Get Out, Get Up

The first few chapters of Mark move so quickly, it feels like Jesus is zig-zagging across the Sea of Galilee ministering. At the beginning of Mark 5, Jesus had just freed a man who had been bound by a legion of demons. Immediately following this interaction, he gets into the boat with his disciples and crosses to the other side of the lake again. When he gets there, a local synagogue leader named Jairus, falls at his feet and pleads for Jesus to come heal his little daughter who was dying. His bold faith begs, “Please come and lay your hands on her; heal her so she can live.” (Mark 5:23) Jesus does. 

As they are walking, the faith of another daughter, who has experienced constant bleeding, heals her. And it’s during this interaction that messengers arrive with news that Jesus was too late, he shouldn’t bother coming. Jairus’s daughter was already dead. 

Are there any hopes, dreams, plans and purposes of God for your life that are sick, and lay dying? Any place you’ve given up hope that you’ll ever see the Lord’s will be done in your life, or the life of your loved one? Do circumstances in your life seem dire and hopeless? 

Jesus tells him, and us, in the midst of dire news to “just have faith.” (5:36)

As they arrived at the house the weeping and wailing had already begun. Wailers were commonly invited and hired to help begin the grieving process for the family. Often there would be so much shock and trauma surrounding the death of a loved one, the sound of cries and wails, would initiate the grieving process for the family, and jolt them out of the stunned state they were in. It’s likely that is who is gathered around the house, in addition to family. 

Jesus will have none of it. He isn’t shocked, or traumatized by her death. He isn’t coming into agreement with grief and refuses to let what is evident on earth to dominate what is evident in heaven. He refutes their cries with one of his own, “Why all this commotion and weeping? The child isn’t dead; she’s only asleep.” (5:39)

They laughed, so clearly seeing the way things are, instead of seeing the way he wants them to be. His response is clear and conclusive. It’s in this moment, as Jesus tows the line between two realities, two kingdoms, two causes, that we see how he is inviting us to partner to bring heaven to earth in two ways.

1. Get out: 

Jesus told those that were against the will of God to Get out.  Since they refused to gain his perspective, he made them get out. They didn’t get to see the miracle with their eyes, because they had already refused the miracle in their hearts. 

Are your words, or thoughts, or the thoughts & words of others refusing & refuting the miracles in your life? Those ideas & statements of belief are not rooted in the truth & provision of God. They must bow to his name. Tell them to get out. 

2. Get up:

In a powerfully intimate way, Jesus goes to the bedroom of this little girl. She is lying there in both a natural (in her own bed as if she was asleep) and an unnatural way (void of breath). This is where the faith of her father was met in a physical way. Jesus held her hand, heaven touches earth, as he spoke His Father’s words, heaven’s declaration of life over her. He says, “Little daughter, get up.” 

More evidence that Jesus meets us personally and intimately, the phrase, “Little daughter” is the same phrase her father shares when he asks Jesus to come heal her. 

Listen for a moment, in what ways do you see Jesus coming to your room, your bedside, offering both a hand up, and a word for you to get up? We’d be wise to agree with Him, he is nothing but the Way, the Truth and the Life above and beyond every word of death. 

And just so you know, you can count me as one who is kneeling before the Lord, praying for him to come meet with you in the most intimate places of your heart to speak His life into your being.

-Erin Arruda, Worthy Content Writer