prisoner for 12 years) and joining that crowd because if anyone who knew her recognized her, she could have been killed for breaking the laws laid down in Leviticus regarding a woman with her condition.
On top of that, she was determined to deliberately touch a man’s clothing. Women weren’t allowed to do that, but she was absolutely convinced that if she could just touch Jesus’ robe she would be healed.
Keeping her face covered, she finally manages to slip her way through the crowd until she is literally walking right behind Jesus, and she reaches out and touches Him. She is instantly healed. Instantly! She knows it and Jesus knows it. He felt it happen. He stops in His tracks and asks who touched Him. His disciples say, “What?! You’ve got to be kidding!”
Jesus turns in every direction, trying to figure out who had touched Him. The woman realizes that she has been caught and falls on her knees in front of Jesus, like Jarius had done. She tells Him the whole story and He acknowledges her faith and by calling her “daughter” He redefines her place in society. She’s no longer unclean, no longer ostracized. She is once again a full-fledged member of her society.
While He is still speaking to her, messengers, who have been shoving their way through the crowd, and not with any “Excuse me, please-s” but, “Move! Get out of our way!!!” arrive and, completely ignoring Jesus (they didn’t like Him, He didn’t keep kosher and had a very sketchy reputation and it was a huge embarrassment to the entire synagogue congregation that Jarius had sought help from this “Galilean”), they flat out tell Jarius that his daughter is dead, and without even looking at Jesus, they say, “Why bother the teacher anymore?”
Ignoring what they said, Jesus tells Jarius not to be afraid, “just believe.”
When they arrive at Jarius’ house Jesus literally throws the professional mourners out. That’s what the text really says. He threw them out!
He takes the little girl by the hand and tells her to get up. (It was against the Law to touch a co**se. It would make one unclean. Jesus is at it again, breaking the Law!) The child comes back to life, gets up and begins to walk around.
Jesus gave strict orders not to tell anyone about what He had done and to give the child something to eat, which would prove that she truly was alive and not a zombie.
(“Hey!” the people outside the house say when they see her, “she really wassleeping!” No…she had been dead.)
She was 12. The woman who had the medical condition had had it for 12 years.
There were 12 Tribes of Israel.
Mark is trying to impress upon those reading his gospel that these were very “Jewish” situations and that Jesus had hit them like a bowling ball hitting a strike in a bowling alley.
(The religious authorities would always rush to re-set the pins, only to have them all knocked down again and again and finally, after having enough, they’d use the head pin to drive nails into Jesus’ hands and feet.)
I know churches of every denomination are used to visualizing Jesus as a well-manicured, nice looking white man, more than likely one of them, [a Lutheran or a Methodist or a Catholic or whatever], and someone who would never raise His voice, much less throw people out of a room, and certainly never color outside the lines, but in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus refuses to allow anyone to force Him into their catechism and keep Him there and, to be perfectly honest, He is still the same way today. Don’t get in His way. He’ll throw you out of the room.
Despite what a lot of clergies think, there’s no pastor, no minister, no bishop, no Pope, or anyone else who has the power to control the Lord Jesus Christ and decide for Him who He can love and minister to and who He can’t.
To me a church is like an animal shelter, a place where stray, lost, abandoned or surrendered animals locked up in cages are waiting to be put down. Guess Who is in the office, signing on every dotted line, adopting every homeless animal in that shelter.
You are chosen, you are loved, and you are going Home to live with Him today and FOREVER.
Amen.
Insert
It’s important that you understand how radical Jesus was, at least in the eyes of the religious authorities.
He is still that radical, only, and quite frankly, the majority of those who have taken it upon themselves to speak forHim and on His behalf, sat Him down in a barber chair and told the barbet to cut off all that “hippie” hair, put Him in a three-piece suit and stuck Him behind Plexiglas in a museum of ancient antiquities. If you try to talk to Him, they answer for Him. “Hey!” they say, “you can’t understand Aramaic, but WE can…and this is what He’s saying…” Jesus rolls His eyes. He can’t believe what “religion” has done to Him. But guess what… He’s planning an escape and this is one of the churches He has escaped to.
There is way too much going on in Mark 5:21-43 to preach on unless we want to be here for hours. So, I’m including these notes to offer you the information I couldn’t include in my sermon.
Regarding menstruation – Read Leviticus 15:19-33 and Leviticus 20:18.
(Remember, the Bible was written by men, so what do you expect???)
The woman who had been bleeding for 12 years would have been cut off from her family and her entire community. Nobody would have been allowed to live in the same house with her or touch her or anything she had touched. That had been going on for 12 whole years!
She had spent her entire savings on doctors. They only made her condition worse!
It took a lot of guts for her to finally walk out of her house and to wherever Jesus was and then push her way through that crowd. If she had been recognized, she could have been killed for causing so many “innocent” people to become “unclean.”
And, literally, everyone she would have brushed up against in that crowd became “unclean,” and they didn’t know it. Jesus would have become unclean as well. (Didn’t matter to Him…)
And she didn’t just “touch” Jesus’ garment; she grabbed it! That’s in the Greek text.
She had come to the conclusion that if she could grab Jesus’ garment she would be made well.
For some reason Jesus could feel “healing power” flow out of Him. It jolted Him. It stopped Him in His tracks!
The woman realizes she has been “found out” and prostrates herself in front of Jesus and tells Him the whole story. He commends her for her faith and calls her “Daughter,” which meant that she was now reinstated as a full-fledged member of her society. No more hiding behind closed doors!
“Now the woman comes before Jesus, humbling herself as Jairus had done, acknowledging Jesus' superior status. But Jesus, immediately calls her, ‘My daughter,’ placing her within his kinship, and since kinship was the paramount definition of one's social standing, these two words quite literally redefine this woman's place in the community.” (Holy Textures, David Ewart, United Church of Canada)
Jesus continues on to Jarius’ house where He is “greeted” by professional mourners. Yes, professional mourners. It was a common practice to hire professional mourners when a loved one died. They would wail and scream and pull their hair and make a horrible commotion. And the more professional mourners present, meant the more important your family was. Jarius was an important individual. There were probably a lot of mourners present.
Jesus asked “Why all this commotion?! The girl is only sleeping!” They laugh at Him. He throws them out, literally. He turns around and one by one He grabs them and throws them out the door!
Jesus takes the little girl by the hand. Now…touching a co**se was against the Law because that would cause a person to become “unclean.” (There He goes again…)
(Leviticus 19:11 - "Whoever touches a human co**se will be unclean for seven days.”)
The girl gets up off of her deathbed and begins walking around. Everyone there, except Jesus, goes nuts. They can’t believe it! Is she a zombie now? A ghost?
“Give her something to eat,” Jesus tells them. If she can eat, she’s not a zombie or a ghost…
He tells everyone not to say anything to anyone about what He had done, and in the Greek it says that He tells them repeatedly.
Just imagine what would happen if people knew Jesus could raise the dead. He’d have no peace whatsoever, ever again. Wherever He went, people would be dragging the bodies of their deceased loved ones to Him, begging Him to restore their loved one’s life.
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