This lesson is about how Jairus comes to Jesus and asks Him to come heal his dying daughter. On the way to Jairus’ house a woman who had been sick for 12 years touched Jesus’ robe and was healed. The lesson can be simplified for younger students and can also be used as a Children’s Church lesson. Following the lesson are additional resources to help you individualize for the needs of your students.
Bible Story: Jesus Heals Jairus’ Daughter
Scripture: Mark 5:21-43
Target Age Group: Age 9 – 12 (U.S. 3rd – 6th Grade)
Learning Context: Sunday School
Learning Objective(s):
- Students will learn that when we pray we need to have complete faith that God hears and answers our prayers.
- God cares ab0ut every need we have.
Memory Verse: For context have students read verses 22-24. Have them memorize verse 24.
Mark 11:22-24 (NIV) “Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. “I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
Write on the board: What? Why? Where? When? Who? How? Ask the students what prayer is and write their answers under ‘What?’. Ask students why we should pray, and then ask when, who and how. Discuss the different responses that the students give. What is prayer? Why should we pray? Where can we pray? How should we pray? (Eyes closed, head bowed, on our knees, prostrate, respectfully. God can hear our prayers whether our eyes are opened or closed. We close our eyes to help us to focus on God and not be distracted by the things around us. We pray on our knees to show God honor and respect.)
In our class we have a prayer time each week before we begin our Bible lesson. Our heart’s desire in doing this each week is to enable the students to not be afraid to pray publicly. As adults it can be intimidating to be called on to pray publicly. Our prayer is that our students will take what they learn in class and be children who pray privately and publicly. To help students become more accustomed to praying in public and also to aid them to pray privately we teach them to praise God, thank God and make our requests to God. How we do this for our students is we provide 3 sets of cards. On the praise cards there are examples of how to praise God. “I praise you because you are our comforter. You comfort me when I am discouraged.” On the thank you cards we have examples of things we can thank God for. “Thank you for my family.” On the request cards we have examples for requests. “Please help our pastor to preach Your Word or Please help our leaders to make wise decisions.” We have several cards to choose from. Each week as the students get the idea of praise, thanks, and requests they become more comfortable to have their own prayers of praise, thanks and requests. When it is time to pray as a class we get on our knees. We explain to them that there will be a time of silence so we can quiet our hearts before God. As we quiet our hearts before Him if He shows us anything that we have done that is sin against Him we need to ask Him to forgive us. After that moment of quiet the lead teacher begins the prayer time and the students take their turn and the c0-teacher closes out the prayer time. This time has been such a blessing for us as teachers. We have seen even the shyest students that are still too timid to praise, thanks and make a request, pray something very simple in our time of public praying.
Activities:
To encourage your students to have a prayer time during the week have them make prayer journals from loose leaf paper and have construction paper as the cover. They can decorate the cover to make it their own. If you are able to find inexpensive small notebooks the students can choose one of these and decorate the covers with stickers/pictures.
Bible Lesson: Jesus heals Jairus’ daughter
This morning we are going to learn about 2 people who came to Jesus with a need that only He could help them with. Let’s turn in our Bibles to Mark 5:21. (Give students who did not bring their Bible a copy to follow along in.)
Jesus was in a boat with his disciples and He had arrived on the shore of Capernaum. Crowds of people saw Jesus on the shore and they gathered together to see Him. Have you ever been in a large crowd to see someone important? It is hard to get close to that person isn’t it? Imagine being in the crowd on that day.
In our story the 2 people I mentioned earlier desperately needed to get to Jesus. They both had needs that they believed He could meet. The first person is a man. Let’s find out who this man is. Read Mark 5:22. As a synagogue ruler maybe it was easy for this man to make his way through the crowd because he was considered important by the people. Perhaps when the people saw this man, they moved out of the way whereas if it were just an ordinary person trying to squeeze through the crowd, they wouldn’t have been so nice.
When Jairus came to Jesus he fell at Jesus’ feet and began to plead with Him. Let’s read in verse 23 what Jairus asks Jesus to do. He said, “My little daughter lies at the point of death. Come and lay Your hands on her, that she may be healed, and she will live.”
Jairus may have been an important ruler in the synagogue and maybe in the past he joined in with the other leaders of the temple who came and criticized Jesus. We don’t know this for sure but we do know that Jairus was desperate. His one and only child, his 12-year-old daughter was going to die. He loved her very much and didn’t want her to die. He came to Jesus because he believed Jesus could help. Even though Jairus was an important synagogue ruler, his behavior when he got to Jesus showed that he knew that Jesus was more important and worthy of his respect. For a synagogue ruler to fall at Jesus’ feet and beg for His help took great humility.
When we come to God in prayer it is important that we remember that God is holy and worthy of our respect. One way we can show Him honor and respect is to pray on our knees or even flat on our stomachs. Being flat out on the ground before God is called being prostrate before Him. Bowing down before God shows Him great honor.
Jairus believed that Jesus could heal his dying daughter and was pleading with Him to come to his house. When a person believes God can do something that is faith. Faith pleases God. (Hebrews 11:6)
When we are in a very difficult situation we should always come to Jesus and pray, believing He can help us. Jesus always hears and answers our prayers no matter how big or small we feel our need is.
Jesus began to follow Jairus. Oh, how Jesus must have had compassion on Jairus because of his great love for his daughter.
As Jesus began to follow Jairus to his house the crowds of people crowded the Lord Jesus as He walked. To understand how large this crowd that followed Him let’s read Luke 8:42. Have you ever been in a crowd where you felt like you were going to be crushed?
In this large crowd of people following Jesus is the second person in our story who desperately needed Jesus’ help. Let’s read Mark 5:25-26. This woman had been sick for 12 years. Her sickness was a private, personal one. It wasn’t a disease she would feel comfortable speaking about in a large crowd. The disease she suffered from even doctors could not make better. She spent all of her money to pay the doctors and instead of getting better, she grew worse. This woman must have heard of Jesus and how He had performed miracles. I don’t know what the woman knew, but this one thing she knew. She needed a miracle. She wanted to be better but no doctor could help her. She went to the One who could heal her. As the woman squeezed through the crowd and got closer and closer to Him she thought, “If only I can touch His clothes, I can be made well.” As she got close to Jesus, she reached out and touched the hem of Jesus’ robe. As soon as she touched Jesus’ robe she felt in her body that she had been healed of her disease. She no longer felt the sickness that was in her body for 12 years.
As Jesus walked in the large crowd of people, He felt power go out from Him. He turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched My clothes?” The disciples must have shaken their heads as they too were squished in among many, many people. Peter answered Jesus and said, “You see the crowds of people pushing in around You, and You ask, “Who touched Me?”
In the meantime, the woman who had touched Jesus’ clothes was very fearful. As Jesus stopped and looked around in the crowd, she came trembling and fell down before Him. She spoke to Jesus and all who were around and said, “I have been sick for 12 long years. I have spent all of my money on doctors who could not make be better. I was getting worse and I wanted to be made well. I wanted to touch You because I believe You could make me well. When I touched Your robe, immediately I was healed. I am no longer sick!” ‘
Jesus loved this woman. He was not upset that she had touched His clothes. He was pleased in her faith. It was not the act of touching His garment that healed her it was her belief that Jesus could heal her.
Jesus’ great power was shown to this woman and to the crowd when she was healed. Let’s read what Jesus said to this woman in Mark 5:34.
This woman had a very private need that she needed Jesus to help her with. She came to Him by faith believing that He could heal her. She probably would have been uncomfortable shouting in the large crowd, “Jesus, please heal me of this disease I have had for 12 years.” She acted on her faith by believing if she could just touch Jesus she would be made well. Her faith was rewarded and she was completely healed.
This was a wonderful miracle that had happened and Jesus showed love and compassion by taking the time to care for this woman’s need.
Sometimes we have needs that we don’t feel comfortable sharing in a crowd of people. We can be comforted to know that God knows every need we have and we can talk to Him about it and pray for Him to help us. God hears and answers when we pray.
We may not be able to touch Jesus’ garment as this woman. We can get close to Jesus by spending time alone with Him in prayer and reading His Word. We can feel His presence when we are alone quietly with Him. If we are feeling sad or scared but are too embarrassed to share that with anyone, by getting close to Jesus and sharing those feelings with Him, we will feel His comfort and encouragement to us.
We cannot forget Jairus. Remember his need? His 12-year-old daughter was very sick and she was dying. He needed Jesus to hurry to his house and make her well. I wonder what Jairus must have been thinking when this woman was taking precious time away from Jesus who was on His way to heal his daughter. It may have been hard not to be frustrated with the interruption even though a great miracle took place for this woman. When we are waiting for Jesus to answer our prayers, we need to be patient and watch Him work even in the times when He is delaying the answer to our prayer.
Just then someone from Jairus’ house came and spoke to him. Let’s read what this person said in Mark 5:35. “Your daughter is dead, why bother the teacher any more?”
That phrase, ‘why bother’ made me think about how sometimes in our lives if we need something from someone we may be afraid to ask because we think we are bothering them. Do you think when we have a need, no matter how big or small we are ever bothering God?
Let’s see how Jesus responds as he heard what the men just told Jairus. (Mark 5:36 “Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”)
How do you think Jairus must have felt when he heard the news from these men? I was too late. If this crowd hadn’t been in the way, or if that woman hadn’t stopped Jesus, we could have gotten to my daughter in time. We don’t know what Jairus was thinking but we can imagine he was very disappointed with the news about his daughter’s death.
Sometimes when we pray it feels like Jesus hasn’t heard our prayer or that maybe we didn’t pray the right way. We need to hear the words spoken to us that Jesus spoke to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.” You see Jesus can do anything for a person who will believe. We are never bothering Jesus when we have something that we need help with.
Jesus told the crowd not to follow Him. He said that only Peter, James, and John could come with Him to Jairus’ house.
When Jesus arrived at Jairus’ house there was loud weeping and wailing by the many people who loved Jairus’ daughter. When Jesus entered the house He said, “Why make this much commotion and weep? The child is not dead, but sleeping.”
The people in the crowd laughed at Jesus and made fun of Him. They had seen the daughter’s dead body. What was He talking about saying she was only sleeping? They must have thought Jesus was crazy.
Jesus didn’t let what they thought of Him bother Him or keeping Him from showing His great power and love for Jairus and his family. He sent all the people out of the house except for the Jairus and his wife and Peter, James, and John. They went to the place where the daughter’s body was lying. Jesus reached out and took the girl by her hand. He spoke to her and said, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” Immediately the girl got up and walked around the room. Jesus said to give the girl something to eat. Jairus and his wife were amazed! Their daughter who was dead was now alive!
Jesus showed His great power and love by healing a woman who had been sick for 12 years and by raising a 12-year-old girl back to life. Jesus cares for you and me and we need to have faith that He hears our prayers and He will answer them in His way and in His time. He will show us His great power and love each time He answers our prayers.
Salvation Message:
As we close let’s think about the 12 year old daughter that was dead. Jesus spoke to her and she was raised to life. This morning if you have never been saved through faith in Jesus you are like that little girl who is dead. Ephesians 2:1: “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins.” What that means is that without the life of Jesus living inside your heart, you are dead and unable to live a life that pleases God. The price for my sins and your sins is death. This death is a separation from God forever. God the Father is like Jairus in our story. He loves us and doesn’t want us to die and be separated from Him. God the Father loved us so much He sent His own Son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. He was buried and three days later God the Father raised Him from the dead. Jesus died in our place so we don’t have to be separated from God. All we have to do is have faith that Jesus paid the price for our sins so we can spend eternity with God. This morning if you have never placed your faith in Jesus for your sins to be forgiven, Jesus is saying to you, “Child, I say to you, arise.” He doesn’t want you to experience a death that will separate you from God for all eternity. Please talk to your parents if you have not been saved. If you would like to talk to us this morning we can show you from the Bible how you can be saved.
If you are saved, how much time do you spend each day talking to God? Do you have a time where you talk to Him about your needs and needs of others? It may help you to have a prayer journal to write out your requests and use as you pray to remember to talk to God about those things. When God answers those requests you can write in your journal how God answered your prayers. As you see God answering your prayers your faith in Him will continue to grow.
Close in prayer.
Review Questions:
- Who came to Jesus and fell at His feet?
- What did Jairus ask Jesus to do?
- How many people were walking with Jesus to Jairus house?
- Why did the woman want to touch Jesus’ clothes?
- What happened when she touched Jesus’ clothes?
- How did Jesus treat the woman who was healed?
- What was the news that someone from Jairus’ house brought?
- Who was allowed to go to Jairus’ house?
- Why do you think Jesus only allowed the parents, Peter, James and John in the girl’s room?
- How did Jesus show His mighty power and love for Jairus and his family?
- What are you asking God to do that He has not answered yet?
- How can you encourage others by what God has done for you?
More Free Activities for this Lesson:
- Bible Game for this lesson
- Calvary Chapel Lesson
- Mission Arlington
- Watch the video demonstration of this lesson and related Bible craft ideas
- Compare our full Sunday School Lesson on Mark 5:21-43
- Find even more ideas from Mission Bible Class on Mark 5:21-43