Mark 5:21-43
This morning, we hear two stories about healing. As Jesus returns across the Sea of Galilee, crowds surround him, almost before he steps off the boat. Jairus, one of the synagogue leaders falls at Jesus’ feet. He begs Jesus to come and heal his twelve year old daughter, who is at the point of death. Now it is ironic that Jairus seeks out Jesus, because some of his colleagues —other synagogue authorities—are not happy with the amount of attention that Jesus is getting—and they are already plotting against him. So Jairus risks criticism and ridicule from his colleagues out of love for his child.
But on the way to Jairus’ house, something happens. An unnamed woman pushes through the crowd to Jesus. She has been hemorrhaging for twelve years and she is desperate. Despite repeated visits to all kinds of doctors, despite all the money she has spent, this woman has not been healed. She is not even getting better. She is continuing to lose something life-giving—her blood—and undoubtedly she is exhausted and weak. She is also considered to be unclean, according to Levitical laws. So the very fact that she is in a crowd of people is, in itself, a violation of Jewish law. However, this woman has heard about Jesus of Nazareth. She believes that all she has to do is to touch this healer’s clothing to be made whole again. The ancient peoples possessed what we would call “magical thinking.” They thought that if someone had healing power, that power extended to their clothing, to anything they touched, even to the shadows they cast (think about holy relics).
However, Jesus is not just another local faith healer. Jesus is the Son of God. In human form, Jesus came to show us “who God is, and how God acts, and what God is like.”[1] Perhaps another way to say this is to quote the opening verse from the Wisdom of Solomon which we have heard this morning: “God did not make death, and [God] does not delight in the death of the living.”[2] In other words, people die. And some people—because of chronic pain or disease—live constantly in the shadow of death. God, the creator of life, does not welcome this reality anymore than we do. So when this very ill woman pushes through the crowd to touch Jesus’ clothes, her hemorrhage stops immediately. She knows it. So does Jesus. He knows that some divine healing power has been transferred. Immediately, he wants to know who has touched him.
The disciples—as is often the case—don’t understand. They respond to Jesus on a literal level. Teacher, you can hardly move because of the crowds, and you ask who touched your clothes? But this woman understands. She comes to Jesus with fear and trembling. She knows she should not even be in the crowds to begin with. Furthermore, she has no money to pay this healer. What if he demands payment? Yet she kneels before Jesus and tells the whole truth. In return, he says, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” And by using the term “daughter,” Jesus establishes a personal relationship with the woman.
Of course this interruption has delayed Jesus’ trip to Jairus’ house. Suddenly, some friends of Jairus show up to say that there’s no point in Jesus’ going to heal the twelve year old because she has died. Jesus, the Son of God, is undeterred. Did he not say “Peace, be still” to the raging storm just a few days ago? God’s power rules the elements of nature—whether they are the powers of wind, sky and sea, or the powers of illness and death. So Jesus continues on to Jairus’ house. When they arrive, they see mourners who have already gathered in the traditional custom of weeping and wailing publicly. So when Jesus tells them, “The child is not dead, but sleeping,” they laugh in his face. Jesus, the Son of God, is undeterred. He takes the girl’s mother and father and three disciples—Peter, James and John—and enters the room where the girl has been laid. Jesus takes her hand and commands her, “Talitha cum.” These words—retained in the original Aramaic—show us that the Greek writers believed in the literal healing power of Jesus’ words.[3] In response, the little girl gets up, walks around, and eats some food to restore her strength.
We read and hear these biblical stories about miraculous healings and miraculous resuscitations. Inevitably, we have questions that hang unspoken in the room. So if Jesus healed that woman who was dying and he brought a dead child back to life, why does he not heal me? Why can’t Jesus bring back from the dead my husband, my wife, my mother, my father, my child? I pray to God for healing. I have friends who pray for my healing. Is my faith not great enough that Jesus will heal me? Yet if we look at any of the gospels, we see that even with Jesus, there is no consistent pattern in healing events. Some people’s faith makes them well. Other healings seem to have no correlation to faith at all. Jesus heals some people instantly. Others, he commands to pick up their beds and walk or to go to Jerusalem and show themselves to the priest. It is only their obedient actions which lead to healing So sometimes people have to realize just how unhealthy they have been, in order to take responsibility for their own health.
But we miss the point if we get caught up in who is healed and who is not. The writer of Mark’s gospel is trying to show us who Jesus is—the Son of God. Jesus has come to show us “who God is, and how God acts, and what God is like.”[4] Remember that in the Garden of Gethsemene Jesus himself prayed that God would “take this cup from me.” Did God answer his prayer? No. Ironic, isn’t it—that in the end, the healer could not heal himself, deliver himself or resurrect himself. Yet what mattered in the Garden of Gethsemene, as it matters in our own lives, is not whether we are literally cured of our physical, emotional or mental illnesses. What matters is that we acknowledge that God is God and we are not. God alone has the answers, and we must live with our questions.
What matters is that we understand what is most important—that is, our relationship with God. The unnamed woman in our story today knew that in order to be healed, she literally had to come close enough to Jesus to touch him. And by coming close to the Son of God, she was able to experience divine healing. It made her whole. It drew her into a personal realm where Jesus called her “daughter.” You and I do not have the privilege of knowing the historical Jesus. We know Jesus through scripture and the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. We know Jesus in our brothers and sisters who love and support us in our community of faith. We know the Son of God through prayer—but not the kind of prayer that tries to convince God that what we want is what God wants. As one writer notes, “Prayer is not simply a matter of bending the vector of divine will toward my will, my needs, and my hopes. More profoundly to ask something of God is to edge into deeper relationship with God. God’s mind may or may not be changed, but I—my mind and heart—may be.”[5]
Maybe we are right to pray for a miracle. Or maybe we have missed some miracles because we are not paying close enough attention, or because a miracle is not what we had imagined it to be. I believe we are right to pray for healing for ourselves and others, although perhaps we need to understand that we may not need to be cured. We may need to be made whole. There is a difference between the two. And for that to happen, perhaps we must open our eyes and heart, get out of bed and go find Jesus so we can be close to him. It is only in that relationship with, the divine healer, that we will finally, and truly, be made whole. Amen.
© The Rev. Sheila N. McJilton
Picture of woman accessed through Google images at http://getfiredup.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/bleeding-woman.jpg
Picture of Jesus raising Jairus’ daughter accessed through Google images at http://www.imago-arts.on.ca/volumes/images/JAIRUS_DAUGHTER.jpg
[1] Barbara Brown Taylor as quoted by Kate Huey in “Healing Powers,” Weekly Seeds, i.UCC.org. At http://i.ucc.org/StretchYourMind/OpeningtheBible/WeeklySeeds/tabid/81/articleType/ArticleView/articleID/206/Healing-Powers-June2228.aspx. Accessed through www.textweek.org.
[2] Wisdom of Solomon 1:13.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid., Taylor quote.
[5] Ibid., Quote by Michael Lindvall.
