Do not FEAR – only Believe (Mark 5:36)

“Do not fear, only believe” (Mk. 5:36). Jesus’s words in Mark show us that Faith is the solution to fear.

For my 9-5 job, I work with children and youth who are in foster care and their families. This involves investigating the circumstances that brought the children into care and combing through pages and pages of reports on a weekly basis. Just this last week I read that a client typically uses, “a boat and a half” of fentanyl multiple times a day. This phrasing caught my eye because for the first time in 10 years of reviewing these reports, I was not sure how much that meant… I did not know the “lingo” for this level of usage. I dropped to my knees praising the Lord that I did not know this! It reminded me of where Christ brought me from, He truly has “put a new song in my mouth” (Psalm 40:3).

This last month I have been doing a slow read through the book of Matthew. Matthew specifically grouped his book in topical order, not chronological order, with over 60% of the book containing teachings and guidance that Jesus personally spoke. Restoration to the Broken could be a title heading for the four miracles recorded in Matthew 9:18-38. In light of my reminder this week I want to look a little closer at two of these miracles recorded. A miracle restoring a Broken Home (vv 18-19, 23-26) and restoration of a Broken Hope (vv 20-22; Mark 5:26).

For sake of time I will not be including all of the passage text so I HIGHLY encourage you to look at the passages being discussed.

A BROKEN HOME: It must have been hard for Jairus to come to Jesus, since he was a devout jew and the leader in the synagogue. BUT Jairus’s love for his dying daughter compelled him to seek Jesus’ help, even if the religious leaders were opposing him. When Jairus first came to Jesus, his daughter was close to death. A delay caused by another woman ended with Jairus’s friends coming to relay the news that his daughter had died, no need to continue to bother the teacher.

Jesus, being compassionate, reassured Jairus and went with him.

This delay gave Jairus a great opportunity to see what a MEAGER Faith can accomplish.

No matter how our circumstances look, no matter what other’s say, no matter how we feel; We should trust Jesus and His promises. Jairus was frightened – yet Jesus took command and raised the girl from the dead.

A Broken Hope: A woman who for 12 years had been ill with a hemorrhage, a discharge of blood. Mark 5:26 informs us that this woman had tried many physicians, but none could help her. Imagine the despair and discouragement she felt. Her hopes were shattered. Because of this hemorrhage, the woman was ceremonially unclean (Lev. 15:25), which only added to her hopelessness, as she had no community.

It is interesting that Jairus and this woman – two opposite people – met at the feet of Jesus. Jairus was a leading Jewish man; she wan an anonymous woman, with no prestige or resources.

He was a synagogue leader, while her affliction kept her from worship. Jairus came pleading for his daughter; the woman had a need of her own. The girl had been healthy for 12 years and then died; the woman had been ill for 12 years and was now whole. Jairus’s need was public – all knew it; the woman’s need was private only Jesus understood. Both Jairus and the woman trusted Jesus, and He met their needs.

Jairus could have resented the woman, because she kept Jesus from getting to his daughter before she died. But his real problem was not the woman but himself. He needed faith in Christ. Jesus forced the woman to give her testimony (See Mark’s account, Mark 5:25-34) BOTH for her sake and for the sake of Jairus. The fact the God has helped others ought to encourage us to TRUST Him more.

We can wait for the Lord – knowing that He is never late.

The woman’s faith was almost superstitious, and yet, Jesus honored it and healed her. We (people) must “touch” Christ where we/they are able, sometimes the starting place is at the hem of His garment. The Pharisees enlarged their hems and tassels in order to appear more spiritual, but they lacked the power to heal (Matt. 23:5). Others touched the hem of Jesus’s garment and were also healed (Matt. 14:34-36).

The woman’s meager faith reminded me this week of the amount of physicians, therapists, and others I consulted with when I was lost in my addiction, under the deep waters of sexual abuse and trauma, injuring my self as to show on the outside what an “outcast” I was on the inside and without community. Time and time again I sought healing but was never healed. Time and time again I walked away with a false hope, one that would slip away…

Until I touched the hem of Christ’s garment.

It was scary at first, scary to trust in something I could not see, something that required a full trust, but would leave me healed.

Now looking back over all of these years I can see just how small my Faith started out and how Jesus honored that and healed me. For some things it was quick and immediate like the woman with the hemorrhage, for other things it took time and took me growing in my faith, like Jairus I needed to see and hear the testimony of others, to trust what I could not see. To turn away from how things “looked” or “felt” to me and to Trust in Jesus.

I don’t know what your fear is today, friend. Maybe your are praying for healing for someone else, like Jairus was with his daughter or maybe your like the Woman and have an ailment of your own. Whatever it is, reach out for Christ.

Come like Jairus or come in fear and trembling like the Woman. The Greek word for “made well” can mean either “heal” or “save”. God is the one who heals. “In this instance this Woman’s FAITH was the divinely appointed means for her bodily healing AND for her spiritual salvation.”(Warren Wiersbe).

For me, I needed both healing and salvation, God brought what was dead to life.

Jesus did not come to mix the law and grace, HE came with New Life.

Do not fear – only Believe… Jesus is the ONE who takes what is unclean and makes it clean, takes what is dead and brings it to New Life.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

When Sir James Simpson, the inventor of chloroform, was dying, a friend said to him, “You will soon be resting on His bosom.” The scientist replied: “I don’t know as I can do that, but I think I have hold of the hem of His garment.”

It is not the strength of our faith that saves us, but faith in a STRONG Savior.