Hope for the Hopeless: Mark 5:21-43

We'll continue our sermon series in the Gospel of Mark this morning, our second week in uh Vision 2026.

What is Vision 2026 about in its essence?

It's about a faith journey with Jesus Christ.

It's about seeking Him and seeking His personal touch in our own lives personally, but also as a church family.

And so we seek to we see many of these testimonies of faith, even in the passage that we see this morning.

So let me read from Mark 5, 21 through 43 this morning.

And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him, and he was beside the sea.

Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name.

And seeing him he fell at his feet and implored him earnestly, saying, My little daughter is at the point of death.

Come and lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live.

And he went with him.

And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him.

And there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no bitter, but rather grew worse.

She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment.

For she said, If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.

And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.

And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, Who touched my garments?

And his disciples said to him, You see the crowds pressing around you, and yet you say, Who touched me?

And he looked around to see who had done it.

But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him, and told him the whole truth.

And he said to her, Daughter, your faith has made you well, go in peace and be healed of your disease.

While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler's house someone who said, Your daughter is dead.

Why trouble the teacher any further?

But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, Do not fear, only believe.

And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John, the brother of James.

They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.

And when he had entered, he said to them, Why are you making a commotion and weeping?

The child is not dead but sleeping.

And they laughed at him.

But he put them all outside and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was.

Taking her by the hand, he said to her, Talatha kumi, which means, little girl, I say to you, arise.

And immediately the girl got up and began walking, for she was twelve years of age.

And they were immediately overcome with amazement.

And he strictly charged them that no one should know this and told them to give her something to eat.

Amen.

Let us pray.

Well, Lord, we thank you once again for your revealed word, Lord, to see who you truly are.

And we pray and we ask even now that by the power of your Holy Spirit, Lord, that you would indeed give us your personal touch, that we might be recipients of your grace and your mercy once again.

And so, Lord, we ask and we pray, for we know that you are in the business of healing, you're in the business of restoring, and you're in the business of helping us in all that we need.

And so we ask and pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So I want to begin with this account this morning, noting the great contrast between where we left off last week and where we are at this week.

Last week we read and saw that the crowds that had gathered around Jesus had asked Jesus to leave.

He had freed the demoniac, this legion, this demon, had asked, can we go into this herd of pigs?

And so Jesus permits that to happen.

They run and destroy it in the sea.

And they see this and they say, We don't want any more of this.

We want you to leave.

And so Jesus leaves.

And uh yet it's a it's the exact opposite of what happens here in what we've just read.

Here, Jesus has taken the boat across back across the Sea of Galilee, and he stepped foot, and right as he steps foot back on the shore, he's confronted by this man with an earnest need.

A man who greets him and begs him to draw nearer to come to his house and provide his healing touch.

Jesus, as we've seen, has demonstrated that he has power and authority over nature.

We see that in the calming of the storm and in the ability to bring it to a calm.

He has demonstrated that he has power and authority over the spiritual realm and casting out this demon.

And now he demonstrates that he has power and authority over sickness and even death, involving a man named Jairus and a woman who sought to remain very much anonymous.

What do we know about him?

Well, you might say that he was an elder in the church.

He was a ruler in the synagogue in that day.

And he had a daughter who was 12 years old.

And all we really know, other than that, is that he was desperate.

Why?

Well, because he was forced to watch his little girl declining in health and on the verge of death.

His little girl had been suffering.

We don't know how long she had been suffering, but we can only imagine how this would feel to be a parent in this position where every second matters.

The sense of urgency, a sense of desperation, the desire to do whatever's necessary, which explains why he didn't care when he came to Jesus and knelt before him and begged, Lord Jesus, please help me, help my daughter.

And so Jesus went with him.

But then we see the situation interrupted by a woman who we also read, not known by name, but we read something about her that she had been suffering for twelve years under from a certain blood condition, a discharge of blood, a hemorrhage of some sort.

And not only was this physically debilitating, but also it disqualified her from close companionship and religious life in general, because it was a sense of impurity.

Forced into isolation, deprived of the simple and yet precious gift of human touch.

Day after day after day.

Her bank account had been drained from all the doctor visits.

She had no doubt been too many a visit, hoping that she would find an answer, only to have her hopes dashed when she came and returned and saw no progress.

Mustering up hope and then having it dashed.

And if that wasn't enough, the harsh reality was that she was only getting worse.

Two very desperate people drawn to Jesus with their supplications.

Earnestly, humbly seeking his divine power and help.

And what we see here is that in this remarkable count of Jesus, he heals them both by his touch of body and soul.

A woman healed, a child woke back from the sleep of death.

And what we need to remember here is that when Jesus shears or offers these miracles, when he conducts these miracles, he is doing it to fulfill the scriptures and to testify to his power and authority.

He's answering the question: who is the one?

Who is this one?

Because many people were asking in that day, is he just a prophet?

Is he just a teacher or is he more than that?

Is he actually the Christ, the Messiah?

And Matthew's gospel, he tells us that when Jesus was healing and casting out demons, he says it was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah.

He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.

So this tells us who Jesus really is in reversing the effects of sin and misery and suffering that has resulted ever since the fall.

And so this morning I want to draw some application from the text, primarily addressing the subject of supplication.

Supplication simply means a humble request from someone in power.

A humble request from someone in power.

In what ways do we often fall short of true supplication?

Why do we not see more of Jesus' personal touch in our lives?

How would Jesus have us to respond?

And I think we can answer those three questions under three observations from this text.

First, our supplications ought to arise from desperate need.

Second, our supplications require faith to benefit.

And third, our supplications require a view to deliverance.

First, our supplications ought to arise from a desperate need.

Many supplications don't make it to Jesus because we're not desperate.

We're so opposed to admitting our need and our poverty that we allow many supplications to fall to the ground.

How often has sickness and poor health been used of God to bring a sense of desperation into our lives, drawing us closer to Jesus when otherwise in comfort and prosperity we have kept away?

We only need to read what the Spirit's influence led those in the early church to do.

They immediately devoted themselves to prayer.

Fearful, they prayed in desperation for boldness.

And they received what they asked.

How many prayers like this do we see, even all throughout Acts and in various ways in the scriptures?

How many prayers like this could we be receiving if we only learned to surrender and humble ourselves, seeing our true need?

We all enjoy getting packages in the mail, I'm sure.

But what about from Jesus' hand?

If we wonder why the mailbox is empty of heaven's mercies and no packages of grace lie at the door, then it may be that we have not because we asked not.

God's healing is both wide and deep, and so should be our requests.

Likewise, many supplications don't make it to Jesus because we're only prompted to come to him in extreme circumstances.

There's the old saying, uh, desperate times call for desperate measures.

And while desperation does bring us to Jesus, our coming to him shouldn't be thought of as last resort.

We allow too many supplications to be kept from his ear if we only come to him when we've finally exhausted every other means and method.

Better to ask for his mercy and power to be present in the abilities he's given us than to only come when they fail us.

There are also supplications that are kept back from being us because we limit what we think is possible for him to do.

There are some who believe that, yes, healing is possible to a certain degree, but then they think it's laughable that Jesus, as the creator of the laws of nature, would ever choose to use his power over those laws.

Their supplications have self-appointed limits.

Like those in Jesus' hometown, he could do no mighty works there because of unbelief.

I mean, who of us hasn't looked at someone and thought, this person is far too hard-hearted for Jesus to do any work?

Or this relationship is way too broken for Jesus to mend it.

And refrain from asking him.

It may just be that we fail to see mighty works done in our midst because we've placed limits on what we think Jesus can do.

Other supplications are kept from being asked because of wrong assumptions.

We can resign ourselves to it being the Lord's will not to bring about healing or to answer our requests.

We assume that Jesus won't want to answer our cry.

And yet, when it comes to healing, while it always remains a mystery to us as to why God chooses to respond to some and not to others, even in the prolonging of life, the gyruses of this world, the Hezekiahs, and not the likes of John the Baptist, what we know is this that even then it's just a prolonging of life.

An extension.

Faith in Jesus and the power of his resurrection is of more value than resuscitation.

And as painful as it can be, it's better to be at home with the Lord than in a world still influenced by sin and brokenness.

But even then, even then, nowhere are we taught to assume the mind of Christ and refrain from asking for healing in the present.

The scriptures testify of those who asked for healing and the prolonging of life, even, and received this mercy.

I mean, if we just consider that for a moment, even in our own midst.

How many times have we seen or heard reports of Jesus do that even in our own midst?

Perhaps even in our own lives.

Often he's chosen to do it, yes, through means, doctors, nurses, uh, medicine, treatments, even donors.

Other times he has chosen to do it directly, without means.

But many prayers have been answered and have come in response to his healing hand when supplications have gone up.

What a privilege for us to have access and give all of our supplications to Jesus.

But when it comes to supplication, heart requests are the best requests.

The difference between requests that are cold and apathetic and those that are hearty and sincere are like night and day.

And perhaps you've been in a prayer meeting where you've experienced both.

Cold prayers often come down to the fact that we just don't know what we want.

And I think we'd all agree that our friend Jairus found prayer to be anything but a duty.

Why?

Because he had an earnest need.

And he had access to the one who could help him.

In that sense, I think it's better to come to Jesus with a list than to leave empty-handed.

I think we can be guilty oftentimes of treating prayer like I've gone at times to the grocery store, feeling hungry, walking up and down the aisles aimlessly, pulling stuff off the shelf, and then when I get home, hoping upon hope that I've got the right ingredients to make a meal.

How much better though when we come with the list?

How much better are our prayers answered when we come with specific needs?

If you're in need of help, ask specifically for help in the way that you need it.

If you need patience, ask for patience.

If you need to temper your frustrations, ask for wisdom and gentleness.

If you're struggling financially, tell it to them.

Speak honestly.

If you're a parent, don't just pray for your children vaguely.

Lift them up by name in the ways that they need it before our Lord and Father.

Bring them to the ear of Jesus and see Him respond.

If it's a material or if it's a spiritual mercy that you need, then say so.

Typically, the more urgent the need, the less words we need to use.

The shortest prayers can often be the weightiest prayers and most glorifying to God.

And I think that raises the question: what leads to a sense of desperation?

I think we don't often think about it because we often just feel it when we're earnest about something.

But oftentimes it has to do with a sense of powerlessness in the face of strong desire.

We see that in both of these accounts.

Strong desire.

I love my precious girl, and I want to help and be with her to see her grow up.

But powerlessness.

I have no control over this disease, and yet I see her slipping away out of my fingers.

Or again, strong desire.

I want to feel well from this debilitating illness that for years has kept me from human touch and so much more.

But powerlessness.

I've spent all I have on doctors, and all I have to show for it is the feeling of being worse than before.

What do we do with it?

We bring it to Jesus.

I would ask you this morning what feels significant to you this morning.

Where are you confronted with your own sense of powerlessness?

Maybe with it's within certain relationships.

Your marriage, your children's lives, relationships at work.

Maybe it's feeling like you've done something over and over and over and over again, and nothing's changed.

You feel your powerlessness.

You desire change.

Come to Jesus.

Lift up those desires and bring them to his ear.

Come with a desperate need.

Second, Jesus' healing touch.

When it comes to our supplications, they must be offered up in faith to be of benefit.

We read here in this passage that, well, many pressed up against Jesus, whereas Jesus' disciples could say, Everyone's touching you.

Not all benefited from his power.

And I think what that teaches us is that when it comes to true supplication, faith is required.

Jairus trusted what he had seen and heard about Jesus, and he believed that he could help him.

Likewise, this woman had heard reports about Jesus, and so she.

She had come because she confidently thought to herself, if I even touch his garments, I'll be made well.

All right, it wasn't a perfect faith, but it was a real faith.

And so she reached out and she touched his garment, and she was instantly healed.

A few days after a certain uh preacher preached on this section of scripture, he received the following poem from a lady in his congregation who composed it after hearing uh his words in a sermon.

And uh she contrasted it between this woman and herself.

And she wrote the following Who touched me? 'Twas the voice of the master, and the woman's heart beat faster and faster.

Trembling she came and bowed her head.

I touched thee, Lord, was what she said.

But the master answered, Go thy way, thy faith has made thee whole this day.

Have you touched me?

I heard it.

Twas the voice of the master, and oh my heart beat faster and faster.

You came with the throng to God's house today, but I felt not your touch as you went away.

I was ashamed and bowed my head.

Reach out a bit further next time, he said.

Are you content to come with the crowd even this morning, but leave without his personal touch?

You see, desperation has a way of heightening what we truly need.

That's when we bring Jesus' words near and clutch them tightly and even say, like Jacob, I will not let you go until you bless me.

We gather in the Lord's house Sunday after Sunday.

We read the scriptures, but how much of it have we appropriated?

Are we taking him at his word?

Are we banking our lives upon it?

To what extent are we enjoying all that God has offered us so freely?

We're God's children, right?

We're recipients of his mercy.

A blessing.

We're meant to show forth his praises, his excellencies, his virtues.

Are we doing that?

Are we individually enjoying the blessings of the Christian life as we should?

Be assured that if you appropriate his many blessings and mercies, he will live you, he will leave you with his personal touch.

The woman here touches Jesus and she receives healing immediately.

Jairus, though, must wait patiently even while death is knocking at the door of his daughter before receiving his answer.

We are reminded Jairus' support crew come.

And they come with this devastating news while Jesus is attending to the woman.

I'm sure Jairus was there going, come on, come on.

You know, every every every second is precious.

What are you doing waiting?

But he comes and Jesus is ministering to them, and then he gets this terrible, devastating news.

Jairus, your daughter's dead.

Don't bother Jesus anymore.

And yet, right at that moment, Jesus gives him words of his own.

Do not fear, Jairus.

Only believe.

And what does that remind us?

It reminds us that waiting on Jesus for a request shouldn't be equated with a denial.

Help may not always look how we envision it, but in the end it's always better.

Jairus got to see more of the glory of Jesus than he otherwise envisioned.

And the truth is that faith and fear always stand in opposition.

Faith is a refusal in those moments not to fret or panic when things don't seem to go the way that they're going, the way that we think they ought.

Are we going to choose to fear what might go wrong, what has gone wrong?

Or are we going to trust Jesus to see us through?

Am I afraid of what the future holds?

Or am I trusting that in walking with Jesus, he will direct my paths?

Am I going to fear not having the basic necessities?

Or am I trusting that my Father knows everything that I need, just as he cares for the sparrows?

And will provide.

As we embark on Vision 20, 26, this is an ambitious vision.

We don't yet see the outcome.

Right?

I mean, a two-year journey involves some waiting and future fulfillment.

And yet, what do we know?

We know that Jesus is still doing his powerful work of healing.

We know that he has more people who are in need of his touch.

And he will use his ready and willing people who themselves have experienced that healing touch to carry out his purposes.

And that's where your time, your talent, and your treasure come in.

Faith takes steps, you see, even though future fulfillment hasn't arrived.

Did Jairus know what would happen in the face of the terrible news that was brought to him?

No.

What did he do?

He believed Jesus.

He took Jesus at his word.

He believed his promise, and he took steps to go with him, and he was led to see greater things.

This is about a faith journey.

God has more for us to see when it comes to his powerful healing and providing hand.

A father holding his small son by the hand ran from a building that had been struck by a bomb.

And in the front yard was this huge shell hole.

Seeking shelter as soon as possible, the father jumps in this hole and he holds up his arms for his son to follow.

Terrified yet hearing his father's voice telling him to jump, the boy replied, I can't see you.

The father looking up against the sky, tinted red, because of the burning buildings called to the silhouette of his son.

But I can see you.

Jump.

And I think faith is like that.

You see, the kind of faith that Jesus calls us to exercise is a faith that stands in the opposition to fear.

Faith that trusts his voice in the midst of unknown.

Not a blind faith, but a faith that knows his presence and relies on his word and his promises, even when we can't fully see the outcome.

And so the question I have for you this morning is are you moving forward in obedience, trusting the light of his character, who you know him to be, and his promises?

If so, he won't leave you without a personal touch.

And he will not leave us without his personal touch.

That's the second thing.

Finally, and thirdly, and finally, our supplications require a view to deliverance.

When it comes to our requests for deliverance, the healer is always of more value than the healing.

You may have gone to a doctor before, and you've gone to that doctor, and the bedside manner of that doctor has been terrible.

And whereas you might have got a prescription, you have come back with perhaps an ulcer and a resistance to going back.

Not so with Jesus.

He was led to see the glory of Jesus' person and character on display.

Because here's the thing: this healing would come and it would go.

His daughter would grow up and eventually be subject even to death again.

But to see and to know and to hold fast to the glory of the unchanging one, that's a mercy that would never be taken from him, even on the other side of the veil of death.

The beauty and glory of Jesus tenderly caring for his precious daughter.

Concerned that she not wake up feeling like a spectacle, keeping the crowds at bay, inviting only a most intimate presence.

Ensuring that she woke up to the intimacy of her loved ones.

Calling her as her mother would likely do in her own voice.

Talitha gumi, little one, little girl, wake up.

Knowing the need of her body to be strengthened and calling for her to be given some food and nourishment.

I mean, what tender mercy.

What a vital and strengthening encounter to one's faith to see this and to spur on confidence in seeking future mercies.

To know the powerful hand of the healer is one thing, but to know the heart that directs the hand is another altogether.

What do we know of that heart?

What do we know of the glory of that heart?

Surely, if we were to recall past mercies and reflect on how tender he's been to us, we would be of use in healing others.

Having been gently comforted, you could gently comfort.

Having been patiently helped, you could help with that same patience.

Having been met with his kindness and grief, you are sent to show that same kindness to those in distress.

Binding up brokenness, stepping into woundedness with his healing power and presence.

Take his graces with you wherever you go and be a healing presence in the lives of others.

That's our charter.

Who wouldn't want to return again and again to someone who is so kindly attuned to our cry?

And yet, even that said and done, no healing surpasses the power of deliverance over death.

When death looms, we all feel its shadow.

Fears begin to stir when we look it in the face.

But what of it?

Death has lost its power for the Christian.

What lies beyond the veil of death has already been settled for us.

We have died with Christ, so we shall also live with him.

And that means that death for you, Christian, is merely a matter of sleep.

We need not fear.

The master's voice, wake up, will be our prize.

And he will awaken us to a new dawn and a new day, an eternal day.

And when we awake, we will feast by his rich provision, where we will spend everlasting life and peace and in wholeness, strengthened and nourished by his presence, and in the presence of our great and healer and physician.

Truly he has taken all our illnesses and borne all our diseases.

We praise God.

Amen.

Oh Lord, we thank you and praise you for your tender, tender mercies.

Who of us cannot recount, Lord, just the many, many ways that you have been so faithful to us, so tender in your cure of us.

When we have faced brokenheartedness, Lord, you have bound us up.

When we have experienced woundedness, you have been there to supply us with what we need.

Lord, you are the gracious healing physician, the one who empowers, the one who strengthens, the one who has set about to make us whole.

Lord, we thank you for the precious power of your Son, who is bound up even sin itself, and the freedom and the hope that we have in a new heavens and a new earth.

And so, Lord, we ask and we pray, use us to be healing, agents of your healing.

Use us to be agents of your grace.

And we pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.