Mark 5
v.4
For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him.
How long has man looked to earhtly methods to cure spiritual ills? Let us not delay until a demonic possession has to point us to the one who has overcome.
v.13
He gave them permission, and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.
v.17
Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.
v.19
Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.”
But the probable reason is, that he desired to restore him to his family and friends. Jesus was unwilling to delay the joy of his friends, and to prolong their anxiety by suffering him to remain away from them.
The incident recorded here may be the first time Jesus leaves a prospective follower behind, not because he was unworthy, but because God has prepared a greater purpose for him. The man certainly would have benefitted from traveling with Jesus and learning from Him. But the Kingdom of God is better served by his witness to his friends and family. Jesus not only heals him, He allows the man to return and reconcile with his family. And as a Gentile with no pre-conceived notions about the Messiah, he can spread the pure news that God has shown mercy and saved him.
Jesus doesn’t need all of us to go to Bible college, or to become missionaries and pastors. Some Christians can have a greater impact bearing witness to Christ by evangelizing right where we are. This man’s witness had a part in paving the way for the gospel of salvation that spread through Gentile communities after Jesus’ ascension.
Perhaps, too, his prayer was not answered, lest his fear should have been thereby sanctioned. If he did fear, and I feel morally certain that he did, that the devils would return, then, of course, he longed to be with Christ. But Christ took that fear from him, and as good as says to him, ‘You do not need to be near me; I have so healed that you will never be sick again.’
v.30
At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”
It is not every contact with Christ that saves men; it is the arousing of yourself to come near to him, the determinate, the personal, resolute, believing touch of Jesus Christ which saves.
but he did it that the woman might herself make a confession of the whole matter, so that the power of her faith and the greatness of the miracle might be manifested to the praise of God.
v.34
He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
Poor Jairus! During all this, his daughter laid ill at home, her life slipping away. It was torture to see Jesus take time out to minister to this woman while his daughter suffered. God is never slow, but He often seems slow to the sufferer.
First, Jesus calls her “daughter.” She is the only person in the New Testament to be called daughter by Jesus.
There is abroad a vague idea that somehow we get good from external association with religious acts, and so on. This feeling is deep in human nature, is not confined to the Roman Catholic Church, and is not the work of priests. There is a strange revival of it to-day, and so there is need of protest against it in every form.
v.36
Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”
Jesus told Jairus to do two things. First, to stop being afraid. It sounds almost cruel for Jesus to say this to a man who just lost his daughter, but Jesus knew that fear and faith don’t go together. Before Jairus could really trust Jesus, he had to decide to put away fear. Second, Jesus told Jairus to only believe. Don’t try to believe and be afraid at the same time. Don’t try to believe and figure it all out. Don’t try to believe and make sense of the delay. Instead, only believe.