Trinity Baptist Church

The Book of Mark

The Power and Passion Jesus, Part 4

Mark 5:35-43

 

Tonight we’re going to attempt to finish up our study of the two miracles found in Mark 5.  We’ve been studying the miracles through the lens of how Jesus responded to them and in so doing we get to see how we should respond to the needs around us. 

 

I’m afraid that by and large, we have become rather ineffective in helping people with their needs.  That is due, in part, to us allowing the government to take on the responsibilities of the church.  But it is also due to the fact that we’ve operated for a long time in our own power and strength rather than the power of God. 

 

And yet in spite of that, I find it interesting that a large segment of society continues to come to the church looking for help. For some reason, they know the church is a place to get help.  Several years ago, our home phone rang on a Saturday afternoon.  It was the Police Department wanting to know if we could help a lady who was stranded here.  I assured them we could. 

 

I then asked them how they came to contact me.  They said Jeff Thompson, the pastor at Southwest Baptist Church, had given them my name.  I told him later I would much rather be the one known for helping people than the one that has to send them somewhere else!

 

 

 

The world may mock and scoff at the church and what we preach about the power of God and salvation and all that, but that doesn’t limit Him in any way and it doesn’t keep them from asking for help when they’re in a bind.  And when they come is our opportunity to reach out to them with the very power they mock and ridicule.  

 

It is always a challenge to respond appropriately.  That’s why we need to see what the Lord does here in this text.  So far we’ve discovered He is accessible, available, interruptible, personal and undisturbable. 

 

I want to show you one more.

 

Verses 40-43

 

I’m not sure what word to use to describe what we find here.  We could say that He kind or loving or sensitive.  If you want a “ble” word like we’ve been using, let’s call Him

 

 

And what I really want to focus on is His tenderness.  Here we really see the essence of this mixture of power and pity that was His.  His life was so marked by power.  Already in these five short chapters we’ve seen Him dealing with all kinds of issues that required physical strength and stamina.

 

But this scene is filled with so much tenderness.  Can’t you just see this brokenhearted father and mother as Jesus takes them by the hand and leads them into where the girl is laying?

 

As they stand there weeping in their grief, perhaps Jesus just slips His arm around that dad’s shoulder and hugs that little mother up close to Himself.  Isn’t that how you picture that scene unfolding? It’s just so tender!

 

Then Mark makes note of the fact that He took  that little girl by the hand.  This is exactly what the father asked for.  Remember back in verse 23, he said to Jesus, “If you’ll just come and lay your hands on her, she will be healed” and now, there He is doing exactly that. 

 

I am struck by how personal and intimate this is.  And then with unbelievable power and authority, He speaks.  Everyone else gives us the Greek translation.  But Jesus literally said, “Talitha kumi,”

 

ANd it’s interesting to see how that translates.  We have the academic translation there in the text, “Little girl, arise”.  But that doesn’t capture the tenderness that is on display here. 

 

“Talitha” can speak in generic terms like little girl.  It literally translates “damsel”.  But if you back up a generation and look at the origin of the word, it is “lamb”. It’s as if He said, “Little lamb.” That’s how Jesus views this precious little girl.  And you know that’s how the family viewed her.  She was their precious, sweet little lamb. 

 

And “cumi” means arise.  Jesus literally said, “Little lamb, arise.”  I wonder if we aren’t seeing more than a physical resurrection in this scene.

 

 

 

I couldn’t help but think how in three short years after the body of Jesus had lain in a borrowed tomb for three days and three night, our Heavenly Father, in absolute power and authority over death, said, “Little lamb, arise!” 

 

Is this not what Jesus meant when He said, “Because I live, you shall live also”? And I couldn’t help but let my mind wander to future day when this same Jesus will say to the dead in Him and those who are alive and waiting on the earth, “My little lambs, arise!”   

 

Do you get the picture? Jesus is talking to a dead girl. And at the voice of Jesus, immediately her spirit returned and she was alive and up and walking.  She was breathing and talking. How do you go from being dead to getting up and walking?

 

They same way Jesus did at the resurrection and the same way the dead in Christ will one of these days.  It is all dependent on the power of God.

 

She not only had life, she had all the normal strength of a twelve-year-old young lady.  She didn’t need any rehab from a terminal illness.  She required no bed rest or therapy.  This miracle, like every miracle Jesus did, is a complete miracle. 

 

Now here’s my point. Jesus could have healed her from a distance.  He didn’t have to go to the house.  He could have just uttered the word and the man could have gone home and found his daughter eating Fritos and drinking Coca-Cola.  He could have said, “I don’t have time to go to your house, I’ve got a lot of things going here. But I’ll call down the power of God.”

He could have let the woman with the blood problem just touch Him and melt back into the crowd.  But if he’d done that, something would be missing here.   What’s missing would be the tender, personal touch of Jesus.  I couldn’t help but think of the thief on the cross.  Jesus could have said, “Today you’ll be in paradise.”  But instead He said, “Today you’ll be with Me in paradise.”

 

He is so sensitive and tender!  Notice what happens at the end of verse 43

 

He doesn’t miss a detail!  In the excitement and joy of seeing their daughter restored to life, mom and dad could have been caught up in the emotion and forgotten about everything else.  Here they are trying to process all that has happened.  But practical, sensitive, tender Jesus thinks about her needing something to eat. 

 

There’s something so normal and ordinary about that.  It was a miracle, but she’s still a human being in a physical body and she needs food.  I’ll bet she hadn’t eaten in a long time if she’d been sick.  So here is Jesus attending to her simplest and most basic need for food.

 

And then lastly, Jesus gives them strict orders not to tell anyone what has happened.  Why does He always say this? Why does He tell them not to spread this around?

 

 

 

 

 

 

After all, that does create a dilemma.  Remember, everyone is there for the funeral.  Jesus shows up and tells them she is really dead and in a moment, she’s going to come walking out and prove He was right.  And He says, “don’t tell anyone what happened.”

 

Why?  He doesn’t tell us why. In fact, as many times as it’s recorded that He said that in the gospels, we’re never told why He said that. So we’re left to speculate and I can do that as well as anyone so let me make some suggestions to you.

 

 

Aybe he wanted to give the family time to feed the girl and to celebrate and rejoice and give Him more time to instruct and teach. If they went right out of the house, as you might be prone to do, and spread this everywhere, there would be a kind of a sensational response and curiosity would drive the crowd to the house/.

 

That would keep them from having some alone time with the girl and keep Him from doing what He wanted to do.  So maybe some of that thinking is involved here. 

 

It is also possible that Jesus said this because He knew the crowds had messianic expectations.

 

Remember, the Jews are looking for a Messiah.  They are living under Roman oppression and they wanted a Messiah who would come in power and strength and use that power to overthrow Rome. 

Jesus had already demonstrated that kind of power and many already believed Him to be that Messiah and if it ran rampant and it got carried away, the crowds could get very aggressive and try to force Him into a role that was never His intended role.

 

That’s exactly what happened in John 6:15 where it says, “After He fed them all, they tried to force Him to be a king.” So maybe He was trying to suppress this messianic expectation and not throw gas on it by the report of a resurrection?

 

 

If the crowd got excited, then Jesus becomes a bigger threat and they escalate their animosity and they have to do something to stop that threat and in premature action against Him, they might come after Him to kill Him. That had already been tried up in Nazareth in His own hometown when they tried to throw Him off a cliff.

 

So He wanted to respect this family.  And He certainly didn’t want to escalate the animosity between he religious leaders and Himself.  He was operating on God’s timetable and nothing would alter that.  And those are valid, practical ways to understand that.

 

But I think there’s one that is closer to the real reason and that is it wasn’t time yet to spread the message of Jesus Christ. At this point, the message and story of Christ is incomplete. 

 

And until they saw the cross and the resurrection, the full message and mission cannot be known or understood.  People could be saved by repenting and believing in Him like an Old Testament saint, but the message that is to be proclaimed is a message that has at the very heart of it the cross.

 

Yes, He is the miracle worker.  Yes, He is the greatest teacher ever. Yes, He is the Son of God.  But to fully grasp His mission, you must understand His death. For it is there and there alone where He is revealed as Redeemer and Savior and substitute for sinners. There you really see what He was teaching.  There you see the greatest miracle.  It is there you really see what it means to be the Son of God.

 

In fact, the first time any person says, “This is the Son of God,” is at the cross when the Roman soldier, looking at crucified Christ, makes that statement.   

 

The full story must include the cross and the resurrection.  It is only after those events that Jesus says, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel.”

 

And for now, the story is not yet complete. He can be seen as conqueror of demons, conqueror of disease, conqueror of death, the one who raises the dead.  But He can’t be fully understood until you see Him as the conqueror of sin on the cross as our substitute and our Redeemer. He can’t be fully understood until you meet Him in the Garden outside the tomb. 

 

What an example of ministry He is. Accessible, available, interruptible, personal, undisturbable and charitable.  But they had to hold the presses until the rest of the story was told.

Not so for us!   We, on this side of the cross, have the full message and we have been sent into the same world to be accessible, available, interruptible, personal, undisturbable and charitable with the greatest message the world could ever hear! 

We have no restriction or limitations.  May God help us to be faithful to share it in the same way He did.

 

Let’s pray.