By Jaci Garrett | In my previous article, I gave an example of the love of Christ using John 8 and discussing Jesus’ act of getting in the dirt with the woman caught in adultery. This week, I want to talk about another way that Jesus shows love to people by using Mark 5. Full disclosure, Mark 5 is my favorite chapter in the Bible and I hold it very close to me. In Mark 5, Jesus performs three back-to-back miracles that makes this the coolest movie plot in the whole world, and I honestly cannot believe that it has not been done yet.
The chapter starts with the man that has been possessed and tucked away in a cave. He has been shackled and bound up but even those could not hold him back. Jesus enters the city and this man runs to Jesus asking him, “What do you have to do with me?” And, to make a long story short and cool, Jesus commands the demons out of the man and into some pigs that he then sends off a cliff to die. When first approached Jesus did not tell the man to go away, or that he is too unclean to be in the presence of God. No, he welcomes him and heals him.
This brings us to verses 21-43. There is so much going on here that when I preach on Mark 5, I like to break it in to two parts. So I want to start with verses 25-34. A woman with a disease that has caused her to bleed for twelve years comes to the temple. You have to understand the weight of this; during menstruation, women at this time were cast out of the city; they could not enter the temple or live in their homes. This woman had been bleeding for twelve years which means that she had been all alone for approximately 4,380 days. I cannot even imagine the pain and desperation this woman must have felt.
She comes in the temple hoping to just touch a fiber of Jesus’ clothes. She succeeds in this and scripture says that Jesus was “immediately aware that power had gone forth from him (Mark 5:30, NRSV).” He turns and begin asking who touched him; the disciples get snarky and say that everyone is touching him because the temple is crowded. Then, in this cinematic-like moment, the woman fell before Jesus and told him that it was her (she thought she would be punished). Jesus looks at her and says, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease (Mark 5:34, NRSV).” This always gives me the chills. He is not mad, he is not “disgusted” as so many would be, he just looks at her with love and compassion and heals her.
Finally we come to Jairus’ daughter (verses 21-24, 35-43). Jairus, a leader of the synagogue that is not really supposed to be in cahoots with Jesus, comes and says that his daughter is sick and dying and that he needs Jesus to come help him. In the middle of going to heal her, he is stopped by the woman with the disease, and after healing her, he overhears that the girl had passed. Jesus asked to go see her anyway. He gets there, commands everyone out of the room except her parents, Peter, John, and James. He grabs her lifeless hand, orders her to get up, and once she’s up, tells her parents to go get her a snack. Jesus came to this lifeless child, and when everyone else thought she was too far gone, He came in and proved them all wrong.
I love this chapter so much. I preach on it as often as I can. Jesus does some amazing stuff in these 43 verses. You see, there is kind of a theme here; all of these people that would be considered “untouchable” or “out of reach,” they were not so much so that Jesus could not handle it. There was never too much pain, sickness, hurt, sin, or fear that Jesus could not handle it. Jesus came to people as they were, knowing that they were God’s beautiful creation, and loved them in the midst of their situation. Jesus found beauty in all people, even those that no one else did. God is constantly doing this same thing in our lives. We can never reach a point that is too dirty, too dead, or too evil for the grace of Christ.
In this, we find an example of how we are to love people. We are called to welcome the stranger, no matter where they came from or what baggage they might carry. We are simply called to love them. In meeting someone where they are and welcoming them to us as they are, we are doing the work of Christ as displayed in Mark 5, John 8, Luke 19 and others. When someone comes to us, may we be slow to judge them, understanding that none of us is perfect and that we’re all dirty, but Christ welcomed us as we were and we are to do the same.