Mark 5:21-43
There is something remarkable about the encounter between Jairus, the woman with the issue of blood, and Jesus. Two people, two very different needs, and one Savior who becomes exactly what each person needs without allowing the needs of one to diminish His care for the other.
Jairus needed Jesus to come with him. The woman needed only to touch Him. Jairus needed Jesus to keep walking. The woman needed Jesus to stop. Jairus needed to believe. The woman needed to tell her story. One needed a miracle for someone he loved. The other needed a miracle for herself.
And Jesus had room for both.
But consider the pause.
Jairus had approached Jesus because his daughter was dying. Every moment mattered. Jesus agreed to go with him, but along the way, a woman reached through the crowd and touched His garment. She was immediately healed, yet Jesus stopped. He asked who had touched Him and allowed the woman to come forward and tell her story.
Imagine what that pause must have felt like to Jairus. While Jesus was attending to someone else’s suffering, his own situation was becoming more desperate. Then came the devastating news: “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?”
From Jairus’s perspective, the pause may have appeared to cost him everything.
But Jesus was never threatened by what happened during the delay.
Jairus was racing against death. Jesus was not. Jairus believed there was a window of opportunity that was rapidly closing. Jesus knew that even when the window closed, His power had not diminished.
What Jairus could not have understood was that the pause was also preparing him. Before being asked to believe Jesus could raise his daughter, he witnessed Jesus restore a woman who had suffered for twelve years. Someone else’s miracle became the testimony he would need for his own.
And perhaps there is an even deeper truth here. Jairus had come seeking help for his daughter, but Jesus stopped and called this unnamed woman “Daughter.” What Jairus might have considered an interruption, Jesus recognized as family.
The Kingdom of God does not operate according to our urgency, our hierarchy of importance, or our limited understanding of what is possible. Jesus does not have to neglect one person to care for another. His compassion is not divided, and His power is not diminished by being shared.
Sometimes we need Jesus to move. Sometimes we need Him to stop. Sometimes we are Jairus, desperate for God to keep walking toward our situation. Other times we are the woman, hoping He will notice us in the middle of everyone else’s needs.
And sometimes the pause we are frustrated by is the very place where God is revealing something about Himself that we will need for what comes next.
Jesus becomes exactly what each person needs without becoming divided between them.
The pause did not mean Jesus had forgotten Jairus. The delay did not mean the destination had changed. And death did not mean the promise of His presence had expired.
Jesus was still going to the house.
Perhaps that is what we need to remember today. Just because Jesus has stopped to do something we do not understand does not mean He has stopped moving toward what concerns us.
The pause is not always the absence of progress. Sometimes it is the preparation for a greater revelation of who He is.
Let’s pray:
Heavenly Father, teach us to trust You not only when You are moving according to our expectations, but also when You pause. Help us recognize that Your compassion is never divided and Your power is never exhausted. Forgive us when we mistake delays for abandonment or someone else’s blessing for the loss of our own. Strengthen our faith to believe that You are still working, even when circumstances seem to grow worse. Remind us that You know exactly what each of us needs, and that nothing occurring along the way can diminish Your ability to accomplish Your purpose. In Jesus’ name, amen.
