Mark 7:5-8 – On the surface, this seems a harsh response to a legitimate questions – Why don’t you wash? Of course, the question wasn’t likely that legit, considering the source. It was more an accusation – What makes you think you can side step our traditions?
An Jesus’ response is not a condemnation of their practices, it’s a call to realign their priorities. He didn’t condemn their traditions, he simply called for them to be put in proper perspective. They are of men, not of God. Honor what God would honor first, then follow you traditions if it does not contradict God’s ways.
This is human nature, to substitute tradition and practice for a heart following God. If we set our heart on following God, we will likely not always follow tradition. But we like things simple, easy to implement. Traditions are like that. We always _____. Fill in the blank. Go to church on Sunday morning, read our Bibles before breakfast, pray for our dinner, give a certain dollar amount to church, etc. As we routinely follow what we’ve always done, we run the risk of missing what God has called us to at that moment, or perhaps what we might do for God that’s greater. Instead of giving that full amount to your fairly well off American church, what if you took some and sponsored a child in a needy country or supported a local soup kitchen. Instead of reading your Bible every morning before breakfast, what if some mornings you took that and your breakfast time to go bring a hot meal to a lonely retiree before work? I wonder if God isn’t desiring for us, as He did the Pharisees, to loosen our grip on our traditions a bit so that we might serve him better.
Mark 7:14-23 – In this passage Jesus once and for all (although some don’t seem to have gotten it) declared that food cannot defile us. But even more frightening, he declares that what does defile us comes from within. We cannot say the devil made me do it nor it was because my Dad didn’t love me. Although those factors are real and have power to influence us, we cannot lay the blame for our guilt at their feet. The scary truth is that the evil comes from within our own hearts. We defile ourselves.
Mark 7:28-29 – What was in this woman’s statement that moved Jesus? Humility & faith. Humility in that she understood her place and that, as a Gentile, she had no right to claim anything from the king of the Jews. Jesus effectively called her a dog and she effectively admitted that was what she was and she was willing to accept what a dog gets, the leftovers. Her faith was saying, essentially, “After you’ve spent yourself on your people, the Jews, just give me whatever is left over. That will be enough.”

Mark 6:5 – It’s amazing to me how Jesus power seemed to be limited by the faith of those hearing Him. It doesn’t say that He chose not to do any ‘mighty work’, but that He could not do any. This goes back to Mark 5 and the woman healed – am I and my shallow faith limiting what Jesus can do in my life? It’s hard to find the path between working hard on my faith to produce results from Jesus and getting the faith to allow Jesus to work. The first is really a works mindset, or some sort of ‘power of positive thinking’ psychology masked as faith, but how does one work at your faith with out working for the result of faith?
Mark 6:7-13 – He gave them authority to heal, but healing was not their message. Their message was “that people should repent.”
Mark 6:20, 26 – He feared John, it says in verse 20, and that was why he didn’t execute him. Yet, when backed into a corner it becomes clear that he feared his wife or perhaps public embarrassment more.
Mark 6:28 – I’ve often felt sorry for this girl, who, because of her mother’s hard heart and sin, gets handed a freshly severed head on a platter. I wonder how that image haunted her later in life?
Mark 6:30-44 – I wonder what it was like to be in that crowd. I wrote a story once, based on the account in John 6, from the perspective of the father of the boy with the loaves (not mentioned here). I think I’m that Dad in my story, the grumpy Dad, led reluctantly by his wife and kids into a miracle. One he would have missed if it weren’t for them.
Mark 6:56 – I don’t remember making the connection with this account here of folks touching his garments and being healed and the woman from Mark 5.

Mark 5:21 – They head back across and I wonder – did Jesus cross there simply to meet that demon possessed man?
Mark 5:28 – This woman’s faith is remarkable. She simply heard about Jesus and deduced that he was powerful enough that a single touch, not of the man himself, but of his clothing, would heal her.
And she was right.
Jesus never taught that, never even hinted at that. She figured it out and went for it in faith.
What an amazing lesson for us. We who are immersed in Jesus culture, hear the lessons preached, the parables explained, the teachings enumerated. We who know Jesus inside and out and have access to all his teachings and volumes upon volumes of commentary on them.
Yet we sit in our own sin, wondering how we can be cured?
This ticks me off, frankly, on a personal level for I wallow and wring my hands over my own sin. This woman was really suffering, bleeding and bleeding and bleeding and bleeding and bleeding. No one had been able to help her and many smart men had tried. If anyone had reason to be skeptical and doubt, she did. But she saw Jesus and believed. It was that simple. She didn’t require anything of him but access.
Here we sit – here I sit – with all the access in the world. I know that Jesus is readily available. I know that I can reach out and touch him today, right now. I understand it all, what I lack is faith. I can see Jesus. Jesus the healer, the restorer, the savior. I can see him, but he’s not real enough to me. I can see him, but I guess I don’t believe my eyes and I explain it away.
I’m tired of being the same yet proclaiming Jesus. I can see enough of Him to know that there’s something wrong with that picture. Folks who see him, really see Him, don’t stay the same. They are healed, transformed, changed.
If I see Jesus, am I willing to believe in what I see?

And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.

Mark 5:34

Mark 5:35-43 – I find great hope in the story of Jairus, especially reflecting on the bleeding woman’s story which is wedged in the middle of it. They both came in faith, but before he could get what he came for, Jairus is hit with reality. Jairus was faced with the obvious facts. The servants say she’s dead, they arrive to weeping and wailing, the people laugh at them when Jesus says she’s only asleep. If I’m Jairus, it would take all my energy and focus to remain faithful in the face of all that reality.
But Jesus told him, “Do not fear, only believe.” And somehow he does.
And in they go, and there’s his daughter, dead. A few words from Jesus and she’s alive and walking.
Everyday, all around us we are confronted with reasons not to believe that Jesus can change us. Even religious folk will try to diminish you expectations, ground you in reality. Jesus, however, puts his hands on our cheeks, turns our head toward his face and away from ‘reality’ and says just what he said to Jairus:
“Do not fear, only believe.”