Jump Start # 2694

Mark 5:25-26 “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.”

Our verse today describes the woman with the issue of blood. She caught up with Jesus in a crowd. The Lord was being hurried on to Jairus’ home. This was an urgent emergency. It was a 911 moment. Jairus’ little twelve year old daughter was dying. Time was of the essence. On the way there, in the midst of a massive throng of people, this woman with an issue of blood finds her way to Jesus. She doesn’t bow. She doesn’t ask. She reaches out. She touches Jesus’ garment from His backside. Maybe she thought she could get healed without anyone knowing. Maybe even Jesus wouldn’t know. Silent. Quiet. She touches. She believes she can be healed. She must have heard others talk about miraculous healings. Just a touch. She did and immediately she was healed. Immediately, the text tells us, Jesus knew. He turned. She’s discovered. She falls to her knees, scared, embarrassed and afraid. The Lord doesn’t scold her. The Lord doesn’t rebuke her. The Lord doesn’t shame her. He talks. A conversation takes place. He calls her “Daughter,” one of the very few times Jesus ever used that word. As Jairus’ daughter slips into eternity, Jesus is having a conversation with another daughter. Both are important. Both need Him.

In our verse today, Mark gives us the back story to this woman. He tells us how long she has been ill. He tells us all that she has tried to do to get well. Now, she was broke, and worse. Helpless, hopeless, only the Lord can help her.

I want to look at the expression within our verse, “was not helped at all.” I don’t think the docs back then were quacks. By our standards today, we may think that way, but with what knowledge they had, they did the best that they could. I don’t see in this that they purposely drained her of money with the evil intentions of not helping her. The text doesn’t support that suspicion. I believe the physicians tried, but they couldn’t help her. Sometimes our modern doctors face the same thing today. They see the problem but they cannot fix it.

But there is a greater spiritual lesson for us here:

First, there are some problems that we cannot fix. We hate to admit that and we want to live with the idea that we can solve any and all problems, but there are times we can’t. I met a person the other day who is in poor health and is in great depression. Every suggestion I made, was countered with a reason why that wouldn’t work. I ran out of ideas. I felt sorry for him. I want to fix him. I want him to soar through the day rejoicing. But that’s not the case. I couldn’t fix him. And, what we learn is that we really can’t fix anyone other than ourselves. We can encourage, advise, teach, influence, but we can’t change. That’s up to the individual. I’ve see people destroying everything precious to them because of alcohol or drugs. I’ve know someone who spent the night in his car in a parking lot because he was evicted, had no money and no options. These kinds of stories breaks our hearts. We want people to do better, but until they want to do better, there isn’t much that we can do.

Second, there are some problems that last decades and decades. The years involved drains the life blood out of a family. It ruins some financially, going from clinic to therapy, to rehabs, only to see the problems continuing. We’d like problems to go away quickly. They often don’t. In our passage, the woman had the issue of blood for a dozen years. Weak, anemic, unclean socially, and now broke, her problem remained. Don’t you think she prayed, daily, if not hourly, for her health to return. Those prayers were not answered favorably. There are things we do not understand. Why did the Lord allow her to suffer for so long? Why have others suffered a lifetime with a disease?

Third, coming to Jesus is always the best thing to do. Sometimes we try to fix things on our own and only after there are no other options, do we turn to the Lord. You wonder why this woman didn’t seek Jesus out earlier? Could it be that He wasn’t in the area? Could it be that she didn’t know about Him earlier? Could it be that she thought the next doctor will be the one to heal her? The song, “Does Jesus Care,” ought to remind us how important it is to seek the Lord. Even in suffering, the Lord is there. Even through those dark, long valleys of death, the Lord is there. There is comfort in His word. There is encouragement in His people. There is hope in His promises. Someday, we leave this world and all of these promises. Someday we will be with the Lord forever.

Finally, it’s hard for us to know and understand what others go through. I can read this passage and pull some great lessons from this, but to know what it was like to stand in her shoes, I don’t. To know what it is like to bury a child, I don’t. To know what it is like to have a prodigal who refuses to come home. I don’t. To know what it is like to be broke. I don’t. I don’t know those pains. But I do and can understand pain itself. My pain may not be your pain, but we both can understand pain. I don’t have to walk in your shoes in order to share my compassion, prayers and love for you. My heart can be touched and even bleed for you, even though I do not understand your pain. Our fellowship is made up of hurting people. On a Sunday we gather. We all look the same. We sing the same songs, but among us are all kinds of hurts. Some have hurt for a long, long time. Some hurts you see by their walkers, canes and slowness. Some you never recognize. Some, like the woman in our passage, try to keep things secret. But a hurting people find comfort in the great Physician. The Lord knows. The Lord cares. The Lord comforts.

Jairus needed Jesus to come and come quickly to his house. The woman with the issue of blood also needed Jesus. I may think that I need Jesus more than you do. My needs are more pressing than your needs. I ought to come before you. How easily the Lord could have told this woman to wait here, go heal the little girl and then come back. If this woman has been ill for twelve years, another hour won’t make much difference. But, Jesus didn’t do that. She was as important to the Lord as this synagogue official. This woman had nothing to give the Lord, except her heart. It is easy for us to get things backwards and to think that your problem is really no problem at all. Had this woman and Jairus’ daughter arrived at the hospital at the same time, the woman would have been waiting as the staff worked on the little girl. That’s how we do things. Most important problems come first. That’s not how the Lord works.

She was not helped at all by the physicians. May this not be said of us when folks visit our congregations. May this not be said of us when people need questions answered. May this not be said of us…let us do all that we can to take people to the one who can help, Jesus Christ.

Roger

Jump Start # 1038

Mark 5:25-26 “A woman who 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”

  Our verse today is about the woman with the issue of blood. She came to Jesus, and touched Him from behind and was instantly healed. Jesus revealed who had done this and instead of making her feel ashamed, He praised her great faith. All of this took place as Jesus is being escorted to Jairus’s home, an official of the synagogue, to save his dying daughter. We have a miracle taking place on the way to do another miracle. It’s a great lesson that is packed full of powerful thoughts to consider.

Today, I want to focus upon two thoughts about the woman with the issue of blood.

First, some people are in a truly hopeless situation. She was. She was broke, sick, tired, prodded, poked, discouraged, unclean by Jewish law, and not getting any better. In fact, she was getting worse. Nothing was working. She was out of answers. She was out of ideas. Her medical condition would have made her tired, weak and drained. Jesus was her last hope. Jesus was her only hope. This woman presents a challenge to me. I am an eternal optimist. I am type A. I thrive on finding solutions. Practical to the core, let’s find an answer is the way I operate. There are some things we cannot fix. There are some situations that we don’t have an answer. What do we say in those circumstances? “Cheer up, I know you’ll get better?” Really? Do you know that? False hope can be as bad as no hope.

My wife is an oncology nurse. A good day for her is when a patient has completed the treatments, the labs results are looking good and they are released from needing to come back. A bad day is when the patient is told that they need to call Hospice because nothing more can be done. That gets to her. I wouldn’t do well working there. I want to fix everyone and you can’t always do that.

Sometimes marriages get that way. There has been so many broken promises and trust has been shattered by unfaithfulness so many times, that restoring the marriage seems hopeless. It’s really bad when one doesn’t care and they want to end the marriage anyway. How can you fix things when the people involved are content to let things fall apart?

Sometimes relationships get like that. Recently, I’ve talked to two different people who have not talked to their grown children in years. Things happened. They moved on in separate directions. There seems to be no hope in building a bridge to connect them. Hopeless.

The feeling of hopelessness is what leads some to giving up and taking their life. I cannot imagine what that would feel like. I think about the people on the Titanic who realized that there was no hope for them. I think about coal miners trapped in a cave in, watching fellow miners die one by one, realizing there was no hope. What a dark and empty feeling hopelessness is.

Listen to Paul’s words describing Gentiles: “remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12). Without hope. Without God.

A person who has lived a lifetime, avoiding and ignoring God, suddenly realizes at the end of his life, that he is dying without hope. His death isn’t a sweet passage into a better world, but rather, terror fills his heart because he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if God is real or not. He doesn’t know what is beyond death, if anything. He doesn’t know what will happen to him. He wants to think that he’ll go to Heaven. He hopes that he has been good enough, but he knows. He realizes that he doesn’t even know how to pray. He knows nothing about the Bible, God or things spiritual. He spent his life living for today and now he is just about out of todays. This is a man who lives without hope.

The death of Robert Ingersoll illustrates one without hope. Ingersoll lived a long time ago. He spent his life lecturing and writing in defense of atheism. He didn’t believe in God. He debated those who believed in God. His life was spent in academic pursuits of naturalism. He died. His funeral, according to newspaper reports, was oddly secular. It was strange, people reported. No hymns sung. No prayers offered. No reading of Scriptures. After the funeral, his wife and two daughters clung to his body weeping. They refused to turn his body over to the undertaker for burial. This went on for a few days. They couldn’t part with one that they knew they would never see again. His doctrines of hopelessness came to fulfillment. For them, there was nothing beyond death and death was the ultimate thief. Hopeless.

The other thought the woman with the issue of blood presents to us is that she found hope in Jesus. Man didn’t have the answers, but Jesus did. Jesus did what doctors could not. Jesus did what all of her money could not do. Jesus healed her, saved her and gave her hope. This woman shows us that in God all things are possible. With God there is hope.

Under the banner of Christ, broken lives can be forgiven, restored and given a second chance. Marriages that are doomed to crash, can be salvaged through Christ. Those who have lived for today, can have the hope of Heaven when they bow their knees to Christ.

This woman found that Jesus was the answer. That must be our message. The answer is not the church. The answer is not in what we know. The answer is in Jesus. Follow Jesus. Obey Jesus. Listen to Jesus. Learn. Change. Become.

A broke, suffering and hopeless woman was called “daughter,” by Jesus. Her faith made her well. It didn’t happen at home. It was more than just a thought. She found Jesus. She worked her way through a massive crowd. She reached out and touched Jesus. It took courage and faith to do that.  Will you do that? Will you search for Jesus? Will you reach out to Jesus? Will you overcome fears and doubts to find the one who can change your life? Isn’t it time for you to come back to where you belong? Isn’t it time to fill your life with real hope?

This unnamed woman is a hero for showing us that someone who has no hope can find hope in Jesus.

How about you?

Roger

Jump Start # 437

Mark 5:25-26  “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”

  Mark five contains a miracle within a miracle. Jesus was on the way to the home of a synagogue official. His twelve year old daughter was dying. A large crowd had gathered in the streets. As Jesus is making His way through, this unknown woman with the issue of blood touches Jesus. She is cured. The little girl dies. Jesus goes and raises her from the dead. Great section that shows the power of Jesus.

  Our thoughts from our verse shows the pitiful and hopeless situation that this woman was in. Mark describes several things: (1) she’s had this condition for a long time—12 years; (2) she had seen many doctors; (3) she was broke because of the medical bills; (4) she was not any better, in fact, she was getting worse. She was out of options. Jesus was her last hope.

  The condition of this woman describes many of us or our friends. The dreaded “C” word, cancer. Chemo, radiation, other treatments. Many visits to the doctors. Medical bills piling up. The person doesn’t feel well. The experts sadly say, the cancer is taking over. I have seen this more than once. I watched my mother go through this. The saddest words are, “had grown worse.”

  It’s hard to know what to say. What you want and what you hope for and reality are going the opposite directions. We know that God can do all things and pray must be as regular as medicine, but doctrinally God does not perform miracles these days. He works providentially but not supernaturally. There comes a time when a person realizes that they are not getting better and they will not ever get better. I have cried the tears that come with such bad news. Some get angry. Some feel cheated. Some give up.

  Hebrews 9:27 tells us that we all have an appointment with death. We’d like that appointment to be delayed and not filled until we have done all that we want to do and the kids are raised and on their own and we are old and tired and ready to go. That’s our thinking. That appointment comes to some when they are young, and yes, that’s not fair. It comes to others when they are the parents of small children. It comes to some suddenly and without notice. It comes to others after a long, long journey of sickness and pain. The appointment comes.

  Two thoughts for us: first, all of us need to be walking with Jesus. We need that. We need Jesus. We need forgiveness. We need the hope that this world, this life, and these times cannot give to us. Death is not the worse thing that can happen to us. The end of life is viewed differently when one has Christ and when one doesn’t. The disciples of Jesus realize that all the things that have burdened us here will not carry over to Heaven. There will be no cancer in Heaven. There will be no doctor appointments to be kept, tests to be taken, pills to be swallowed, shots to be given. You won’t feel bad in Heaven—ever! You won’t age in Heaven –ever! You won’t lose your sight, hearing or teeth after a thousand years in Heaven. We will be different and Heaven will be different. For the disciple of Jesus, death is just a door. It is the opposite of birth. With birth, we were alive in our mother’s womb. Birth took us from there to here. Death takes us from here to there. It’s a doorway. The more of Heaven in you the less of earth that appeals to you. A person gets to the point where they want to pass through that door and be with the Lord on the other side.

  Second, it’s hard to know what to say to someone who is not going to recover. I’ve been there too many times to count. I’ve seen many, many people take their last breath. It’s a solemn and tearful experience, especially when that person is family. I say prayers with the family. I ask God for a quick and easy exit for them. I let the people know that I love them. It’s hard when the person doesn’t know Jesus. They have lived a full life but never journeyed with the Lord. What then? Don’t judge. Let God do that in His time and in His way. Help the family. They have questions, doubts and fears. Don’t say things that are not true. Don’t give false hope. For the unrighteous, their suffering may only really begin AFTER death. Don’t say, “At least their suffering has ended.” It may not. Only God knows for sure. I tell them that God loves them and loved their family member.

  I have found that many will want to know where are they, what happens after death. A reading of Luke 16 and the rich man and Lazarus will show what takes place. There are other passages. The end of life turns many people to thinking about the Lord. There are many weird and unbiblical ideas people have. They are trying to hold on to something and find a reason and often that’s hard to do.

  I wonder how many others in that village were getting worse. This woman found Jesus. Others didn’t. But even this woman who was healed eventually died. We all have that appointment, don’t we? We can do something while we have health and options, can’t we? We can be instruments for God to help others when they are struggling with these issues. 

Roger