The Big Story | Mark 5 - Don't Be Afraid. Just Keep Believing

Scripture: Mark 5:35–43 Est. Runtime: ~11 minutesWhile Jesus was still speaking to the woman he had just restored, the message came: Your daughter is dead. Why bother the teacher anymore?Day 4 brings us to the conclusion of Jairus's story — and to the most dramatic moment of the week. A little girl is gone. The mourners are already wailing. And Jesus walks into the house, takes her by the hand, and says two words in Aramaic: Talitha koum. Little girl, get up.Lisa walks us through what makes this moment so remarkable — not just as a miracle, but as a theological statement. Jesus touching a corpse should have made him ritually unclean for seven days. Instead, the same pattern we saw with the hemorrhaging woman plays out again: holiness doesn't get contaminated by death. It overwhelms it. The current reverses. Life flows in.And the way Jesus speaks to her? It's not a dramatic incantation. It's what a parent might say on a quiet morning, sitting on the edge of a bed, taking a child's hand.Key Takeaways:Jesus's instruction to Jairus — "don't be afraid, just believe" — is a present-tense command: keep on believing, not a one-time decisionTouching a corpse was the most powerful source of ritual impurity in the ancient world; Jesus touches the girl anyway, and death yields to himTalitha koum is ordinary, tender language — the contrast between what Jesus is doing (defeating death) and how he does it (gently, quietly) reveals the nature of his powerBoth encounters this week follow the same pattern: Jesus speaks a word of family (daughter) to the forgotten woman, and a word of life (get up) to the lost girlThese are not isolated miracles — they are skirmishes with the forces of death that have been ravaging God's world since Genesis 3, and they point forward to the cross and resurrectionReflection Questions:Where in your life do you need to "keep on believing" in the face of news that feels final?What would it mean to trust that the Jesus who raised a little girl with two words is at work in your most hopeless situation?How does the connection between these healings and the resurrection change the way you understand what Jesus was doing — and what he's still doing?Hear the message for this week's devotional on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ChristFellowshipMcKinneyGet the written devotional at: https://cfhome.org/EGDIf you are in the North Dallas area and would like to join us for services each week, you can find all the information at https://cfhome.org.