Don't Be Afraid, Only Believe (Morning)
Download MP3If you have a Bible, I invite you to turn to the gospel of Mark chapter 5. It's also there in your worship guide. Mark chapter 5. This morning we're gonna be looking at another one of those Markin sandwiches. If you remember that, sometimes what Mark does is he begins a story, and then he leaves to tell another story, and then he goes back to the original story, and it's his way of saying you need to be having both of these stories.
Joel Brooks:They're intertwined. You need to see them as a unit. He's trying to teach us one central truth throughout that, and so this morning, we're gonna be looking at the story of Jesus raising from the dead a 12 year old girl, and then Jesus also healing a woman who, had been sick for the last 12 years. I'm not I don't think it's a coincidence, the number 12 there, and that you had the the girl who was 12 years, and you had the woman who was sick for 12 years. I think it's Mark's way of reminding us that God's got control of our lives.
Joel Brooks:That even though we we might not have any idea what he's doing, there is actually a plan, that God has in the midst of it all. And and these two individuals had no idea that their lives would intersect at this moment. That they would both encounter Jesus at this exact moment, and that he would heal them. So Mark chapter 5, verse 21. 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.
Joel Brooks:Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jarius 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 12 years, and who had been suffering much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better, but rather grew worse.
Joel Brooks:She had heard reports about Jesus, and came up behind Him in the crowd, and she 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 around 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, she came in fear and trembling, and she fell down before him and told him the whole truth.
Joel Brooks: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, some 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.
Joel Brooks:And He allowed no one to follow Him except Peter, and James, and John, and the brother John the brother of James. They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion of people weeping and wailing loudly. And when he answered, he said to them, why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child's not dead, but sleeping. And they laughed at him.
Joel Brooks:But he put them all outside, and took the child's father and mother, and those who were with him, and he went in where the child was. Taking her by the hand, he said to her, talitha kumi, which means little girl I say to you, arise. And, immediately, the girl got up, and she began 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 He told them to give her something to eat. This is the word of the Lord.
Joel Brooks:You would pray with me. Lord, just like You were working something in these women's lives 12 years earlier, all to bring them to that moment, that place to meet You. I don't believe it's a coincidence that we are here in this moment. Through your sovereignty, you have drawn all these lives here to hear from you. So would you speak?
Joel Brooks:I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. When, my daughter one of my daughters, Natalie, when she was a baby, she had a really high fever.
Joel Brooks:She was crying nonstop. So, made our lives miserable. She was miserable. We didn't know what to do. No idea how to take care of her.
Joel Brooks:We were trying everything, And then at one point as I was holding her, she went to a seizure, and, and her eyes rolled back her head. She stopped breathing. She turned blue. Didn't know it at the time, but that type of seizure is is rarely fatal, but you don't know that as a as a parent. You just You you you see your your child, and you you believe they're they're dying in your arms.
Joel Brooks:And in that moment, if you had told me that you could help my daughter, I would have done anything. I mean, there would have been no price too great. No place. I wouldn't have traveled. I would have gone to any distance.
Joel Brooks:If you had said, you give me your home, I'll heal your daughter. I would have been done without a second hesitation. Because there there is no more desperate person than the desperation of a parent who were having a sick or dying child. You can't get more desperate than this. That's where this father is.
Joel Brooks:He has reached that point of desperation. Some of you here have experienced that desperation. I know some of you have literally You've flown to the other side of the world. All in hopes of of finding someone who might help, your sick child. You you understand exactly what this dad's going through.
Joel Brooks:It's it's that level of just deep desperation where you will do anything. You will try anything. You love your daughter. You will You'll you'll do it. That finds Jarius here now at Jesus's feet.
Joel Brooks:We read here that his name was Jarius, that he is the ruler of the local synagogue, which means that he's one of those religious leaders. Remember how in the gospel of Mark who was the group that had been opposing Jesus? It was the religious leaders. Mark's already shown that it's it's people like Jarius. Those are the ones that have been having all of these confrontations with with Jesus, and they've already made up their mind about him.
Joel Brooks:When they saw Jesus and they saw what he taught and they saw everything he was doing they saw him as a threat that needed to be eliminated. So so they've made up their mind about Jesus, and already they were actively trying to discredit him. They were telling people, you know, since they couldn't deny Jesus' power that it could least maybe discredit him by saying, well, you know he gets his power from satan, his powers from demons. And so they were doing whatever they could to destroy Jesus. We read that they were already, before this, they were plotting, plotting his death.
Joel Brooks:So from what we've seen in Mark, these religious leaders were at war with Jesus. But things change, don't they? When you are a religious leader who is also a father, who has a daughter, who is dying. Everything changes in that moment. Suddenly, you don't really care so much about where that healing power comes from.
Joel Brooks:You just care that there's power to heal. And and so that's what drives this person to Jesus. I'm imagining that Jesus was the last person Jarius wanted to go to. Probably why he waited so long until his daughter was at death's door. The last person he wanted to go to, yet he went.
Joel Brooks:For some of you here, you honestly can't believe you're actually sitting here in a pew. Some of you. Church is the last place you thought you would ever be. Maybe some of you are here simply because your parents were here for step sing, and you had to go to church. But for some of you, it's This is an act of desperation.
Joel Brooks:Something has been going on in your life, and you've tried everything, and just nothing is making it better. And so out of an act of desperation, you are finding yourself here. If that's you, that's okay. You're not alone. There's others like you here.
Joel Brooks:And I want you to know that God can work with desperate faith. This man here, he had a desperate faith. Now desperate faith in and of itself does not do anything. It will not save you. It has to have the right object.
Joel Brooks:Faith itself doesn't save you. It's the object of that faith that will save you. There's many people throughout the world who have some kind of desperate faith that drives you to all sorts of things and those things will not save them. It does your faith drive you to Jesus. Well, you're here.
Joel Brooks:So at least there's a little bit of that faith. The father has that type of desperate faith where he's. It's at least enough to take him to run to Jesus, and he goes to Jesus, and he falls down at Jesus's feet, which was quite undignified for a person in his position. But he humbles himself before Jesus, and he implores him, my little daughter, she's at the point of death. Come lay your hands on her that she may be made well and live.
Joel Brooks:That word little daughter, my little daughter, it's it's an affectionate term. It's kind of like saying, Jesus, my baby girl. My baby girl's dying. Could you come? Jesus immediately sets off for this man.
Joel Brooks:We don't have any conversation that recording just, he goes off. We read a great crowd, follow them. It's pretty easy to imagine that people would go with Jesus because I mean if you just heard that Jesus was going to go and heal someone like that, wouldn't you go after them? I mean if right now if I said hey I'm gonna go across the street and heal someone how many of you would get up and follow me I mean I think every single one of you would and that doesn't mean you believed I would actually do it. You just kind of wanted to see what would happen.
Joel Brooks:And so normally when Jesus heals people is they're right there and so he just kinda heals them. This is the first time Jesus is going and tells people, like, he's going to heal this person. And like, we gotta see this. And I'm sure word spread people are coming out of the word work word work. They're coming out their homes or businesses everything to follow Jesus there.
Joel Brooks:We read that there was, you know, a throng of people. We don't use the word thronged much, but you get the picture People thronging all around Jesus. And it's here the same shifts. Now we leave Jarius and his crisis, and we are introduced to this woman. There's another desperate person here.
Joel Brooks:This time it's a woman who has been hemorrhaging for 12 years. To hemorrhage like this wasn't, it wasn't just a medical inconvenience or anything like that. This sort of also made her ceremonially unclean. So for 12 years, she hasn't been able to go to church. Hasn't been able to go to the synagogue.
Joel Brooks:For 12 years. She hasn't been able to have human contact. Because anybody she touched will become unclean. So this is a woman who's been living in isolation and who has not received a hug in the last 12 years. It's kind of like she has leprosy.
Joel Brooks:And and if this isolation and suffering as if it wasn't enough, we read that she's also suffered under the hands of physicians. She spent all the money she had on them, and she's gone to physician after physician after physician, and the only thing that she has received for all those doctor visits was poverty. Once again, some of you can relate. This is not a knock on our medical community here by any means. 1st century medicine was a lot different.
Joel Brooks:Primitive at best. Harmful at worst. Actually, one of the remedies that I I read about that would been prescribed to this woman was to carry around with her quail eggs in her pockets. So we've come a long way. We've made some medical advances.
Joel Brooks:But but I do know people in this room who understand what this woman was going through. I can speak to that because I I have a a mom who's ill, and we have taken her. I've taken her to an internist. You know to a pulmonologist who then sends you to a cardiologist who sends you to an immunologist who sends you to a neurologist who sends you to a pathologist, and it just kind of goes on and on and on. And you're you're just spending so much time and you're spending so much money, But there's limits to what physicians can do.
Joel Brooks:We don't read that these physicians were evil. Just that she suffered from them. Sometimes there aren't fixes. She'd been suffering for over a decade now, and now it's reached this new level of desperation, but she catches word that the Jesus, the healer, he's in town, and he's actually going to heal someone, So she thinks, well, gosh, if I could just get close enough to him, I don't even have to touch him. If I could just maybe touch the edge of his robe.
Joel Brooks:That would be enough. And so she she goes into the crowd, even though she knows every person she touches, she is making unclean. She's an essentially spreading her disease, spreading her uncleanliness and her pursuit of Jesus. But once again, we see a woman here with a desperate faith. And she's able to to bump, and squeeze, and just kind of wiggle her way up to where she gets behind Jesus.
Joel Brooks:She reaches out. She she just touches the hem of his garment, and she is instantly healed. This is where the story gets interesting. Jesus can somehow sense that power left him. I don't I don't know how that works.
Joel Brooks:I mean, we we can ask him someday. I mean, I don't know if he'd felt lighter, if he felt like a charge. I have no idea. But he somehow He he sensed power left him. And so he asked who touched me?
Joel Brooks:Which is an absurd question, who touched me? A better question might have been who here has yet to touch me? Everyone is is touching Jesus, but he knows someone in that crowd didn't just touch him. They reached out in faith and touched him, and there's a world of difference. There were probably many sick people there among that crowd, but there's only going one of them that got healed the one who reached out in faith and touched him.
Joel Brooks:Now, remember while this is taking place when Jesus is stopping and asking this absurd question, who here has touched me? You've got the dad. You've got Jarius probably hopping on both feet like what are we doing? Like why are we why are we slow? Why are we waiting?
Joel Brooks:He's I'm sure he is just screaming in his head. I've got my my baby girl is dying. And you're asking, who touched you? But Jesus, He's in no rush. His timetable is not like our timetable.
Joel Brooks:What we see is a crisis, Jesus doesn't see as a crisis. 12 years has been working up to this moment. He knows God's in control. I can, you know speaking for me if if I was Jesus, I'm not. If I was Jesus with everybody wanting something from me, if I could just kind of heal on the fly, I take it.
Joel Brooks:I mean, wouldn't you like if you could if you didn't even have to stop, you know, I could just keep doing keeping somebody just on their own reaches out touches in his heels. I'm like, great. Didn't even have to stop drive through healing. It's like that's that's the ideal. But Jesus, he he doesn't see it that way as all.
Joel Brooks:Jesus No. He he stops. Why? The whole point of the story is him stopping. He stops because Jesus wants to do more than heal us.
Joel Brooks:He wants to have a relationship with us. I mean, this this woman here, she was just seeking Jesus for his power, and Jesus said, not enough. I won't be used like that. You can't seek me just for my power. I want a relationship with you.
Joel Brooks:And he stops. Jesus won't be used. He'll be related to. Discipleship is more than us just going to Jesus in order to get our needs met. It might be the original impulse that leads us there, but discipleship is more than that.
Joel Brooks:It's about more than us, you know, going to church in order to maybe get our marriage fixed. Going to Jesus in prayer, you know, to pull you out of depression, or to cure your anxiety. Be part of a small group at a church to help free you from addiction. Give you friends. We go to Jesus for all these different reasons, and can Jesus do all of these things?
Joel Brooks:Absolutely. But know that what Jesus wants more than anything is a relationship with you. So if you're coming to Jesus, even in this place now for healing, you need to hear God say, that's great, but it's not enough. It's not enough. So in this crisis, when time is of the essence, we see that Jesus says nothing is more impress, pressing to me.
Joel Brooks:Than building this relationship with this woman. And once this woman realizes that Jesus is aware that something happened, and is calling her out, and she can't just slip away. She comes to Jesus. She's trembling. She's falling down, which has been a theme in mark so far.
Joel Brooks:People keep coming to Jesus, trembling, falling down. She's gotta be scared out of her mind because remember, she's just made everyone around her unclean And now Jesus has called her out. And he says, daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Be healed of your disease.
Joel Brooks:Now we're never given this woman's name. We have no idea who she is. We, of course, know Jarius. Who doesn't know Jarius? Ruler of the synagogue, wealthy, and established member in society.
Joel Brooks:We all know Jarius, but this woman here is a nobody. But notice Jesus gives her an identity. Daughter. He calls her daughter. In this moment, Jesus is making her family.
Joel Brooks:She goes from this isolated, nobody to being brought into the family of God. And this is what Jesus does to everyone who reaches out to him in faith. It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter the condition you were in. If you reach out to Jesus, even as an act of desperation, he'll bring you in, give you a new identity, and he makes you family.
Joel Brooks:I'm sure once again there were many many people there in that crowd that needed that, but it was only the one who reached out in faith who received it. The story then goes back to Jarius. While Jesus is talking to this woman, a messenger comes up and says, Jarius, it's too late. It's too late. Your daughter's died.
Joel Brooks:You can send Jesus back. Why bother him? Have you have you ever been with someone when they've received the phone call? Or they've received news. Hey.
Joel Brooks:You need to be sitting down. I I've got to tell you something. And they they receive the news that someone they love dearly, perhaps a parent or a friend has died. You don't forget that moment. As you see everything changed for that person and just the the devastation that sets in.
Joel Brooks:This father is just. Completely devastated in this moment. And also likely angry. Angry at Jesus angry at himself, I mean one of the things that hit me about this. It's not only did this father lose his daughter.
Joel Brooks:He wasn't there when she died. He left her as a father can't tell you that would just kill you. He left her for what a while Goose Chase and so she died without him. And he's got to be thinking that woman there she waited 12 years. She could wait 12 more minutes.
Joel Brooks:You could have come. So this mix of grief anger Jesus anger at himself. All of those things are just just turmoil inside of him, and at that moment Jesus, he overhears all this, and he looks at this man, and he says, do not fear only believe. Whole passage leading straight to this. Do not fear.
Joel Brooks:Only believe. Once again, think of how absurd that statement must have sounded. Do not fear, only believe. How would you have received Jesus's words in that moment? I should maybe a better question is, how do you receive Jesus's words in this moment?
Joel Brooks:Do not fear, only believe. You lose your job. Jesus says, do not fear, only believe. Your marriage crumbles. Jesus says, do not fear, only believe.
Joel Brooks:You're filled with just incredible anxiety or just drowning in depression, and and Jesus says, do not fear, only believe. Your body is breaking. It's failing you. Do not fear. Only believe.
Joel Brooks:What exactly is that father supposed to believe in this moment? We supposed to believe the exact same thing that we are asked to believe. That in that moment, Jesus loves us. And not only does he love us, but Jesus is powerful enough to raise the dead. That's what he's asking us to believe.
Joel Brooks:He loves us and he is powerful enough to even raise the dead. Now I don't know about you, but sometimes my belief in that is really robust. It's really strong, and there are other times where it feels like it's hanging on by a thread. I mean, there's times that, you know, you could be laying down at night, you close your eyes and the darkness, not just the physical darkness, but the emotional spiritual darkness begins setting in, and it feels like just doubts and and you're hanging on by a thread. And that's okay.
Joel Brooks:Hear me as clearly as I can say this know that Jesus has grip on you is so much stronger than your grip on him and it's not the amount of faith that you have. Once again, it's the object of your faith. And so if it's just a desperate faith, if it's just a seed like faith, if it's just the slightest thread of a faith because it's anchored to Jesus, it's enough. Jesus is the one who does the saving here. It's not the amount of our faith.
Joel Brooks:It's the object of our faith that matters. Do not fear. Only believe. Jesus says these words, He tells the cry crowds quit following Him. Dismisses them.
Joel Brooks:He brings only Peter, James, and John family into the house of the little girl. As he approaches the house, there's a commotion. There's loud wailing. These would have been the professional mourners, in a day where grief was way too common. People they had these rituals, you know, to help them work through grief.
Joel Brooks:One of the the ways they did this was they would hire mourners. This wasn't to be like a show or anything like that. It was to help the family with the grieving process. Because if you had other people loudly weeping and wailing, then you wouldn't be embarrassed to do so yourself. You wouldn't try to hold into tears, but you can let it all out because you wouldn't be alone.
Joel Brooks:And so this is their way of helping this family work through the grieving, but Jesus, he looks at all of these professional mourners there, and he just goes, why why are you weeping? It's like going to a funeral and asking, why is everybody sad? Why is everybody crying? Jesus is serious here. Well, the reason you weep, the reason you cry is because you've lost someone you love.
Joel Brooks:Let me say this as clearly as I can. Jesus never loses anyone he loves. Jesus never loses anyone he loves. Paul talks about that in Romans 8 when he says neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Death itself can't separate us from the love of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Jesus never loses anyone he loves. And so he tells the mourners This girl's not dead. She's just sleeping. To which they respond by mocking him for saying such a ridiculous thing. The girl is obviously dead, So Jesus says, you you leave.
Joel Brooks:I want everybody out. And so only the families there, only as few disciples, and then he he walks into the room where this little girl lays. Just grabs her hand. And says, Talitha kumi. I say to you little girl arise.
Joel Brooks:You could actually translate it this way. Hey, little girl or hey, darling. It's time to get up. Just like a dad would wake up a a child. Hey.
Joel Brooks:Hey, darling. It's time to get up. And she got up. Just as a little aside here. I find it interesting and I think it's important.
Joel Brooks:Mark preserves the original language for us. Talitha kumi. You know, the New Testament is written in Greek. Even though Jesus and His disciples, they almost certainly would have spoken in Aramaic, which is what these words are. And Mark for some reason he wanted to preserve for us the original words.
Joel Brooks:What Jesus actually said in Aramaic, talitha kume. I I think the reason, that Jesus did this or Mark did this Is because there's just some moments that are so unforgettable. Some words that are said in in such a moment you can never ever forget them. And for those disciples they're like I will never ever as long as I live forget what Jesus said in that moment He said, tell us of kumay. And the girl got up, and you can almost sense them retelling this story over and over to others.
Joel Brooks:Jesus went in the room. He grabbed her hand. He said this to her. Darling it's time to get up, and she got up. Everyone of course is amazed.
Joel Brooks:I love the little detail about Jesus says, Hey, don't forget to give her something to eat. I preached at a funeral yesterday from one of our members. Number of you knew her, Shrida Bolden. She died way too young at the age of 55. I preach from this story, because it's our hope.
Joel Brooks:It's actually how I introduced my daughters to the resurrection was through this story. Here's here's the truth as much as we pray for healing and we do this with that throughout our lives, the fact is this, unless Jesus physically comes to us like he did to this girl, unless Jesus physically comes to us every person in here someday is going to take their last breath. Every one of us is gonna be laid out dead, unless Jesus physically comes to us. Our hope is that after we have taken our last breath, someday Jesus will physically return, And when Jesus returns to this world, death must be. Our hope is this, that the day someday when we are dead, Jesus will come up to us and he will say, little child, it's time to get up.
Joel Brooks:Sometimes that hope hangs on by a thread, and so I want you to hear Jesus saying do not fear, only believe. Do not fear, only believe. Because what we see here is a picture of our future. We're gonna celebrate communion right now. Communion is a time when we remember these truths that Jesus both died and he rose for us.
Joel Brooks:So Jesus experienced death just like every one of us will someday experience death. But then Jesus came out the other side. The picture I have is this, and I preached this at yesterday's funeral. Is it the love of God or is it the power of God that saves us? Well it's both.
Joel Brooks:It's a love of God that is so strong that when he holds on to us, nothing can separate us from his love. He never loses anyone he loves. It's a grip strong enough it will pull us through the grave to the other side. That's what Paul talks about when he says, as often as we eat of this bread and we drink of this cup, we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. But Jesus will most certainly come again, And when he does, he will say, children arise.
Joel Brooks:So we remember Jesus on the night that he was betrayed. He took bread and he broke it, and said this is my body given for you. In the same way He took the cup and He said, this wine is my blood poured out for the forgiveness of many. And then as Paul would later say as often as you eat of this bread and you drink of this cup you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
