Tenderness and Compassion (Part 1)

“And when Yeshua had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him, and he was beside the sea. Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet and implored him earnestly, saying, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.’ And he went with him. And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him.

And there was 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. She had heard the reports about Yeshua 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.’ And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Yeshua, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my garments?’ And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, “Who touched me?”’ And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.'" (Mark 5:21-34)

Among all the stories of the ministry of Yeshua, none in certain regards is more beautiful than this of two sorrowful souls who found their way to him and were comforted.

Taken as one story, it is supremely a revelation of the sensitiveness of the servant of God to human sorrow, and of his ready, almost eager response thereto. To read this story naturally, is inevitably to be brought into very close sympathy with these two suffering individuals.

In proportion as we have trodden the sorrowful way, and ourselves have known anything of pain, we read these stories intelligently, and are carried immediately over the years to Jairus and the “woman”, for their successors are yet with us. In the land of the Gerasenes, Yeshua had manifested his power over demons most remarkably. On the other side, multitudes gathered about him.

Mark 5:24: “And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him.”

The word Mark employs is very suggestive: “thronged about him”. The exact thought being of “pressing upon Yeshua”.

Were you ever in a crowd? These multitudes were curious, interested, and yet entirely ignorant of all the tenderness and compassion of Yeshua’s heart or of the capacity of his heart of love.

It was a great human picture.

Mark 5:23: “Jairus implored him earnestly, saying, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.’”

How many know the parental love that is revealed here? It is strange, mystic and different from all other loves having qualities all its own, so fine, so subtle, so delicate. Jairus employed a phrase which had at its very heart, a sense of proprietorship: “My little daughter”. Oh! That strange agony in the love of parent for child that makes the parent ever tremble when they suffer!

Luke records that she was the only daughter and twelve years old. Twelve years of sunshine; twelve years of music in the home. The sorrow is revealed in one graphic sentence: “My little daughter is at the point of death.” A cloud was over the home. Silence was within the home.

We now turn and look at the woman for deep as the sorrow of Jairus was, there were deeper depths here. Home, society, and religion were the important things in the real life of true womanhood. She was suffering from an ailment which had weakened her and was in itself destructive.

View this woman in her times. All women suffering from hemorrhaging in that age were suspect. By the very law of her people, she was divorced from her husband and could not live in her home. She was ostracized from all society and could not come into contact with her old friends. She was excommunicated from the services of the synagogue and from the women’s court in the Temple. Hers is indeed a pathetic figure: twelve years of agony, physical, mental, spiritual, in which she had poured out her wealth in the attempt to regain her health with no success. She was none the better, but grew worse.

In the case of Jairus, twelve years of sunshine suddenly devastated with the death of the child. In the case of the woman, twelve years of suffering gradually issued into inward desolation.

Now, let us observe Yeshua. Imagine ourselves amongst the throng of people around him: We have followed him through the fields. We have been amazed by the wisdom of his teaching. We have been watchful in the presence of his power. We have seen him dealing with the vast underworld of evil, casting out demons. Let us look at him in the presence of these people of sorrow.

Jairus came to him with a public request; the woman came to him in a private approach. Jairus came to him in the midst of the crowds asking him definitely and openly that all might hear; the woman came, yet how she did is hard to understand. How difficult some of us in full vigour find it to get through crowds. Think of the crowds and this weak woman worn and emaciated with twelve years of suffering. Yet she reached him! She came quietly and she touched him. The word “touched” does not convey the thought: It was the clutch of the hand of despair. She said: “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” So she came to him.

While she was coming, Yeshua was on his way to Jairus’ house. At this point, the compassion of Yeshua was not for the daughter, it was the agony of the father that appealed to him. On the way, he was delayed. The woman had touched him. Power had gone out to her healing, and he tarried. Why not pass on?

He accepted each one at face value. Looks or position did not offend him. Why did he not go on? Because he knew that at the house of Jairus the child lay dead, and that the messengers were telling Jairus the sad news. He paused to lead Jairus into an atmosphere in which it would be possible for him to believe; he paused for Jairus’s sake. Jairus must have asked himself: “Why does he tarry so long? My child is dying!”

To be continued...