Mark 5:21-43 - You Can’t Interrupt Jesus

It's impossible to interrupt Jesus, right?

We shouldn't treat people like interruptions, because Jesus

doesn't treat people like interruptions.

Mark Chapter 5, verse 21 will go until the end of the chapter.

Mark 5:21

Usually we stand for the reading of God's Word before the

preaching, but today we're going to skip that.

I love that. Symbolically, it shows us that

God's Word is higher than the preacher's word, but we're

skipping it this morning for a simple reason.

And that's because I want to hide the ending of this amazing

story from you. That way we can walk through it

like a story, because this story is in amazing testimony to the

mindblowing perfections of Jesus.

And if you can stick with this sermon for the next 30 minutes,

I think that perhaps you'll see increased clarity, the

perfections and the glory and the worth of Jesus in a way that

maybe you've never thought of it before.

So my only ask of you over these next 30 minutes is that you try

your best, regardless of what's going on in your mind, to stay

locked into the roller coaster, stay locked into the drama, stay

locked into the tension, stay locked into the roller coaster

of this story to the best of your ability from beginning to

end. And then we'll ask the question,

are you an interruption? So let's start at the beginning

of the story, which is at verse 21.

So Jesus has just crossed the he's just crossed the sea.

When he got to the other end of the sea, he healed a demon

possessed man. He was kicked out of that area.

So he's crossed back over to the sea.

And right when he gets back to the sea.

What happens, verse 21, when Jesus has crossed again in the

boat to the other side? Well, a great crowd gathered

around him, and he was beside the sea.

Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Gyrus, my name.

And seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet and implored him earnestly,

saying, My little daughter is at the point of death, my girls at

my girl is at death's doorstep, is the way one commentator

translated it. My daughter is at the point of

death. Please come and lay your hands

on her so that she might be made well and live.

And Jesus went with him and then a great crowd followed him and

thronged all about him. Pause the story for a second.

So just like his last trip at like, what is it about Jesus?

Okay, just like his last trip, as Jesus, soon as he gets to the

shore, somebody's already sprinting over to him.

Exactly like the last time you went to shore, except this time

it's not a demon possessed man, it's a religious leader, a local

ruler of the synagogue. So if you want to draw kind of a

modern comparison, the dude is like a pastor.

He what we know about local synagogue rulers was that he

ruled over the local synagogue in that area.

His primary job would have been overseeing people, teaching and

make sure that the teachings of the synagogue were Orthodox and

in accordance with the Old Testament scriptures.

And so this religious leader, this pastor, this this local

leader immediately sprints over to Jesus.

He's probably got crazy eyes, the swirly eyes that you see in

cartoons. He's probably got snot running

and out of his nose. He falls at Jesus's feet and he

says, Jesus, my daughter is on the doorstep of death.

This is a man who's at the end of his rope, moments away.

And so Jesus, seeing the pain and suffering of a father on the

verge of losing a child, goes with him.

But as Jesus starts to walk with Gyrus to Gyrus's home for this

healing, there's a little detail that we need to remember.

And the detail is this. This little girl is on the

doorstep of death. Do you understand that?

There's a Jesus is he's on a ticking time clock right now.

There's not a second to spare. There's not a moment to spare

and as they walk towards the religious leaders home with the

hopes of getting there in time to perform the healing, the

worst possible imaginable thing happens.

An interruption. We don't have time for an

interruption. 1st 25 They're walking towards Gyrus's home.

And then there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12

years and who had suffered much under many physicians.

That's a haunting phrase, suffered much under many

physicians, depending on the commentator.

Some people think that not only did the physicians not make her

better, but they made her worse. Some academics think this might

be a reference to abuse, others a reference to the physicians

merely using her illness in order to make a profit, in order

to make a buck wherever you fall in that spectrum.

Either way, sad stuff. She had spent all that she had,

and not only was she not better, but rather she grew worse.

But then she began to hear the reports of Jesus and came up

behind him in the crowd on his way to Gyrus's home.

Reached out and just touched his garment.

Touched it right for, she said. Even if I touch his garments, I

will be made well and immediately the flow of blood

dries up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her

disease. Pause the story for a second.

Let's think about this woman, this interruption.

A discharge of blood is not a minor inconvenience in the

ancient world. It's probably, it's not even a

minor convenience even in the modern world, but doubly so,

triply so in the ancient world. And it's certainly not a minor

inconvenience when it's been happening for 12 years.

OK, So a discharge of blood would make somebody ceremonially

on clean in the Jewish world for up to seven days after the

discharge had dried. So that means that if she's been

struggling with this discharge of blood for 12 years, she's

been ceremonially on clean for 12 years.

You know what that's like. That's 12 years.

If she has a family of not being able to come into contact with

her family, that's 12 years of being an outsider to the

religious world as 12 years of being an outsider to society at

large. Here's the point.

Just like the demon possessed man earlier in Chapter 5, this

woman, for all intensive purposes for the last 12 years,

this woman is dead to the world, OK?

And the world is dead to her. So when she reaches out in faith

and touches Jesus's garment and believes for her healing and

feels the flow of blood growing up, what she's just experienced

is not merely a healing, although it is that.

What she's just experienced is a resurrection.

She got her life back. She got her friends back, right?

If she had a family, she gets her family back.

She gets her kids back. This coming Sunday, she gets to

go back into the synagogue and worship God.

This is amazing, but I want you to remember something as all of

this is happening, Remember one detail.

Gyrus's daughter is at the doorstep of death.

They don't have time to spare. We don't have time to spare.

This woman just brought her problems out of nowhere and have

slowed down the Messiah from where he needs to go and what he

needs to do. This woman, in her uncleanness,

has just slowed Jesus down and it makes the person wonder

what's going to happen to the young girl.

What's Gyrus doing right now? OK, can't this wait for like

another eight hours? Jesus, let's go right.

This is not the time to be slowing down.

Did these fatal few seconds cause the difference between

saving a life and losing a life? There she is.

She's experienced this profound healing.

But then things go from bad to worse.

She reaches out, touches the garment, experiences healing,

and then things get even worse. Jesus stops walking, turns

around. No time to spare, not the time

for interruptions. And Jesus, what's going on?

He just stops walking. Look at this verse 30.

Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from

him, immediately turned around in the crowd and said, Who

touched my garments because I was like we.

We talking about everybody's touching you right now, right?

The disciple said to him. You see the crowd pressing

around you and yet you say who touched me.

You could think about that all week, right?

Turns out you can bump into Jesus.

You can touch Jesus and not touch him.

You understand? Everybody's touching you.

What do you mean? Who touched you?

And then Jesus, you got to love this, looked around to see who

had done it. Right?

Now is not the time to be a teacher, but here's Jesus going.

We don't have time for this. We're on a shot clock right now.

And so the woman, knowing what had happened to her verse 33,

came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told

him the whole truth. Pause the story.

What's happening right here is that this woman fears that she

has just taken something precious from Jesus without

asking. And you don't do that in the

ancient world. You certainly don't do that in

the ancient world in Rome if you're a woman.

And Jesus just stops, turns around and he asks who touched

my garment and he dramatically looks around and waits for an

answer. He scans the crowd around him.

Remember, right now is not the time to be scanning around

what's happening to Gyrus's daughter.

What does Gyrus think right now? She's on death's doorstop.

These fatal few seconds could be the difference between life and

death. And this woman breaks down, snot

and everything, confesses that it was her.

And here comes the public rebuke from Jesus.

Right here comes the public rebuke from the Messiah.

How dare you take something without asking?

How how dare you slow me down? How dare you interrupt me?

Don't you know that I've got things to do?

Don't you know that I've got to go heal a little girl so that

she doesn't die? Don't slow me down, right?

Is this your view of Jesus? Because while she's expecting a

rebuke, A rebuke doesn't come. Jesus looks at her knowingly,

nods, probably smiles, and says verse 34, Daughter, your faith

has made you well, go in peace and be healed of your disease.

Jesus knew the whole time who touched his robe.

He's got in the flesh. He knew that it was her.

What he's doing right now is he's strategically singling this

woman out, not to rebuke her. He's singling her out in order

to honor her and praise her. Not only does she not get

rebuked, she gets put forward in front of this entire crowd of

people as the model of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

That's what he's doing. By singling her out, he's

saying, hey, this is what faith looks like.

Your faith has made you well. Your faith is awesome.

I love this kind of faith. He's saying this is what faith

looks like, right? He's saying to the entire crowd

of people, Hey, right here, what this woman just did.

This is Christianity. This is this beautiful,

beautiful moment. They're having this amazing

moment. Your faith has made you well.

I love your faith. But remember, now is not the

time for amazing moments. The clock's ticking.

What's going on with Gyrus's daughter?

Did these precious few moments did this one interruption make

the difference between life and death?

And just then, while Jesus is celebrating this healing,

smiling over this woman and honoring and celebrating her

healing, the worst imaginable news comes verse 35, while he

was still speaking there came from the ruler's house.

Some who said your daughter is dead.

Stop bothering him. Why trouble the teacher any

further? OK, So what happens?

The little girl dies and man I it just makes you want to pull

your hair out, right? We could have prevented this,

right? Gyrus has got to be thinking,

Where were you like last year? I have a buddy of mine who's a

pastor and a church planter and and he lost his wife to suicide.

And I remember going to the funeral and seeing him walk in

with his kids without his wife. And I remember seeing him walk

to his chair. And then he sat down with his

kids. And I just wanted to ball my

fists up, just be like, God, where were you we doing?

He gets to his seat with his kids at the funeral, puts his

hands on his kids, and he prays for him.

I'm just like, man. All I could think was I couldn't

do that. Like I would just.

I would just be lost. I would be lost.

I'd be irreparably broken. He was his man, praying for his

kids and leading them in worship at his wife's funeral.

He just filled me with rage. I was just like, Lord, what are

you doing? Like this dude gives his life to

you. Preaches about you.

Every Sunday. Blended church for your glory.

You just let his wife die. And like, Gyrus has got to feel

that way, right? He's like, you could have done

it. You could have done it.

And instead you let this woman with her problem of a bloody

just charge slow you down. And now my daughter's gone,

Right, Well, like, where were you?

That's got to be what he's feeling right now.

If you had gotten there in time, my little girl would still be

alive. And then the story, just this

story, is unbelievable. Verse 36, Jesus hears what they

said, but over hearing 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 and their brother of James. And they came to the House of

the ruler of the synagogue. And Jesus saw this commotion,

people weeping and wailing loudly.

And when he had answered, he said to them, only Jesus could

do this right? Why are you making a commotion

and weeping? The child's not dead, but

sleeping, and they laughed at him.

So pause the story. The people who are weeping and

wailing in the story right now, they're they're probably not

family members. Most commentators think that

these are mourners okay. So this is going to help put

things into perspective here a little bit.

In the ancient world, mourners were a professional Guild of the

careerist opportunist okay. So even the poorest people in

the ancient world, when a loved one died, they would pay at

minimum 2 mourners for the event.

These people would be paid to come to the event, the death,

and the funeral, to weep loudly and wail loudly at the death.

Because by doing this, that would encourage the people

present at the death and present at the funeral to engage in

weeping and wailing too. And so essentially, when you

think about these people who are weeping and and wailing, these

are these are mourners who have built a career that's dependent

on death. And so when Jesus says that

she's only sleeping, they feel threatened, right?

So they do what? They laugh at them.

I was struck by this note in a commentary on Mark on these

mourners. This commentator said quote, the

professional mourners here represent the hardcore cynics of

every age who decide when empirical realities have

foreclosed on. Divine possibilities, maybe.

You know some mourners. It's okay to mourn.

Jesus is not tearing into people who are mourning.

He's ripping into the mourners, the professional cynics, right,

who love to laugh in the face of divine miracles and fill people

with the poison of cynicism. They laugh at Jesus, but who

ends up being right, Jesus or the Cynics?

Verse 40. They laughed at him, but he put

them all outside and took the child's father and mother and

those who were with them. And when and where the little

girl was taking her by the hand, right?

Takes the little girl by the hand.

He says to her it's Alitha Kumi, which means little girl I say to

you will rise, right? It's like it's like this little

child. It's time to get up.

That's what it sounds like to the Greek ear, right?

Or the Hebrew or whatever. It's time to get up, verse 42.

And immediately the girl gets up and she begins walking.

For she was 12 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. Oh, it's like, woof.

What a story, right? And you listen to a story like

that, and you can't help but wonder where you go with that,

right? We could talk about Jesus as the

resurrection, and that would be great.

And we could do that for another 30 minutes.

We could talk about the divine possibility in the face of grim

reality, and that would take another 30 minutes.

So instead of going one of those two routes, here's what I'm

going to do. I'm going to say what I feel

like saying this morning and pray that it's what God wants to

say to our church this morning. Here's where I want to go.

Don't treat people like interruptions.

Notice the shape of this text. There's a desperate story about

somebody at the end of their rope unfolding, and then

somebody interjects themself into the story, seemingly as an

interruption. But instead, Jesus treats the

interruption like a human and after giving this person his

attention. Then Jesus tends to the original

problem and solves it. This is what scholars call a

sandwich story, and many commentators have commentated

endlessly about how the shape of the story influences the meaning

of the story. And here's what I take from this

It's impossible to interrupt Jesus, right?

We shouldn't treat people like interruptions because Jesus

doesn't treat people like interruptions.

And so, like, I spent a lot of time thinking about what my

daughter said to me earlier this week, because when she said it

to me, I hadn't even started prepping for the sermon.

So I think maybe Della is a prophet.

I don't know. She said that to me.

I've been thinking about it all week.

Right, Dad? Why don't you ever laugh at my

jokes? And again, inside my soul, the

hard thing was that I knew the answer.

It's because I'm busy and because I treat you like an

interruption. Sweetie, we just need to, honey.

Right. We just need to.

We just need to get to the car. We just need to get to the

grocery store. I just.

I just got to do XI. Got to get my servant done.

Got to do scheduling. I got to do this right, honey.

Just just got to get X done, got to get Y done, got to never slow

down, don't stop. And you end up treating your

daughter's attention like an interruption.

And ironically, it's it's unbelievable because the best

part of my week, this last week, was when I said yes to the

interruption. You know, like it's just amazing

the way it works. It was like later later that

week, my son, my older son came up to me.

It was like 15 minutes after bedtime and and we needed to go

to bed. And he starts poking me, right?

It's like 815. He starts poking me.

I'm like, dude, now it's not the it's not the time to wrestle,

right? He wanted a rough house.

He wanted to throw some punches with me.

He wanted to wrestle around. He starts poking me.

Everything in me was like, everything in me was like okay

bud. But we got to get to bed, pack

it up. I'm not telling you how to pair

okay. You put your kids down whenever

you need to. He starts poking me.

I see it as an interruption. And I I I felt like I heard the

Lord just be like, hey, what if it's not an interruption?

What if it's an opportunity? So I was just like, all right,

let's do this and we start wrestling around for the next 10

or 15 minutes and I'm telling you highest point of my week by

a mile. It's just like laugh laughing so

hard that we ended up crying like just delirious joy and and

it just it struck me like was as I was thinking about the story.

It struck me that if we look at people through the the eyes of

the flesh, we always see people as interruptions.

But by faith, through grace, if we can look at people through

the eyes of Jesus, we see interruptions as possibilities

and everything unfolds itself and everything changes, and you

end up experiencing these incredible invitations to joy.

And so all week long I've been feeling God saying to me through

these stories, Cole don't treat people like interruptions.

And that's that's important because Jesus, this is what

Jesus is like. And we should be like Jesus.

And being Christ like is really, really important.

And as important as this is, it's actually not the bottom of

the story. There's something one inch

deeper in this story than just a moral platitude.

No matter how true the moral platitude is, and the thing

that's one inch deeper in this story, then don't treat people

like interruptions. The thing that's at the bottom

of this text is this. You're not an interruption to

Jesus. You're not an interruption to

Jesus. In fact, you can't interrupt

Jesus. Think about that.

Jesus has never been interrupted.

He's too divine for that, too perfect for that, too sovereign

for that. And this is going to take some

getting used to, I think, because we've all had well

meaning. Religious people beat it out of

our heads, right? Like it usually comes like this.

You ready? You think God cares about your

cold while there's world wars out there?

It's like, well, gosh, certainly not right.

You think. You think God cares about your

football game or your volleyball game when there's demons and

murderers out there? We all hear this kind of

religious crap and we walk away thinking, I mean, yeah, if Jesus

had to choose between my little problems and cosmic problems, of

course my little problem of depression or sadness or sorrow

or struggle with sin or cold or flu, of course my little

problems are nothing but a mere interruption to Jesus.

I think God cares about your sadness.

Well, there's people starving all over the world.

And when I read this story, I think, yeah, I do.

I do think he cares about that. In fact, I think the reason why

he cares about that is precisely because of his character.

He is sovereign, and because he's sovereign, he never has to

choose about what to care about. Jesus has never had to choose

about what to care about. He's so sovereign that he can

care about the cosmos and the hairs on your head.

He can care about the Hurricanes and care about things that only

a microscope can see. He can care about all of

humanity while caring about little unimportant you.

Since he's God, he doesn't have to choose.

You've never I don't care what your request was.

I don't care what your prayer was.

No matter how trite it seemed to you, no matter how trivial it

seemed to you, you have never interrupted Jesus.

You don't have that power. Jesus has never been

interrupted. And man, I think if only one

person this morning walked away from the sermon thinking, you

know what? All of my problems matter to

Jesus. All of my prayers matter to

Jesus, no matter how small, no matter how trivial they are.

And so I think I'm just from here on out, I think I'm just

going to voice it all to Jesus. If one person walked away from

that this morning, the whole sermon would be worth it, right?

If one person walked away thinking, you know what?

I'm actually not in an interruption, right?

Because of the gospel of Jesus, I am forgiven.

I'm covered in his blood, I'm covered in his righteousness.

And that means that everything about me, every little thing in

my life, matters to Jesus. In fact, when you approach Jesus

like the woman with the bleeding problem or gyrus with his

daughter on the doorstep, or you with your issues, right,

whatever, it is when you approach Jesus with any sort of

request because of the gospel, the King of Glory hands, he

holds up a hand to all the angels around his throne and he

says, shh, my daughter is speaking, shh, my son is

speaking. That's how important you are

because of the gospel of Jesus. But I I deeply believe I've just

become convinced of this this week, that in the deepest part

of my heart, that even while Jesus is saving sinners and

casting out demons and exercising sovereignty over

every square inch of the cosmos and upholding the world with the

word of his mouth, he's still the type of God who laughs at my

daughter's jokes. So bring it all.

Your bleeding problems, your bloody nose, right?

Being at the the doorstep of death, Your sadness, your

sorrow, bring it all to Jesus. You're not an interruption.

And to quote one of my favorite TV characters of all time, let's

address the larger than average size elephant in the room.

And then we'll be done. Here's the elephant.

Why doesn't Jesus always bring back people from the dead today?

Maybe you've lost somebody that you love and Jesus didn't bring

them back from the dead. Why didn't Jesus bring back my

pastor friend's wife? And the answer to the question

is actually profoundly simple. I don't know.

Because in loss we end up asking questions to which there are no

answers, and a broken heart refuses any cold, logical,

detached answers that logic could ever give, right?

And that's why Jesus's response to suffering seems to be less

about giving an answer and more about giving us himself.

And so I don't have an answer to that question.

And if I did give you some logical tidied up answer, you'd

probably want to punch me in the mouth.

The heart refuses cold, detached logic, and Jesus knows that.

So why doesn't he bring our loved ones back from the dead

all the time? Today let's throw our hands up

in the air and say I don't know because we don't know.

But there's one thing I do know from this text.

Death is merely an interruption, and there will be a day when

Jesus comes back to Foley and finally defeat the powers of

darkness. And in doing so, he will cast

death into the lake of fire and finally create a perfect and new

world, free from pain and free from suffering.

And on that day, he'll take your loved ones by the hand.

He'll take you by the hand, take you by the hand.

And I'll say the child, it's time to get up.