Readings
Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-15; 2:23-24
Psalm 30
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Mark 5:21-43
Following on last week’s Gospel story, today we have a second story about the power of Jesus. In fact, we have two stories today.
In the first story Jesus and his disciples have just returned from their trip to the other side of the Sea of Galilee and there encounter a leader of the synagogue who begs Jesus to come and heal his daughter who is near death.
While on the way we hear the second story of a woman who has been suffering from some kind of bleeding disorder for 12 years with no relief. She is financially destitute from the ineffective care she has received. With no support and ritually unclean she would have been living on the margins of society, likely with little to no support. Presuming it difficult to impossible to approach Jesus, in her desperation she reaches out in faith and touches his robe and at once is healed. Jesus recognizes that something has happened and asks who touched him. Now that alone is interesting since the crowd is pressing in on him and he would have been being touched by many people. This woman, however, knowing that he is referring to her comes forward with fear and trembling and falls down before him. We can imagine that she is expecting to be chided, but instead Jesus calls her “daughter” and commends her for her faith, going so far as to tell her that her faith has made her well.
We then return to the story of the leader of the synagogue and his daughter only to find out that she has died and that they have already called for the mourners. When Jesus tells them that she is not dead but sleeping they laugh at him. But he goes up to where the girl is lying and takes her hand. He tells her to get up and she does, fully restored.
Like last week, we might be tempted to simply treat these as miracle stories that confirm that Jesus is God. But, like last week, if we do then we miss the depth of the story and the wisdom contained therein.
Now there is more here than we can possibly talk about in one homily. This is a rich and dense story. But there is one point that stood out for me more than the others that might be worthy for us to reflect upon.
That point is that, when we look at Jesus’ behavior in this story, no-one and nothing is outside the grace of God. Whether a person on the margins or a person of privilege, Christ is present to those who have faith in him.
On the one hand we have the leader of the synagogue, who we can presume to be a man that is a person of esteem within his community. And, on the other, we have the hemorrhaging woman, who would have been on the margins of her community. Both are faced with something they are powerless to affect, and both turn to Jesus for help. In both cases their faith results in healing, in a restoration to life and wholeness. In both cases, Jesus recognizes the basic worth and dignity of those who come to him in faith.
This text calls us to recognize that no matter where we are in our lives and no matter what is going on in the midst of our lives, God is present to us. Christ is there for us. We need only have faith in him to experience his healing.
But, let me be clear, even as we see the woman’s hemorrhage come to an end and we see the daughter of Jairus come back to life, we would do well to recognize that healing doesn’t equate automatically to cure. Healing is about restoration to wholeness.
We often equate healing and cure with one another. When we say we have been healed we often mean we have been cured. But we all have known persons who were people of deep faith who have not experienced cure even in the midst of their faithful prayers. No, healing and cure are, in fact, related but different. Cure is about the elimination of illness or disease. Healing is about the restoration of wholeness and life regardless of other circumstances.
In our narrative it would be easy to become focused only the cure that occurs. But the more profound thing that happens is the healing. In both cases there is a restoration on life and wholeness. The woman is once again a whole person, worthy of being called “daughter.” She is restored in the presence of her community and to her community. The little girl is restored to her life, but perhaps equally important is the restoration and wholeness that is brought to her parents.
Just as the people in our story today found healing because of their faith, we too are called to have faith in Christ. But just as we recognize that faith brings healing we must not presume that by believing in Jesus we can somehow bend the will of God to our own. When praying for healing, cure may not be a part of the equation, but that does not mean that healing won’t occur.
I can think of an example from my experiences over the years that point to this truth. I once knew a woman who had suffered for a number of years from cancer. What was remarkable about her was that she was not defined by her illness. Even as she went through various rounds of chemotherapy and radiation she remained vibrant and full of life. Her vitality seemed almost superhuman to me.
Finally, I worked up the courage to ask her how she was the way she was. Her reply was simple, that God had healed her. I must have looked perplexed because she then went on to say that she had for a long-time asked God to cure her of her cancer and wondered why, in her faith, it didn’t happen, until one day she had a moment of grace and insight. She came to recognize that her sense of tragedy around her illness was the sense that she had been robbed of something, namely a long and healthy life. She didn’t so much want to be cured of her illness as much as to be given back her sense of wholeness. She wanted to live and to have a sense of hope. And it was in the midst of that realization that God spoke to her and reminded her that none of us know how long we will live. That every day is a gift. That she was alive right that moment and that there was no reason to not to live as fully as possible. From that day forward she claimed the life she had and no longer lived in anticipation of her illness or her death. That doesn’t mean she didn’t have good days and bad days, but she said that her sense of life and wholeness could no longer be defined by the disease. Since then, she had tried to be a source of hope and fullness of life for others. She credited all of that to her faith in Christ and the insight that Christ had brought to her.
We too are called to be people of faith, the faith of the hemorrhaging woman, the faith of the leader of the synagogue, and the faith of my friend from years ago. When faced with the challenges of life may we have the will to approach or reach out to Christ in faith. May we have the courage to accept his healing whether cure comes or not. May we know the wholeness and life that Christ offers to each of us even in the midst of our brokenness. And may we then be agents of life and wholeness for others. May the power of Christ be in us, and may we be a blessing, even as we are blessed.