Chapter # 5 Paragraph # 2 Study # 6
March 22, 2021
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
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Thesis: Mark's major thesis regarding the introductory issue of the "inner" story (within the "outer" story) is that the "woman" had endured a growing helplessness over a twelve-year period.
Introduction: In our last study, I pointed out the reality that the blended stories of
Mark 5:21-43 have an inescapable connection to Mark's record of John's message. In John's "preparation" for the coming of Yahweh, he proclaimed a "new doctrine" that was summarized as "If you will repent, God will forgive your sins". Paul restated that thesis in his discussion of the "sorrow" he had caused the Corinthians by ripping off the cloaks of pretense and exposing their deeply held carnality in
2 Corinthians 7:10. His words are: "...the sorrow that is according to God produces a repentance without regret, unto salvation...". Since the forgiveness of sins is the opening step into "salvation", Mark and Paul are in perfect alignment.
In order to understand Mark's record of the woman who was being gradually drained of life by a "flow of blood" that kept just one step ahead of her body's ability to replace what was being lost, we must understand Mark's deliberate parallelism in his overall message. For Mark, "repentance" is not about people "turning from their 'individual' sins", it is about "turning from their most basic sin-producing attitude". For those whose major "metaphor of life" is the attempt to mirror the glory of the high mountains by proudly going about to demonstrate their qualification(s) to be highly valued in the eyes of men who are impressed by "mountains", John's message of "repentance" is a call to "humble yourself" in view of overweening pride; the cause of the sins of the arrogant. For those whose major "metaphor of life" is the expression of the depression of the valleys of despair where it is not overweening pride that causes sins but an overpowering sense of hopelessness, John's message of "repentance" is a call to call upon the God Who is willing to provide the "hope" that has been totally lost because of continuous defeat (this is the point of the record of the cleansing of the leper in 1:40-45).
Inextricably involved in this thesis of "repent and God will forgive" is the more profound thesis that "faith" is the "non-negotiable" with God: without faith it is impossible to please Him and by faith it is impossible to not please Him. Thus, Mark, by inspiration of the Spirit of God, brilliantly blends the two sides of the "coin" of God's method of salvation ("faith" in the message of God's willingness to save those who "repent") by presenting Jairus, the man of "mountainous pride", in a direct contrast to the unnamed "woman" of total hopelessness as far as man's "solutions" are concerned.
Thus, we read, for this evening's study of the text of Mark's record of the woman, of the issues involved in her decision to "turn to Jesus" as the solution to her problem of "life".
- I. The Woman's Problem of "Life".
- A. Already seen: twelve years of the gradual depletion of "life" by the loss of the "blood" of "life".
- B. Now being presented... .
- 1. The first "issue".
- a. She had been subjected to "the suffering of many things" in her search for a human solution.
- 1) Mark's linkage of her "sufferings" to those of Jesus is deliberate.
- a) The verb involved is only used by Mark in three places (5:26; 8:31; and 9:12), two of which are in reference to Jesus' "Messianic" sufferings: this establishes a "link".
- b) The verb involved (pascho) is directly related to the word "passover" in Greek (pascha).
- i. This noun is most fundamental in all of biblical theology regarding the divine methodology of salvation as it was "Passover" that brought about the "salvation" of Israel from the bondage of Egypt and Jesus became "our Passover" (1 Corinthians 5:7), sacrificed to purge us from all "leaven" (the root of all sins).
- ii. Nothing is more central to the Gospel than the fact that Jesus "suffered" what we deserved to suffer as our "Passover Lamb".
- c) In Mark's references to Jesus' suffering, there are two major issues.
- i. In 8:31 Jesus declared that "the Son of the Man" must suffer many things (the precisely exact form of the woman's "suffering many things"), be killed and rise after three days.
- ii. In 9:12 Jesus questions the scriptural declarations that "the Son of the Man" will "suffer many things" and be treated with contempt as a revelation of the fact that the overwhelming emphasis in Jewish theology was that of a triumphant Messiah Who would cause others to "suffer many things" in defeat by Him.
- 2) Mark's linkage indicates that "suffering many things" is always caused by the human search for a "human" solution to the gradual ebbing away of "life" and a rebellion against God's solution.
- b. Her "suffering of many things" was caused by "many doctors" who were willing to take her money even though the "sufferings" to which they subjected her did nothing at all for her problem.
- 2. The second "issue".
- a. The woman's automatic turn to "the doctors" was rooted in the cultural claim that those doctors knew how to "fix" physical problems, which was true in many cases.
- b. But, the "many doctors" to whom she turned all proved to be incapable of helping her.
- c. This means that Mark's point is one: there are some "problems" men can't fix, and the major problem they can't "fix" is Sin's gradual erosion of "life" until Death.
- d. This woman's major problem was not a 12-year-long erosion of her "life"; it was her attempt to find "men" who could "fix" her life-long, real, erosion of "Life".
- 3. The third "issue".
- a. She had "spent" all of the things that were "for" her in this world.
- 1) "Spending" in the terms of the word used here is always, in the Bible, a trading of one "precious commodity" for a "more precious commodity" ("a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse"; William Shakespeare's play Richard III).
- 2) In this world, "money" is viewed as the "precious commodity of exchange".
- 3) This woman was now consigned to the deepest of the valleys of despair: there is no visible "help" from men.
- b. Now, the woman must either perish, or find the "precious commodity of exchange in another world".
- 4. The fourth "issue".
- a. She was profited "nothing".
- b. Rather, she "had come" into the "worst" ("abandon hope all ye who enter here": Dante's inscription over the gates of Hell): hopelessness, when it comes to any "human solution".
- II. Mark's "Point": The Woman Was Brought To Despair By Her Fruitless Search For A Human Solution.
