INTRODUCTION TO THEME
Today is the 6th Sunday in the “Season after Pentecost”—which started with Trinity Sunday on May 26 and goes all the way to November 24 with the Feast of Christ the King, before we get to Advent and then Christmas. We’re mostly following the book of Mark, from Chapter 2 to 13, tracking Jesus’ ministry through Galilee, Judea, Perea, eventually arriving in Jerusalem. Last Sunday we had Jesus calming the storm on the Lake of Galilee, rebuking the wind and saying to the waves: “Quiet: be still!”
Today’s Gospel reading is Mark 5: 21-43, a long reading which we’ll split in two parts: Jesus has returned to the west side of the lake, around Capernaum, with a large crowd gathered around. One of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus, begs Jesus to come and heal his little daughter who appears to be dying.
But on the way to Jairus’s house, Jesus has an amazing interaction with an unnamed woman who has been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years. She says to herself: “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”
Two healing miracles today for the price of one! Our theme today is “Faith unlocks grace”—the grace and love of God to come into our lives, to heal us and transform us, to empower us to take our lives to the next level.
GOSPEL READING PART 1: Mark 5:21–34
5:21 When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea.
5:22 Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet
5:23 and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.”
5:24 So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him.
5:25 Now there was a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years.
5:26 She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse.
5:27 She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak,
5:28 for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”
5:29 Immediately her haemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.
5:30 Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?”
5:31 And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?'”
5:32 He looked all around to see who had done it.
5:33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth.
5:34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
REFLECTION PART 1:
The “woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years…. She had endured much under many physicians,” as Diana read, “and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse.” Our heart goes out to this woman—the fact that she is unnamed seems to make it all the more poignant—she is an anonymous, nameless person in the crowd, not a leader, like Jairus, not a prominent person in anyway, a person of lowly station, one of “les miserables”, the wretched ones, the rejects of society—the very opposite of Jairus. Her condition was probably made all the more debilitating by the fact that she would have been considered ceremonially unclean under Jewish Law and shunned by people generally, very unlikely to have been able to get married and have children.
But she had obviously been watching and following Jesus. By this time, still early in his Galilean ministry, Jesus had already, very publicly, healed many people—in Mark 1:33-34 we read: “The whole town [Capernaum] gathered at the door [of Simon and Andrew’s house] and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons…” then in Mark 3:10-11: “For he had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him.”
So, in Mark Chapter 5, our anonymous woman seizes her opportunity: “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well”, she says to herself. All she dares do is touch his outer garment, his cloak; anything more than that she knew would have technically made Jesus ceremonially unclean too, and bring even more condemnation upon her. What happens when she touches Jesus’ cloak?… [verse 29] … “Immediately her haemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.” Believe it: it’s too good, too wonderful, not to be true!
Imagine the scene: there’s a big crowd around and Jesus was on the way to heal somebody else, Jairus’s daughter. Jesus’ mind wasn’t on the woman at all—it’s a completely unintentional healing! No hands!
But immediately Jesus knew something had happened: he felt the power, the healing power, the grace, go forth from him. “Who touched my clothes?”, he said. The disciples were incredulous: “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?'”
Jesus “looked all around to see who had done it”, but obviously couldn’t see who it was in the milling crowd. So, the woman herself, “knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth.”
Then Jesus delivers the punchline: “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
Your faith, not me!—says Jesus. I didn’t heal you—see, hands off!—rather your faith unlocked the grace of God, to come into your life and heal you.
Faith unlocks grace—there’s our theme for today.
Now, let’s hear the second part of today’s reading, and find out what happened with Jairus’s daughter.
GOSPEL READING PART 2: Mark 5:35–43
5:35 While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?”
5:36 But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.”
5:37 He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James.
5:38 When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.
5:39 When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.”
5:40 And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was.
5:41 He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!”
5:42 And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement.
5:43 He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.
REFLECTION PART 2
We met Jairus in the first part of the story; he is definitely not one of les miserables, the wretched ones; he is a big man, a leader of the synagogue, self-confident enough to imagine that Jesus might agree to come to his house—in complete contrast to the woman with the twelve-year haemorrhage. Yet, still, he humbled himself, fell at Jesus’ feet, begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.” No longer a big man, telling others what to do, but a desperate father of a dying daughter.
But now Jesus is too late! He tarried on the way to heal the woman—well, he didn’t heal her, her own faith did, as we saw—and in the meantime Jairus’s daughter died!
“Do not fear, only believe”, Jesus calmly says—have faith, trust, like the woman had.
He gets to the house. No anonymous touching of his cloak here, but a bunch of “people weeping and wailing loudly.” He says to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.”
They laugh at what he says—not a sceptical, mocking laugh I would guess, but one of surprise, astonishment. Then it’s Jesus with just the father and mother in the room with the child.
He takes her by the hand and says to her in Aramaic, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” She immediately bounces out of bed and begins walking around, completely healed. If it was an old bloke like me, I reckon I would have taken a while and been a little more circumspect, but this is a 12 year old, and you know what children are like, they go downhill quickly and they recover quickly!
Jesus doesn’t actually say it this time, but, again, “Your faith has made you well.” Whose faith? The child has been asleep this whole time, maybe even literally dead. Parents stand, as I like to say, in relation to their children, in loco dei, in the place of God—at that age a child has faith in God through their parents—or not, as the case may be—but in this case the parents, Jairus and his wife, do have faith in God, so the child has faith.
Faith unlocks grace. On one hand, in the first healing, we have a wretched, sick woman, spurned by society; on the other, in the second, the child of a leader respected and honoured by the people. Doesn’t matter who you are, great or small, it’s faith that counts.
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Now there is, however, a surprising little postscript to this story—did you notice it? “He strictly ordered them [Jairus and his wife] that no one should know this.” In fact, Jesus often cautioned people whom he healed not to spread the story of the miracle. Why?
The reason is, I think, that Jesus’ healing miracles are not ends in themselves but signs of something else, signs of … the Kingdom. The problem was that the people back then had a preconceived idea of what the Kingdom that the Messiah inaugurated would be, and it was the wrong idea. They were correctly cottoning on to the fact that Jesus was the Messiah, but he was going to be a very different Messiah to the one they were hoping for—they were looking for a great king to save them from the Romans and restore Israel to its former glories under King David, but Jesus knew he was headed, instead, for terrible humiliation and death on a cross.
The Kingdom is not a great temporal kingdom, even if it might eventually become one. We don’t need saving from the Romans, we need saving from … ourselves … our natural-born sinful selfishness, our faith, in … ourselves. Yes, “Your faith has made you well”—but not faith in yourself, rather faith in Jesus, in the invisible God of grace and love Jesus is the incarnation of.
So, it’s not physical healing that we most critically need in our lives, that faith in Jesus brings us; rather it’s the amazing metanoia—remember Trinity Sunday 5 weeks ago—the deep inner transformation from a natural mindset of sinful self-centredness to one of very unnatural selflessness—putting to the sword, if I may put it this way, our natural-born inner narcissist!
That’s the real miracle that Jesus’ healing miracles point to, that he is foremostly concerned for us to see and understand. But this doesn’t mean that he is not interested in physical healing at all—quite the contrary! Obviously, he healed the woman and the little child in today’s Gospel story. And how do you think it has come about that today modern medicine heals far more people than Jesus ever did—Jesus only healed a total of 11 people with leprosy, but modern medicine since the 1980s had wiped out leprosy on virtually the entire planet? Science of course! Modern science is an amazing fruit of the Gospel—not the Church, which has often hindered the development of science, but the Gospel.
Think about it. The two geniuses of modern science are:
- Complete, 100% objectivity, a commitment to real, measurable data—not just hearsay or opinion or anecdote—without preconceptions or prejudgements
- Open, completely honest collaboration and sharing of data and theory in the public domain.
Science is an amazing collective, cooperative effort, completely democratic, with, yes, selfless sharing of information and ideas—that’s how it works and why it is so successful. Jesus came to set us free from all the old, false, oppressive culture and religion, and it’s in that same Gospel spirit that modern science sweeps away all the old false ideas and exclusive secret knowledge, not based on real data—magic, alchemy, astrology and so on …
So, scientific medicine, the miracles of healing it pulls off every day of the week, is itself a sign of the Kingdom—an amazing thought, don’t you think?! But I digress……
Faith unlocks grace—our theme for today. The fundamental action of God’s grace in our lives is to empower us to make the amazingly courageous move of letting go of our natural selfishness, and opening ourselves up to a life of selflessly serving and cooperating with others, a movement which, when humanity as a whole eventually cottons on and joins in, will surely be God’s Kingdom come on Earth.
Amen.
June 2024
