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Session Five: He Took Her by the Hand
Based on Mark 5:35–42
I. Healing That Arrives After Hope Has Died
Some healing arrives too late for optimism.
While Jesus is still on His way, the news comes.
“Your daughter is dead. Why bother the teacher anymore?” (Mark 5:35)
This is not uncertainty.
It is finality.
Grief announces itself as fact.
Hope is told to stop asking.
Jesus responds with a single sentence.
“Do not be afraid. Just believe.” (Mark 5:36)
Healing begins not by denying death, but by refusing fear its final word.
II. A Hand Reaching Into What Looks Finished
Jesus enters the house where mourning is already loud.
People are weeping.
Professional grief has taken over.
The story feels sealed.
Then Jesus does something startling.
“He took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Talitha koum.’” (Mark 5:41)
He does not shout.
He does not command the room.
He takes her hand.
Healing comes quietly, through touch.
Henri Nouwen wrote,
“God’s healing power touches us most deeply where we feel most powerless.”
The hand Jesus takes is small.
Still.
Unresponsive.
Yet He takes it anyway.
III. When Healing Requires Intimacy, Not Spectacle
Jesus clears the room.
Not everyone is invited to witness this moment.
Healing here is not a performance.
It is intimate.
Parents.
Presence.
Touch.
Thomas Merton observed,
“The contemplative life is not a withdrawal from reality, but a deeper entrance into it.”
Jesus enters the deepest reality of this family’s grief.
He does not avoid it.
He does not manage it.
He steps into it gently.
IV. Life Returning Through a Handhold
The girl rises.
Not dramatically.
Not triumphantly.
Simply alive.
“Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around.” (Mark 5:42)
Healing here is practical.
Embodied.
Ordinary.
Jesus even instructs them to give her something to eat.
Restoration is not only miraculous.
It is sustaining.
Dallas Willard reminds us,
“Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning.”
Life returns through grace, then continues through care.
V. What This Teaches Us About Healing
Jesus does not avoid what looks finished.
He does not fear touching what others have given up on.
Healing is not always about reversing death.
Sometimes it is about restoring life where despair declared an ending.
Hands that heal do not require certainty.
They require willingness.
Practicing He Took Her by the Hand This Week
❀ Notice where you have stopped expecting life.
Pay attention to places you have quietly accepted as finished. Jesus often reaches precisely where hope has been told to stop.
❀ Allow God near what feels beyond repair.
You do not need to prepare yourself for healing. Invite Jesus into places that feel untouched by possibility.
❀ Value intimacy over explanation.
Some moments require fewer words and more presence. Healing often unfolds in quiet, relational space.
❀ Receive restoration in ordinary ways.
Notice how healing shows up through small acts of care and sustenance. God often restores life through what seems simple.
❀ Trust touch over timing.
Healing does not always arrive on schedule. But when God reaches out, it is never careless or late.
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