Sixth Sunday after Pentecost Mark 5:21-43

Intertwined Narratives

Jesus’ encounters with Jairus’ daughter and the bleeding woman are sandwiched together with the intention that the two narratives would unlock and help to interpret the other. We’ve seen Mark do this before (3:20-35). These passages, therefore, should rarely, if ever, be unwound from each other. To do so, we would rend the context which Mark has deliberately stitched together. 

Within Mark, these episodes of Jesus fall at an interesting moment in His ministry. There is an emotional push and pull at Jesus. The Gerasenes want nothing more than for Jesus to get as far from Gerasa as possible (5:17), while the former demoniac wants nothing more than to stay…

1. Put yourself in the place of the woman with the flow of blood. What must she have felt as she pushed to get close to Jesus? What do you think she believed about who Jesus is?

2. What do we learn about who and what kind of person Jesus is by his interaction with the woman? With Jairus and his daughter?

3. Why do you think that Mark think that it is so important to tell these two stories together? How do they relate to each other to tell a whole story about Jesus?

4. What do these stories and Jesus' words tell us about faith? What is it about faith that we are supposed to learn?

5. While…