This past June, I taught from Matthew concerning the authority of Christ. Before beginning, I pointed out two purposes for the sermon: 1. To teach on the authority of Christ and how it applies to us, and 2. To encourage laboring in the Word in light of His faithfulness. I want to do something similar with our passage tonight. Obviously, I want to point out the truths which Mark is communicating to us in Chapter 5. But also, I simply want to encourage studying the Word of God and gleaning applicable truths from it for our daily lives. Again, everything I teach tonight comes simply from God teaching it to me as I have read through Mark in the mornings. God is so faithful to His Word. In fact, the very day I was reading through Mark 5, God was burdening me to teach what I was being taught. Before the day was over, Missi Markham called and asked me if I wanted to teach a Bible study at the Market, where she works. God immediately taught me that He is faithful. Not only does He teach us His Word, but He burdens us to teach to it others, and then even offers us the way in which we will do it. Oh, the faithfulness of God!!
So, tonight I simply want to walk through Mark 5 and identify what God taught me. We will be reading the chapter in its entirety as we go, so let’s begin with prayer.
The Gerasene Demoniac (v.1-20)
The chapter is basically broken up into three stories about three particular people. The first story is about the Gerasene demoniac and is found in verses 1-20. The first 5 verses of the chapter really reveal to us the state of the man. In verse 5 we see it clearly: “And constantly night and day, among the tombs and in the mountains, he was crying out and gashing himself with stones.” From this verse we see the utter hopelessness of the man. He is secluded from everyone ‘among the tombs and in the mountains.’ Mark told us in verse 3 that no one was even able to come near him for he could not be chained. The man is alone. Also, it is revealed to us that the man is not only against everyone else, he even attacks his own flesh. He “gashes himself with stones.” He has declared even himself an enemy. And this is his daily routine. Mark tells us that “constantly night and day” he did these things. This is a hopeless, desperate man. Everything about him screams out for help. And help arrives.
Look at verses 6-20 with me. Jesus arrives triumphantly on the scene. Even before the man has approached Christ, Jesus is commanding that the demons leave him. And just look at the transformation that takes place. In verse 15, Mark records: “And they came to Jesus and observed the man who had been demon-possessed sitting down, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the ‘legion’; and they became frightened.” The very man who could no longer be bound by chains and spent all his time alone and tore his own flesh, now sat beside Christ “clothed and in his right mind.” Can we understand the transformation that took place here? Mark gives us a detail that really clues us in I think. He tells us that the people “became frightened” when they observed the man. They recognized that something incredible had happened. They knew the man, they knew his actions, and they knew what he was like. And now to see him completely transformed was simply too much. They could not imagine the power at work here and their fear forced them to ask Jesus to leave. Oh the power of God that transforms the lives of men in such a way as to frighten all those who witness it!!
In verse 19-20, I began to realize what God was wanting to teach me. When the man asks to go with Jesus and follow Him, Jesus replies, “Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He had mercy on you.” What a beautiful picture of the mercy of God. Christ took a hopeless, desperate man and transformed him into a vessel for His glory. That is a wonderful truth and it is clearly seen, yet, God was not through teaching it to me and to us. So let us read on.
The woman with the hemorrhage (v.25-34)
In verses 21-24 Mark begins the story of Jairus and his daughter, which we will return to later. In the middle of that story, Mark relates another miraculous story. It begins in verse 25 and runs through verse 34. Here we are introduced to a desperate woman. Verse 25-26 states it clearly: “And a woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years, and had endured much at the hands of many physicians, and had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse…” For twelve years the lady has dealt with this horrible condition. She has tried everything she knows to try and visited every doctor and spent all her money, only for her condition to grow worse. Nothing had helped and nothing had worked for 12 years. Many of us can sympathize with such a condition; perhaps we have known someone who has suffered in a similar manner. I do not want to exaggerate and present things worse than they were, but twelve years is a long time. And it appears that this disease has taken over. You do not spend all you have on something that you can just live with. She was desperate. She had nowhere to go. And that is exactly where Jesus met her.
She comes to Jesus and longs just to touch His cloak believing that even that would make her well. And her belief is rewarded. We read in verse 29 that when she touched his garment “immediately the flow of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.” Jesus immediately recognizes what has happened and begins to look for the lady. When He finds her, He once again responds in an unbelievable way. In verse 34 He says: “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your affliction.” Again can we even understand the magnitude of the event. Twelve years of suffering, completely broke, and absolutely nowhere to turn. And in this broken state, Christ meets her and heals her.
At this point I definitely began to see a pattern developing. For the second time, Christ finds someone who is completely desperate and meets their need with His great mercy. And in the third story, we see this pattern play out again.
Jairus and his daughter (v. 21-24, 35-43)
We left Jairus in verse 24 having met Jesus and asked Him to come and heal his daughter. We see the weight of the situation in verses 22-23: “And one of the synagogue officials named Jairus came up, and upon seeing Him, fell at His feet, and entreated Him saying, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death; please come and lay your hands on her, that she may get well and live.’” Jesus agrees to go with Jairus but before He gets very far He has the encounter with the woman. And while Jesus is dealing with her, Jairus’ situation grows drastically worse. For even while Jesus is speaking, others come from Jairus’ house to tell him in verse 35: “Your daughter has died; why trouble the teacher anymore.” I cannot even imagine what must have run through the mind of Jairus. It is obviously only speculation, but you know he must have been shaken to the core. What was he going to do now? Where could he turn? How could he make sense of it all? Yet, even before he could process it, Christ spoke up. In verse 36 He says: “Do not be afraid any longer, only believe.” I think this is remarkable. Only Jesus could know that the emotion that gripped him was fear. Again this is speculation, but possibly that had been the man’s struggle all along. He loved his little girl and was so afraid that he would have to live without her. Now I do not know that to be the case, but either way, for some reason it was his fear that Jesus addressed. He told him to believe and they proceeded to the house.
Now, I have to point this out because I just love the detail of Mark. Notice that when they get to the house the mourners have already gathered. Jesus immediately silences them and tell them that she is only asleep. At this, they begin to laugh at Jesus and notice how Jesus responds in verse 40: “And they began laughing at Him. But putting them all out, He took along the child’s father and mother and His own companions, and entered the room where the child was.” Jesus kicked them out of the house. He did not even put up with their mocking: Mark records that he just put them all out. You just have to love that detail. There is no questioning who is in control of the situation.
In verses 41-43, we see Jesus once again meet a desperate need. The girl was not sick, she was dead. Hope was not just lost, it was a ridiculous notion, for the girl was dead. But this is again where we see the power and mercy of God, for Christ meets this hopeless, desperate situation with his mercy. For the third time, we encounter someone who is in a horrible state, completely desperate with seemingly no hope, and we find Christ right in the middle of it all, meeting the great need with His even greater mercy. Has God not made that clear to us in this chapter? How great is it to really see this theme stick out in these three stories? Yet, the question remains, ‘How does all this apply to us?’
Application
Basically I want to say three things about what we can learn from this chapter. I want to first identify two false conclusions and then identify a right one.
The first false conclusion is that Jesus will heal every time. Our God is a sovereign God and He does what He pleases. And we have seen in our lives that it is not always His will to heal. In fact, I have dealt with diabetes for about twelve years now. And do not think I have not asked God to rid me of this disease. Believe me, the first few months following my discovery, I begged God to heal me. But He did not. Now, does this mean that God has not shown me mercy? No, I do not think so at all. In fact, I think He has shown me more mercy by not healing me than if He would have chosen to heal me. God wanted my attention in sixth grade and He chose diabetes to do it. He had great lessons about life and death and responsibility that He wanted to teach me and He used diabetes to do that. How could I not view that as mercy. Oh, the mercy of God that He would allow me to have a disease that would draw me closer to Him. Now hear me, I did not earn that in any way. He did not have to do the things He has done in my life to draw me to Himself. He will have mercy upon whom He wants. But I cannot deny the mercy of God in my life and that is a miracle. The lesson is not that He will heal every time. If anything, it is that in spite of what we deserve, He often does heal and sometimes in His wisdom He uses our affliction to teach great truths about Himself. And that is mercy.
The second false conclusion is that we make demands that God must follow. Again, we must understand theology to know that this is false. God is not our big Genie in the sky. We do not simply toss up prayers like we toss pennies into a well and He answers our every whim. I do not see that in this passage. Again, did Christ have to cast out the demon or hear the women or raise the daughter. No, but in His great mercy, He chose to. And that is remarkable.
Instead, a proper conclusion I think we can draw is that God does meet desperate people with great mercy. He does not have to, but He does choose to; this chapter is evidence of that. And you know that is the gospel. It is every believer’s testimony. Has God not rescued us all, as believers, from our desperate state? Has He not met us all with His unbelievable mercy even while we were still dead in our sins? Oh the greatness of the gospel of Jesus Christ!! Do we not see ourselves so clearly in the three stories of Mark 5? And you may say, “What does this have to do with the gospel and the forgiveness of sins?” In response, I would simply point to Mark 2:3-12. Here we see the story of the paralytic being brought to Jesus. And Jesus first forgives His sins. The people our outraged and cannot believe that He has said this. But Jesus says in verses 10-11: “But in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home.” The miracle of the healing points to Christ’s authority over sin. Thus, these stories in Mark 5 remind us of the spiritual healings that have taken place in our lives. We are as desperate as the demoniac, the lady with the hemorrhage, and even Jairus’ daughter. In fact, in our sin, we are worse than them. We are dead before God. But praise be to the Father of mercy who has found us in our desperate state and has made us alive in Christ. These three stories paint a clear picture of what God has done for us. Oh the mercy of God!! And in the end, I know of only one response to such great mercy: joyful worship through constant obedience. May the mercy of God spur you on to that end!!