One prominent feature of this episode in the life of Jesus is the crowd. The crowd always is present in this text. In fact, this is one the primary features of the Gospel of Mark – the crowd. People are everywhere in Mark’s Gospel. In this text, the crowd was there when Jesus’ boat approached the shore. The crowd was there as Jesus moved through the town, following Jairus toward his home. The crowd was there when the poor woman with the hemorrhage of blood slipped in behind Jesus to touch the hem of his garment. The crowd was there, first weeping and then laughing, at Jairus’ house with Jairus’ dead daughter inside.
The crowd always was with Jesus. The crowd makes this text a little hectic. These scenes are full of commotion. The crowd, Mark tells us, “thronged about” Jesus. That means they were jostling each other, pushing in, eager. Some in the great crowd that surrounded Jesus believed deeply in Him. They believed in His power to heal. They thought if they could just touch him, they would be healed (Mark 3:10). Others in that great crowd were irreverent – skeptical even. You can count the disciples among them. “What do you mean someone touched you? Of course someone touched you. Just look at this crowd. Everyone’s trying to touch you!” Meanwhile, the people at Jairus’ house frowned their faces at Jesus. “No, Jesus, that poor, 12-year-old girl is dead alright. She’s certainly not sleeping. We know death when we see it. The land of Israel always has been full of death. Are you trying to make some kind of a joke?”
Two healings occurred in this text. And Jesus labored in this text, I think. He worked. But Jesus didn’t labor with the healings. Those seemed quite easy for Jesus. No, Jesus labored with the crowd – the difficult, boisterous, pushy, doubtful crowd. Jesus’ work was with the people. The miracles do not appear to have been any work at all.
Some of us don’t like crowds. We will avoid crowds at all costs. That’s why some of us chose to live in a place like this. To us, crowds mean stress and anxiety. They mean work. The problem with crowds, we know, is they are full of people. And people are difficult.
I recall our family visiting Disney World years ago. The thing I remember most about our visit to the “magic kingdom” were the first three minutes inside the park. The park was having some kind of “dance party” that morning, and we were swept into it. If you haven’t been there, the front entrance to Disney World is like a main street, with shops along both sides. It’s supposed to look like a scene from a Disney film. Parents and children were shoulder-to-shoulder moving down the street. Vendors were everywhere, selling all sorts of souvenirs. The scent of food was in the air. Costumed performers were dancing around in circles. Some were dressed like Disney characters. The music was blaring. Above us were people, balanced on tall stilts, dancing.
I’ll never forget that moment. It was a bit much for me. If I was a child, you would say I was “over-stimulated.” Sight, sound, smell – it overwhelmed my senses. I just wanted to get out of there, and we did. I ushered our family right through that “dance party.” It was an evacuation drill for our kids. “Keep moving! Don’t look back! Where are the roller-coasters anyway? Anyone have a map?” It was a lot – moving along with the thronging crowd. I’d prefer a quiet day in the woods.
Some of us don’t like crowds. Jesus had no choice. He spent his ministry on earth laboring with the crowds – with people of all walks of life. He labored with people who wore costumes and pretended they were something they were not. He labored with people who were loud and obnoxious. He labored with people who were sad and sick. He labored with people who wanted to accuse Him and hurt Him. He labored with people who just wanted to escape but were stuck there in the crowd. He labored with the happy and the hurt.
Who are these people? When I look at a crowd, I just see bodies and facial expressions and movement and noise. Some people might look at a crowd and just see germs – “a good way to get sick,” they say, “hanging around all those people, in the crowd.” Some people might look at a crowd and feel eyes. “Is everyone looking at me?” Some people might look at a crowd and find it very energizing. Others might find it exhausting.
Jesus had no choice in any of this. The crowds just were with Him – seemingly all the time. Who were these people?
In Mark 5:21-43, the crowd produced two individuals. These two people ceased simply to be part of the crowd. They became individuals. They had histories. They had social standings in their communities. They had desires and personalities.
One of these individuals was a man named Jairus. Jairus had a family – a wife and a 12-year-old daughter. The gospel of Luke informs us she was his only daughter. Jairus was a leader in the community. He ruled over the synagogue, which was the house of worship for the Jews in that town. Jairus was a respected man. He also likely was a wealthy one. He was a symbol of spirituality, of faithfulness, of ritual purity. But Jairus had a problem. His daughter was on the verge of death. Jairus was desperate. That is the first person who emerged from the crowd that day – the man named Jairus.
The other individual who emerged from the crowd that day was a woman – a nameless woman. Women obviously are different than men, and in those days, they had a lower social standing than men. And this woman’s situation even was worse. She suffered from an issue of blood. This hemorrhage would have been a major inconvenience and obstacle to a normal life. But it also likely made her ritually unclean among the Israelites. It was the law. This woman would not have been welcome in open society for fear she might contaminate others. Her ritual impurity was contagious. This woman likely didn’t have a husband. She wasn’t exactly “marriage material,” if you know what I mean. And she may have been unable to have children even if she had been married. We’re not sure what kind of job this woman worked, but she may have been unemployable – because of the blood. And we know she was poor – her finances ravaged by all the doctors she’d visited for those 12 years. Those doctors left her worse off than when she began. So she probably was a pretty frustrated and depressed. And, suffice it to say, she was desperate. And again, we don’t know her name.
These were the two people who emerged that day from the crowd that surrounded Jesus Christ. They are very different kinds of people, aren’t they? One was a prominent man – wealthy, with a family, ritually pure, respected, powerful. We know his name was Jairus. The other was a lowly woman – likely poor, likely with no family, ritually impure, shunned, powerless. We don’t know her name. But both these individuals were desperate. They had needs. And they’d heard about what Jesus could do.
We look at the crowd. Who are these people? Well, now we know two of them.
Is there anything that ought to keep a person from coming to Jesus? This text reminds us nothing needs to separate us from Christ. Not our gender. Not our social status. Not our economics or wealth. Not our ritual purity or religious background. Not our family status, our fertility, our history, our physical ailments.
Out of that crowd came two very different individuals. But the thing they had in common was they came. Jairus walked up to Jesus and fell at His feet. The nameless woman took a different tact. But by the end of her story, she also was on the ground at Jesus’ feet.
Different kinds of people, but similar, desperate needs. And faith. I assume you saw how faith is the theme here. These healings were predicated on faith.
Jesus didn’t let the woman remain in the crowd, anonymous, nameless. We don’t know her name, but someone in that crowd likely did. “Who touched my garments?” Jesus didn’t let the woman hide. No, no. That wouldn’t do. You must confess your faith.
And she did. In fear and trembling, feeling in her body that she’d been healed. She fell down at Jesus’ feet and told him the “whole truth.” This is faith. It doesn’t matter who hears. The social conventions don’t matter. Nothing matters but Jesus. “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
And then the people came from Jairus’ house just then, with bad news. “Your daughter is dead, Jairus. I’m sorry. It’s over. Don’t waste the Teacher’s time anymore. Come on home. We’ll help you bury her.” It’s like letting the air out of the balloon … or building the tension. Jesus heard it, and He told Jairus, “Do not fear, only believe.” Remember, this text is about faith.
And Jairus did believe. He believed all the way home, all the way through that weeping crowd standing on his front porch, all the way through their certainty about the girl really being dead, all the way into the room with his wife and Jesus and those three young, wide-eyed disciples. Jairus believed with a faith that persevered in the face of the world’s unbelief. We know Jairus believed because that little girl woke up and had lunch.
This is what was in the crowd around Jesus – some people with faith like this. It’s the same faith we are called to have. It’s a faith that seeks out the salvation that only Jesus can provide. It’s a faith that rises irrespective of a person’s background – rich or poor, male or female, black or white or brown, healthy or disabled. None of that matters. It’s a faith that steps out publicly and falls at Jesus’ feet. It’s a faith that knows it cannot be silent – that it must tell the “whole truth” – that it must witness. It’s a faith that perseveres when the world laughs at it.
And Jesus labored with the crowd, looking for that kind of faith. He found it.
We were at a spring training baseball game in Arizona. It brought a big crowd. In the ninth inning, the would-be players were given opportunities to bat. These were the players who had small chance to make the team. One of those would-be players had the first name of Harold. I remember his name because a little girl next to us was cheering for Harold. “Harold, you can do it!” “You got this, Harold!” “Come on, Harold. I believe in you!” The sweet voice of a child, cheering on Harold. Everyone nearby could hear her. It made us chuckle. It was misplaced faith. Harold hit a fly ball to left field that was caught. And he didn’t make the team.
But there’s something to it, I think. Is your faith in Jesus even that bold, unashamed, vocal? Remember, Jesus is looking for that kind of faith in this crowd – the desperate faith of Jairus, the fearful and trembling faith of the nameless woman. Paul wrote it to us, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). Believe and confess your belief. That’s salvation.
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