As many of you probably know, when Grace Church first started, we met in a large, open warehouse. And for the first couple of weeks of Grace’s existence we set up a few hundred chairs in a semi-circle for our worship service and then right after the service we quickly reset the space for 4 adult Sunday school classes… one class in each corner of that big room… adult Sunday School classes had been a huge part of Faith Church, the church that sent us out, and so we tried for a couple of weeks to continue having adult classes on Sunday mornings. But right off we realized that having 4 different classes all going on at the same time in that one, big, echoey space, was loud and confusing and of no real help to anyone, so after a couple of weeks of this, Jim Faulk, one of our two pastors, got up on Sunday morning and announced that we weren’t going to do this noisy thing anymore… except for one class… the Tim Ayers class… and pretty much every Sunday morning from then on, until I went to seminary about 7 years later, I was the ‘Teacher’ at Grace… I wasn’t on staff… I was an elder… but I was still known as Grace’s ‘teacher.’ It wasn’t until after my time at seminary that the leadership here at Grace offered me a position on staff and since then I’ve had the honor of being Grace’s Teaching Pastor… which means I’ve now been Grace’s primary Bible teacher and one of the pastors with the responsibility of caring for and leading this community for over 26 years. And it was with this history in mind that I felt the most appropriate thing for me to do today for what is my last sermon as Grace’s Teaching pastor is to simply do what I’ve always done: teach the Bible in the hope of leading you into a deeper understanding and confidence in our faith. What I’m prepared to do today is to go through one of my favorite Gospel passages in the way I’ve always done it… read some… give you some context and background and then tell you how this passage can be relevant to our lives… I hope this is ok. If so, let’s get to it. The passage is Mark 5:21-43. You can find it on page ??? in our house Bible. (Welcome online folks). I know that 22 verses may sound like a lot for Tim Ayers to cover in 30 minutes, but I will do my best to keep things within that time frame. I promise! Also, if you want more details about this passage I have them and would be glad to send them to you. Let’s pray and get going!
A bit of set up to this passage: the events that we are about to look at did not happen in a vacuum. In fact, they happened at the end of a grueling 24 hours or so for Jesus. He’d spent an entire day teaching to a huge crowd on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in Capernaum… and this time teaching had so drained him that he’d asked his disciples to take him by boat across the Sea of Galilee to a gentile area called Decapolis for some rest. But he was so tired from that intense day that he’d fallen asleep so deeply in the back of the boat, that he was completely unaware of the arrival of a huge storm… a storm so ferocious that his disciples, many of whom made their living fishing on that lake, thought they were going to die… and when the panicking disciples finally did awaken Jesus, he’d silenced that terrible storm simply by saying, ‘Silence, be still’... which stunned his disciples! Then, early the next morning, when they finally landed on the other side of the lake, they were greeted by a wild, violent man who was possessed by unclean spirits… and Jesus, out of compassion for this man, had commanded the unclean spirits out of the man and into a herd of pigs… a herd that immediately ran crazily off a cliffside only to drown in the water below… and this so frightened the locals there in Decapolis that they begged Jesus to go away and leave them alone… this was only part of Jesus’ exhausting last 24 hours or so, before we get to what happens in today’s passage… So, keep in mind that Jesus is a very tired man who’d been confronting all sorts of unexpected things when we read this in Chapter 5 verse 1.
Jesus got into the boat again and went back to the other side of the lake, where a large crowd gathered around him on the shore. This was a 2-3-hour journey, and the Greek says he was greeted by an ‘oxlos poulus’… a massive, huge crowd that, unlike the Decapolis crowd, was mor than glad to see him!
22 Then a leader of the local synagogue, whose name was Jairus, arrived. When he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet, pleading fervently with him. “My little daughter is dying,” he said. “Please come and lay your hands on her; heal her so she can live.” Synagogue leaders like Jairus were important community leaders who were responsible for everything that that happened in the local synagogue: the order of service, who was allowed to speak, synagogue finances... those sorts of things. Plus, it was an elected position… the members of the community had voted for Jairus because they trusted him with these important responsibilities. And for an important man like Jairus to fall at anyone’s feet would have been unusual. But Jairus was desperate… his little daughter, (and he used the most endearing word for daughter possible here) was dying… and something had given him the confidence that Jesus could save her. 24 Jesus went with him, and all the people followed, crowding around him. 25 Mark doesn’t tell us if Jesus said anything to Jairus… he just tells us that Jesus immediately followed Jairus… as did that huge, pressing crowd. And then we read this: A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding. 26 She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. 28 For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.” Matthew, Mark and Luke all tell this story… but none say exactly what her bleeding issue was, but all experts agree this was a menstrual problem and women in that culture were considered ‘unclean’ during their time of the month… which limited the places they could go and the things they could do… and what that also meant was that everything they touched… and I do mean everything… pots and pans, furniture, clothes, people, everything also became ‘unclean!’ There was a 7-day process for ‘cleansing’ after a woman’s time of the month… but that cleansing also had to be done by anyone or to anything that might come into contact with a woman during that time. So just imagine her life after twelve years of continual bleeding! And possibly the most terrible impact of this issue would have been that she couldn’t have children… and being married and having children was pretty much a woman’s reason for living in that culture… And to make her situation worse, husbands were expected to divorce their wives after 7 years without children! And there is a clue in this story that she had been married and then divorced. Mark tells us that she’d used all of her money on doctors… bottom line, women didn’t have money of their own in that time, that is except the dowery money a woman’s father would have given her husband’s family at the time of their marriage… this dowery money was held back by the husband’s family for the specific purpose of giving it to his wife should he ever decide to divorce her… a woman’s dowery was the way she could support herself if her husband happened to throw her out… which he could do for almost any reason, by the way. And Mark tells us that she’d spent all her money on doctors… truth is, though, Jews then didn’t go to ‘doctors.’ Doctors were a part of the Greco-Roman culture and while doctors did learn things like how to set broken bones and pull teeth, their primary education was in the spells and potions that were believed to move the gods to heal people. Jews felt that doctors were a part of the pagan world; Jews went to rabbis when they were sick… because rabbis could tell them what sin had brought on their physical issue and what they might need to do to get God to heal them. And yet such was this Jewish woman’s desperation that she had spent all that she had on doctors, but the doctors had only made her worse. And you can bet that everyone in that community tried to steer clear of this woman… first, because she was continually unclean and secondly, because it would have been assumed that she’d committed some terrible sin to have this issue for 12 years! And yet, here she is, most likely disguised in some way, right in the middle of a massive, pressing crowd, hoping to touch Jesus’ robe. People then believed that the healing power of a healer was resident in their hands… and this is why Jairus asked Jesus to lay his hands on his daughter… but they also believed that healing power was also present in a healer’s clothes, in their bodily fluids and in their shadows. And I think it’s fascinating that we find God using hands, clothes, spit and shadows to heal people in the New Testament. This is one of those odd things in the Bible where I’m not certain that what the people believed was true, but God was willing to use their mistaken assumptions about things to bring healing into his broken world. And here, this woman believed… she had faith, that Jesus’ robe held healing power and so she was willing to secretly push her way through this mob just to touch Jesus’ robe. And look at what we read next in verse 29. 29 Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition. How she knew this I do not know. And it goes on. Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?” How he knew this I don’t know either, but what I do know is that his question, ‘Who touched my robe?’ really annoyed his disciples. 31 His disciples said to him, “Look at this crowd pressing around you. How can you ask, ‘Who touched me?’” The ‘Look at this crowd’ is a stern order from the disciples… to Jesus! There is a lot of, ‘What is wrong with you, Jesus?’ in this response. But Verse 32 says, ‘He kept on looking around to see who had done it. Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done.’ This confession was a very public moment, and my bet is that many of the people in that crowd immediately recognized her and were shocked that she was there! I can even picture them backing away as she is talking to Jesus! I’m also sure that much of her fear came from having to admit so publicly that she had come to do exactly what her uncleanliness made her forbidden to do… touch Jesus’ robe. But Jesus wasn’t bothered. Look at verse 34. 34 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.” I’m sure that no one had referred to her as ‘Daughter’ in years. You see, fathers were only obligated to take their daughters back into their homes for one month following a divorce and after that… they were on their own. And this word, ‘Daughter’ qugathr (thu-ga-tair) in the Greek, was the primary word Jews used when they spoke of a Jewish woman as a ‘daughter of God.’ Jesus couldn’t have said anything more endearing to her… and he couldn’t have wished her anything more wonderful than peace... something I’m also sure she hadn’t experienced in over 12 years! And Jesus also added that it was her faith that ended what in the Greek is literally ‘her plague.’ Now, I need to stop for a minute and tell you that the Greek word that gives us faith, the word is ‘pistis,’ is hard to define in English… it is a word that is sometimes translated as ‘faith,’ as it is here and sometimes it is translated as ‘belief.’ The trouble is that for us, there is a huge difference between something we believe and something we have faith in… when we believe something, it means we have great certainty that something is true; faith, though, brings up notions of having a cautious hope that something will happen. Belief and faith are two different things to us, but in the Greek these two concepts are somehow mixed all together… and while I find this a hard concept to fully define, I’m thinking that Jesus was saying that her belief, somehow coupled with her deep hope, ended her suffering! Or maybe another way to say it is that she was convinced that God was working through Jesus broadly and that he would work through Jesus for her specifically… and this faith… this belief… had made her brave enough to sneak into that crowd and reach out for Jesus’ robe! And what God did for her through Jesus was amazing: First, he’d healed her body… and just think of all that changed in her life because of that healing… not the least of which was she would now be able to have children… Jesus had given her life back to her! And secondly, Jesus, by forcing her to publicly admit everything, he had made certain that the entire community knew immediately that she was no longer a pariah… and you can bet that everyone who witnessed this moment told tons of others about what they’d seen happen and this news soon spread everywhere: the woman that was a ‘sinful woman’ with a curse on her life has now been healed by God and given new life!
But we must remember that there was still another daughter to be concerned about in this story. Can you imagine Jairus’ impatience as all of this was going on? 35 While he was still speaking to her, messengers arrived from the home of Jairus, the leader of the synagogue. They told him, “Your daughter is dead. There’s no use troubling the Teacher now.” Okay, I’m going to put it out there: Ancient people knew when someone was dead. We do occasionally hear stories about someone who was thought to be dead waking up… but it’s very rare! Ancient people weren’t stupid. This girl was dead.
36 But Jesus overheard them and said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid. Just have faith.” I can see why Jairus was afraid… and I can also see why it would have been hard for him to have faith when multiple messengers had just told him his worst fears had been realized. But look at what Jesus does. Then Jesus stopped the crowd and wouldn’t let anyone go with him except Peter, James, and John (the brother of James). 38 When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw much commotion and weeping and wailing. Loud weeping and wailing were expected when someone died. Why, there were even people who made their living making a ruckus when someone died… Jairus was an important man and a huge commotion around the death of his daughter would have been an expectation. But Jesus was unmoved. 39 He went inside and asked, “Why all this commotion and weeping? The child isn’t dead; she’s only asleep.” Now, ‘asleep’ was a word that was used to say that someone had died… but this crowd had that same, ‘What is wrong with you, Jesus?’ attitude that the disciples had just a bit earlier. They knew the difference between being dead and sleeping. In fact, while verse 40 says, ‘The crowd laughed at him.’ the Greek literally says, ‘they ridiculed him;’ The whole crowd ridiculed him! But he made them all leave, and he took the girl’s father and mother and his three disciples into the room where the girl was lying. Jesus wanted what was coming to happen in secret… and for good reason! 41 Holding her hand, (Jairus had asked Jesus to put his hands on her… and he did… even though touching a dead body would have made Jesus ceremonially unclean, but Jesus went even further… he held her hand) and he said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means “Little girl, get up!” And then Mark tells us something very important! 42 And the girl, who was twelve years old, immediately stood up and walked around! In their world being 12 was ‘marrying’ age. Truth is, most girls were engaged by 11 and this girl, coming from a well-placed family, was probably due to get married soon… and her death would have deeply affected 2 families: Jairus’ family and the family of the soon-to-be-groom. Everyone reading this in the first century would have realized all of this. Jesus wanted this ‘resurrection’ (and that is exactly the Greek word used here) to be a secret so that this little girl wouldn’t be known as ‘the girl who was dead and came back to life.’ That would have given her an odd reputation that not only would have followed her the rest of her life, but it may have made her soon-to-be in-laws wary of going through with the coming marriage. But by keeping this miracle a secret, it made the community think of her as, ‘the girl we all thought was dead, but she was only asleep, and Jesus just woke her up!’ And I can see the whole crowd shaking their heads and saying, ‘Boy, did we miss that one!’ And something else, it was believed then that until a person turned 13, they weren’t responsible for their sins. And so, even though she’d been healed… actually, the Greek word here could be translated as ‘saved,’ she couldn’t be blamed for whatever it was that had made her so ill! What Jesus did for her, just like the earlier bleeding woman, was give her new life! And next we read, They (being just her parents and the 3 disciples) were overwhelmed and totally amazed. I’m sure they were! 43 Jesus gave them strict orders not to tell anyone what had happened, and now we know why… he wanted to protect her… and then he told them to give her something to eat. It was believed then that ghosts didn’t eat food. Her eating would have proven that she was a living, breathing, flesh-and-blood person… and, by the way, this is why we’re often told that Jesus was seen eating after his resurrection; it was a sign that he, too, was a living, breathing, flesh-and-blood person.
And so, what we have just looked at is a sandwiched-together, twin story. Two women, one, probably near death from a 12-year plague and the other a 12-year-old girl who’d died from an unnamed disease; and Jesus gave life to both of them! Jesus knew that one needed a public affirmation and the other needed to have things happen in secret… and in both situations someone had sought out Jesus in faith… faith that he could bring new life into their lives… and that is exactly what Jesus did… and he is still doing this today!
Now, you may wonder why I chose to talk about this passage today. And the answer is simple, really. I know that people can read these few verses and come to some good conclusions about what Mark was trying to tell us; but the truth is that behind every sentence in this passage are multiple, cultural givens and linguistic realities that make what Jesus did that day explode with deeper meaning… and the first readers of this passage would have known about all of these things… but unfortunately much of this can be completely lost on us because it’s been 2000 years since Mark wrote about these events. And this church… this congregation… has supported me and allowed me the time and the tools to do the kind of study and reflection and prayer that it takes to teach passages like this in a way that makes it explode with deeper meaning for us. And what an honor it has been to have this role here at Grace… and it's a role that I have taken very seriously. My goal has always been to carefully tell you the truth about God and to be certain that I know what I’m talking about when I say, ‘This is how you can apply this scripture to your life’ Truth is, people tend to believe what they hear from their pastors… and they very often live their lives based on what they’ve heard… and if what you’ve been told is just someone shooting from the hip or trying to sound like they’ve discovered something new and unique or worse, just making it up… and then what they tell you doesn’t work out in real life because it wasn’t true about God, it leads people into despair; and the last thing I have ever wanted to do is to say anything about God that would lead even one of you into despair. I have always wanted to get it right or not say anything at all. That’s why I’ve been careful to say, ‘I’m not sure about that’ when I wasn’t sure and ‘I have no idea’ when I didn’t. Again, I’ve taken this responsibility very seriously… all while being thankful for the opportunity to be your teaching pastor… And it’s been opening up passages like this one to you that has been life giving for me. That’s one reason I wanted to talk about this passage today… it represents what I’ve been doing for decades. And the second reason I chose this passage for today is that this passage shows us Jesus approaching each person as a precious, unique individual. He knew that one daughter needed to be publicly freed from the suffering that had been plaguing her life and that the other daughter needed to be given her life back secretly... he knew their individual situations and their individual needs... And this speaks to what has also been a great honor in my life… to follow Jesus’ example as I have shepherded literally thousands of God’s unique and precious sheep… to have had the privilege of listening and learning what is best for each one… to know who needs public affirmation and who needs to be held in a place of silent protection. It is these two things… bringing light to the scripture and bringing life to individuals has been my calling and my joy here at Grace since day one… and I am thankful that God has given me the honor and the strength to carry this difficult yet joyous responsibility for so many years.
I could spend a great deal of time thanking people… and yet my time is up this morning… but I do want to publicly thank Jennifer. I want to thank the Lord for bringing us together 54 years ago, giving us 50 wonderful years of marriage, and then allowing us to serve this church together for 33 of those years. She has been a constant, daily source of strength and support to me throughout everything. I want to thank my family… my children and their spouses have been nothing but solid rocks for me over the years of transition and hardship and wonder and joy. And I want to thank Dave Rod for his faith in me and belief in me… faith and belief that was so deep that he pretty much left me free do the things I was convinced I was called to be doing. I have also had a small team that lifted the quality of my teaching: I’ve written almost everything I’ve ever done in long hand on the back of used pieces of paper and Suzi Brown has typed it all up for close to 20 years. She, alone, has made my notes readable, understandable and available. Jeff Landers, one of the unheralded gems of Grace Church, put all sorts of helpful information up on the screens in all my classes: maps, pictures, scripture text, original language things… you name it… he made my classes come to life and kept me from being just a droning voice. You could always count on finding something helpful on the screen behind me and Jeff was responsible for all of that, again for almost 20 years. And Cindy Ramsey faithfully took care of all the technical things related to lights and sound and anything else that my classes needed over the years. If you could see me and hear me either in person or online, that was Cindy’s doing. And finally, I want to thank the people of Grace for giving me the time to grow into this position… I know that I was a bit all over the map when I started teaching here… thank you for seeing something in me during those early days that you believed was proof of my calling and not just the ramblings of an over excited eccentric. Thank you, Grace people.
When I was a college track runner, I’d often run the distance medley relay and the fellow that almost always followed me in that relay was a fabulously talented miler. I trained alongside of him for 4 years and I knew how hard he worked at being the best miler he could be… how he put his entire life in order to be better than good… to be great! And many times, after I’d passed the baton to him, I would stand on the track as he rounded the first turn, knowing that even though I’d given it my best, what was coming was going to be remarkable! And I feel much the same way this morning. It is time for me to pass the baton. I have finished my leg of this long relay, and I have passed the baton onto the next generation of leadership. I have trained alongside of them for almost 4 years, and I have seen how hard they are working to be the best caretakers of this flock they can be. I’ve watched as they have reordered their lives to fully carry the responsibility of the ministry and I know as I stand here today, even though I feel I have given my very best, what is coming is going to be even more remarkable. Take my word for it. What God has in store for this community called Grace Church will not just be good… it will be great! I believe it with all my heart… and I cannot wait to see what this body of believers will be called to construct on the foundation that I have been so honored all these years to have had a hand in building.