The Daughter of Jairus
Sermon by The Reverend Dr Sam Cappleman
Mark 5:21-43
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. Then one of the
synagogue rulers, named Jairus, came there. Seeing Jesus, he fell at his
feet and 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." So
Jesus went with him.
A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had
been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 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. When she heard about Jesus, she came up
behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, "If I
just touch his clothes, I will be healed." Immediately her bleeding stopped
and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once
Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the
crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"
"You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet
you can ask, 'Who touched me?'" But Jesus kept looking around to see who had
done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at
his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth.
He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be
freed from your suffering."
While Jesus was still speaking, some men came from the house of Jairus, the
synagogue ruler. "Your daughter is dead," they said. "Why bother the teacher
any more?" Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, "Don't
be afraid; just believe." He did not let anyone follow him except Peter,
James and John the brother of James.
When they came to the home of the synagogue ruler, Jesus saw a commotion,
with people crying and wailing loudly. He went in and said to them, "Why all
this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep." 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.
He took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha koum!" (which means,
"Little girl, I say to you, get up!"). Immediately the girl stood up and
walked around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely
astonished. He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and
told them to give her something to eat.
A touching story
How must Jairus have been feeling?
His daughter was dying and he was at his wits end, willing to try anything
to have her well again
And now Jesus is in town. He’d heard about Him, how He had healed a
paralytic, healed a demon possessed man and then calmed a storm, was there
an outside chance that He could help his daughter
Normally he’d have kept well away, given Him a wide berth
He was the synagogue ruler and the Jewish authorities were getting nervous
about this man Jesus and the message was getting through that He wasn’t to
be encouraged. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t have had anything to
do with Him, but this was far from a normal circumstance
Today, Jairus sets out early to meet Jesus and when he sees the crowd who
are round Jesus he battles his way to the front to where Jesus is and falls
down on his knees and begs Him to come and heal his precious daughter
And to his surprise Jesus says, ‘OK – let’s go’.
They’d just set off and Jairus is explaining to Jesus about his daughter
when Jesus stops
‘Who touched me, who touched my clothes’, He asks
‘What do you mean, “Who touched me, who touched my clothes”’ Jairus asks,
everyone’s touching us, it’s like a rugby scrum
And slowly, a woman comes forward, her eyes to the ground, and says it was
her.
The crowd look at her in disbelief, surely Jesus knows who this is, everyone
else does, and they try to avoid her as much as possible. She’s ritually
unclean and makes everyone else unclean. How did she get in here?
But it wasn’t touching His clothes which was important – it was reaching out
to Jesus Himself
There could not have been a bigger difference between the 2 encounters with
Jesus.
Jairus is a man of the (albeit small) community, well known, respected, a
man of the law
The woman, because of her illness was an outcast from the community, not
respected and largely ignored.
One came face to face with Jesus; the other crept up from behind
Both came with fear, uncertainty and doubt – but also a hope, a faith, if
somewhat desperate, that Jesus could so something. Turning to Jesus in their
own way in their hour of crisis when they couldn’t take it anymore
Jesus responds to both approaches.
He turns to the woman, restores her to health and the community family by
calling her daughter
All the time this is going on Jairus is hopping from one foot to the other,
‘Come on, come on!’, he’s probably thinking
And then it’s too late. Some of his friends come and tell him his daughter
has died
Ignoring the news that’s just come, Jesus presses on. He arrives at Jairus’
house, shoos everyone out and goes to see the girl
He reaches out and touches her and says, not abracadabra, but ‘Little girl,
get up’ because healing is not magic
And she gets up and she is healed
Just as Jesus has responded the woman’s request and healed her, so He has
healed Jairus’ daughter
Jesus responds however we approach Him
Whether we creep up from Him from behind, perhaps with a last desperate
lunge when we think everything else has failed hoping nobody notices
Creep up on Him because everything in our lives seems to have crept up upon
us and we don’t seem ot have much time left for Him
Or whether we don’t care who sees what’s going on we’re so desperate
Or even if we are asking for someone else
Or whether we just want to encounter Jesus because of what we have heard and
seen
Jesus doesn’t turn round and say, ‘You only come to me when you need help’,
even if that was true for the woman and Jairus, and ourselves for that
matter
However and whenever we reach out to Jesus He responds and transforms our
lives by His presence and His touch, transforms our lives by the mere fact
that He comes into contact with them
Whether we come with a desperate lunge or fall prostrate before Him, grab at
something around Him or seek Him face to face, His response is the same, He
transforms our lives for eternity