Fear Conquering Faith
Mark 5:21-43 — 21 And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him, and he was beside the sea. 22 Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet 23 and implored him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.” 24 And he went with him.
And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. 25 And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, 26 and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. 28 For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” 29 And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30 And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?” 31 And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” 32 And he looked around to see who had done it. 33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. 34 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
35 While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler’s house some who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” 36 But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” 37 And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James andJohn the brother of James. 38 They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.39 And when he had entered, he said to them, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.” 40 And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. 41 Taking her by the hand he said to her,“Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” 42 And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement. 43 And he strictly charged them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.
During the last two weeks in our study in the Gospel of Mark, we have seen a couple instances of faith-conquering fear, demonstrating that fear is a formidable hindrance for the people of God to trust in God. Hopefully we have been able to identify how we also have the tendency to fear, since fear can arise in our hearts whenever we process a situation and we feel backed into a corner with no way out. Fear speaks these kinds of words to us: “This has happened to me in the past and/or this might happen in the future, therefore I must not allow that to happen; I must protect myself at all costs.” That’s when we can wrongly decide that the only way out is to take matters in our own hands. At that point we either seek to squash it or run from it. Either way, the result of living in fear is self-preservation and self-preservation is the opposite of Christianity, which at the core requires the sacrificing of oneself for the benefit of others.
Therefore, fear prevents us from following the model of Christ and being useful for Christ, who gave up himself for the highest good of others—their eternal salvation. That being said, what we must understand is that we are called to have faith during the fearful circumstances and not after they are over. Sometimes instead of trusting God when fear arises, we wait for what we think is a hindrance to go away or at least require some light at the end of tunnel in order to believe in God. This is walking by sight or by emotion and therefore is walking in unbelief. It’s unbelief that defames the glory of God; it’s unbelief that brings about serious consequences in our lives and relationships; as we have been seeing and will continue to see, it’s unbelief that is the greatest hindrance to trusting in God, not our circumstances.
On the other hand, John says that faith provides the ultimate victory–1 John 5:4 For whoever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Faith is trusting in God for something that we cannot supply. This is true the first time we believe and are converted since we must trust that God will forgive our sins and grant us his righteousness through Christ because we certainly can’t do those things on our own. And this principle of faith continues throughout our lives in that, in order to glorify him, we must trust that He is working out his will in our circumstances and that he will conform us into Christ’s image through his power in the midst of our circumstances.