There are some causes that are just hopeless, aren’t there? When we were young, one of the things  Su liked about me was my hair. And sometimes she wishes I still had some. Sadly, however much she wishes, things aren’t going to change. Or take the English and sport. Every year we really believe we’re going to win at cricket, or rugby, or football - that it’s finally coming home! But where does it go home to? Germany. We’re a nation of hopeless causes.

But sometimes, it takes the suffering of others to put our own hopes into perspective. Look at what the people in today’s passage were dealing with - diseases with no cure, and the death of a child and our dashed hopes can seem trivial in comparison. And yet, as you look at this woman in need of healing, and at Jairus, in need of a miracle, they can help us understand why we hope for anything, and where our hopes can ultimately be satisfied.

The Search for Shalom

Now, Jairus, the synagogue ruler, and the woman who is bleeding are at total opposite ends of the social spectrum. Socially, they are about as different as you can get. And yet, as Mark tells their stories there are remarkable similarities. Jairus’ daughter is 12 years old, and the woman has been bleeding for 12 years, for as long as this little girl has been alive. And both Jairus’ daughter and the woman are female, in a patriarchal world. As Jesus deals with them, he’s rebuked in both cases, first by his disciples, and then by the mourners. He heals both the woman and the girl by touching them, and in both Jesus says faith is crucial.

And yet, there’s one similarity that’s so obvious you could almost miss it. They both need healing. Jairus wants his little girl to live. The woman wants her body made whole. So for all their social differences, they both want the world put right.

It’s what we all want. In all our hoping, it’s what we’re all hoping for, whether that’s to feel fulfilled in your work, or for a partner to share life with, or for your relational problems to be sorted, or for a loved one to get well. And the Old Testament has a word for that world made right - shalom - peace. And that’s not just the absence of arguments or war. And it’s not some fragile ceasefire between the way you wish the world was and the way it actually is. Shalom is a peace in which everything flourishes. It’s a rest in which everything we do bears fruit. It’s a state in which you and everything around you, your soul, your relationships, your work, prospers.

It’s what we’re all looking for. In all our activity, in all our getting, in what we spend our money on, in all our trying out the next best thing, in our search for friends and for meaning, in how we use power and influence, in our fear of death and anxiety about the future, it’s all because deep down we want shalom - the world as it should be. And we’re searching for it.

The problem is, as Mark shows us here, the world is not as it should be.

Unwanted Invaders

Look at v22, ‘Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name.’ And socially, Jairus is at the top of the tree. He’s male and a synagogue ruler, which means he was likely wealthy and a man with influence. But as those great philosophers, the Beetles sang, ‘money can’t buy me love’ and neither can it guard against heart break. Verses 22-23, ‘Seeing him [Jesus], [Jairus] fell at his feet and implored him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death.”

My little daughter. My darling daughter. She’s dying, she’s in extremis, she’s at the point where every second counts. As JC Ryle, Bishop of Liverpool, wrote, ‘‘Death comes to palaces as well as cottages, to landlords as well as tenants, to rich as well as to the poor.’ What you dread comes even to the successful and well connected. To the good, and the respected, and even, as with Jairus, to the deeply religious. 

But look what he asks Jesus, v23, “Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.” Death is casting its shadow over his daughter. Death is slowly, steadily, relentlessly approaching. And he wants it banished. He wants healing to come. He wants the light of life to dispel the darkness of death. He wants his daughter to live. He wants the world to be as it should be. He wants shalom.

But coming to Jesus carries a risk for Jairus, doesn’t it? You see, we rarely get told the names of the people Jesus interacts with. But here we do, and that’s probably because Peter, who’s memoir Mark is recording, knew Jairus. Because this is probably happening in Capernaum, Peter’s home town. And if that’s the case, then Jairus is the ruler of the synagogue where Jesus has already been attacked and accused. So what will Jairus’ colleagues, what will his social circle make of him kneeling before the one they despise? 

But Jairus is desperate. 

Now, one of my daughters spent some time working in a restaurant that was visited by some minor celebrities. And she says celebrities are the worst customers. Because there’s something about fame, about having a crowd of adoring fans, that makes you think you’re a cut above the rest. And Mark  tells us in v21 that, ‘A great crowd’ gathered about Jesus. So, being a celebrity, Jesus could have played the card, ‘er, I’m really busy, you’ll have to make an appointment with my agent’. Or he could have sent one of the disciples. But Mark tells us simply, v24, ‘And [Jesus] went with him.’ He doesn’t need any persuading or arm twisting. Jesus sees this man’s desperation and enters his world of suffering.

Except, in that great crowd, v25, ‘There was a woman’ and Mark lays out how her life has slowly unravelled: v25-26, ‘A woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse.’

And so if Jairus is at the top, this woman is at the bottom. Jairus is named, the woman has no name, she just has her shame. He has influence, she has nothing. Her health has gone. Her money has gone. And she lives in a state of perpetual ritual uncleanness, so her social network has also gone. She has been untouchable for as long as Jairus has been able to hold, and cuddle and touch his little daughter. And if her body is bleeding away, so too is her hope. And if Jairus is desperate, so is she. Except, his desperation is acute, her’s is born of years of dashed hopes and broken promises, of trying anything and spending everything to try and get better.

But, in that, she’s a picture of us all. Because we’re all in search of a life where we feel healthy, emotionally, psychologically, physically. A life where we’re thriving. And we try one thing after another to find it. But like her, our hopes can be repeatedly dashed. We think that move, or that new job, or relationship, or purchase will fill the hole and it doesn’t.  

But like Jairus, she knows Jesus is the answer to her need. Verse 27-28, ‘She had heard reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.”’ You see, it’s not just Jairus who risks by coming to Jesus. Jairus could approach him face to face, she approaches Jesus from behind. Because she’s unclean, she’s not supposed to be out in the crowd. So above all she needs to stay hidden and anonymous.

But then, it happens.

A New Day Dawns

Verse 29, ‘And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.’ So, what doctors couldn’t do, and what spending all she had couldn’t buy, Jesus did, simply by being touched. And it didn’t cost her a penny. 

And yet, she had to do something didn’t she? She had to come. She had heard, but if she had stayed home she would never have been healed. She had to come, and reach out, and touch. You see, you can recognise that you need healing, that things in your life are not as they should be, or the way you want them to be. And you can spend emotional energy, or financial resources, or just time, in search of something to satisfy you. Or you can hear, maybe from a friend, that Jesus really could make a difference, just like she had heard, but in your heart you stay at home and don’t act on it. Whereas what this woman shows us is that you need to hear, and come, and reach out and touch, and find the grace of Jesus that’s as free and fulfilling as this woman’s healing.

But you’ve got to come with faith. You see, plenty of other people were touching him that day. It’s why when he realises power has gone out of him, and demands, ‘who touched me?’, the disciples ask incredulously, v31, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say ‘Who touched me?’’ Except Jesus knows that one person in that throng of people has touched him with faith.  Someone there knew, someone believed ‘he’s the one I need’ and reached out.

The problem is, loads of people crowd around Jesus. And you can talk about him, and debate over him, you can even come to church and sing about him. And you’re touching him, but are you touching him with faith. Do you know, like this woman knew, ‘he’s my only hope’? Because it’s that that makes the difference between her touch and everyone else’s.

And look how he responds. Because despite the disciples saying, ‘o come on Jesus, look at the crowd!’, v32, ‘He looked around to see who had done it.’ Now, why does Jesus insist on identifying her? Because, while she wants a cure, he wants something more than that for her. He wants a relationship. She wants to be made well, he wants to know her and her to know him. He wants to bring her out of her anonymity, out from the fringes of the crowd. Because as one commentator puts it (Edwards), Christianity is not getting your needs met. It’s knowing Christ and being known by him.

And in v34, Jesus says to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” Daughter. What Jarius’ daughter is to him, this woman is to Jesus. And he says to her, ‘go in peace’. And almost certainly Jesus is using the Hebrew blessing, leki leshalom. ‘Go in shalom’. What she and all of us are searching for, or paying for, or hoping for, he gives her. Because he hasn’t just restored her physically. In taking away her uncleanness he’s restored her to community and she can find her place once again among the people of God as a beloved child of God. It’s what he does for all of us.

But, she’s taken up vital time, hasn’t she? And when a child is in extremis, when their internal organs and systems are collapsing, every minute counts, and Jesus has used them up talking with this woman. What must Jairus have been thinking as all this was going on? ‘Jesus, please, please talk to her later. Please can we just go?’ But Jesus is in no rush is he? Whether it’s letting a storm hit its peak before calming it, or keeping a desperate father waiting, there are times when the timing of God seems very different to ours. And maybe you’re experiencing that at the moment. Jesus has entered Jairus’ world of suffering and yet there’s no panic.

But then comes what Jairus must have dreaded. Verse 35, ‘While he [Jesus] was still speaking, there came from the ruler’s house some who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?”’

Now, when you’re a medical student you get taught how to break bad news. And you’ve got to be clear and leave no room for misunderstanding. And so, tragically, these guys get it right: ‘Your daughter is dead’. And yet having got that much right, the next bit they get wrong, because they draw a wrong conclusion: ‘don’t bother the teacher any more’. He can do nothing about death.

But Jesus overhears and says to Jairus, v36, “Do not fear, only believe.” So Jairus must do what the woman did: believe and trust Christ.

You see, in this moment, Jairus has got to shift what he’s looking at. If he only looks at the material facts, and the circumstances, and listens only to these men, he will inhabit a world where nothing miraculous happens, and nothing miraculous will happen. And the result will be despair, and his hope will crumble. But if, knowing the fact of the reality of death, Jairus now looks to Jesus, something miraculous can happen. 

But of course it’s not just Jairus who’s confronted by the hopelessness of death. They arrive at his house and Mark tells us, v38, ‘Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.’ And so Jesus asks them, v39, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.” But given the age in which they lived, they’ve seen enough dead children in their time, and they know she’s dead and so, v40, ‘They laughed at him.’ 

It’s a dangerous thing to laugh at Jesus, isn’t it? And yet, think of the world they inhabit. It’s a world where death is the end. It’s like our own. The world of scientific materialism where there is no supernatural. A flat, 2D world, where music and art and beauty and the love of a father for his dying daughter have no ultimate meaning or purpose. A world in which, as CS Lewis put it, you see through everything, until you see nothing at all.

But Jesus sent them out and went into the room where the girl was and, v41, ‘Taking her by the hand he said to her, “Talitha cumi.”’ And Talitha is the Aramaic feminine form for lamb. It’s a pet name for a little girl, it’s like calling her Lambkin. So imagine what you were called by your parents, or what you might call your daughter: poppet, darling, honey. And cumi means to get up. So this is like a father, walking into his little girl’s bedroom, pulling back the curtains and saying, ‘poppet, it’s morning, time to get up.’ Because death is like sleep to Jesus. 

And v42, ‘Immediately the girl got up and began walking… and they were immediately overcome with amazement.’ But as they stand there overcome, Jesus is still thinking of her: v43, ‘He… told them to give her something to eat.’ Because he’s not just powerful he’s tender. He’s greater than Jairus’ greatest enemy, our greatest enemy, and a new day has dawned, so someone fix her some breakfast.

But Mark doesn’t just tell us these two stories because they’re great stories, he tells them so that, like this woman, and like Jairus, we would trust in Christ. That instead of running after countless other things in search of shalom, in search of that inner sense of wellness that this woman experienced, we too would look to him. That instead of facing the despair and hopelessness of life and death in a 2D world, where all there is are the material facts, we’d find in him, not just the promise, but the reality of life.

And you can. The prophet Isaiah foresaw the suffering of Jesus at the cross and wrote, ‘He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed’ (Is 53:5). You see, the ultimate cause of every disease - the disease that afflicted this woman, and the dis-ease that afflicts our hearts - is that sin, from the first sin in the Garden, to our own sin, has thrown creation out of order. And now, disease and death stalk us. But at the cross, Jesus took it all upon himself, so that in its place, as Isaiah said, he might bring us peace - the shalom we long for.

Because what happened in Jairus’ little girl’s room was just a foretaste. As Paul says in 1 Cor 15, in Jesus’ resurrection ‘“Death is swallowed up in victory.” O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’’ (v54-55). Because it’s in Christ’s death and resurrection that all of us can find life and peace.

So, as we come to the Lord’s table, we come to the one who offers peace in place of endless searching. Who offers a feast of grace, just as he offered this little girl breakfast. Who offers life, in place of death. And only one thing is needed: faith. So come and trust him.