Psalm 112, Deuteronomy 15:7-11, 2 Corinthians 8:1-9,13-15, Mark 5:22-24,35b-43
Faith and healing
I’m not sure how the gospel lesson for today got paired with two readings on giving. Even the Psalm for today contains the lines “ 5 A good man deals graciously and lends...” and “He has given to the poor...” But, the gospel shows us two miracles of healing, when other passages from the gospel where Jesus teaches on healing are obvious candidates. So, even though today’s lectionary is a great one for a sermon on giving, I’m going to pass, partly because I do not think this parish needs pastoral exhortation on the subject of giving, and it’s kind of tacky to preach about the sins of other Christians.
Additionally, the gospel for today shows us something interesting about Jesus’ ministry that I think ARE important for us to notice in our day. And, in a round-about way, one of the things we’re going to learn from Jesus’ actions here is immediately applicable to giving.
I should also point out to you that the lectionary for today skipped past the eight verses all about the woman with the issue of blood. Instead, it includes only the verses about Jairus’ daughter. But, Mark – and, if I may say so, the Holy Spirit – seems to have thought these two healings were connected somehow. What, then, is the connection? I propose to share with you what I think the connection is.
First, let us note the ways in which these healings are similar. Both miracles are prompted by desperation. And, both miracles are prompted by faith in Jesus. Finally, both miracles occur in highly public settings.
On the other hand, both of these miracles of healing have notable differences. One miracle is, if we may say this, involuntary on Jesus’ part, while the other is obviously deliberate. In one miracle, Jesus takes steps to bring an otherwise invisible miracle to light. In the other, Jesus takes steps to hide, as far as possible, that a miracle of healing has taken place.
What do we make of all this? Well, several things, so let me simply list and comment on them.
First, as to the similarities of these two miracles, I think the lessons are not difficult to discern. What prompts both miracles is desperation. In the case of Jairus’ daughter, the crisis was very likely immediate. Mark doesn’t say so explicitly, but if there is a contrast in the little girl’s situation and that of the woman, it is this: the woman’s problem had persisted for twelve years, while the 12 year old girl’s illness was likely sudden and immediately threatening. Both examples are reproduced in the lives of Christians constantly. We come to Jesus pretty quickly when a crisis that overtakes us that is sudden and overwhelming. On the other hand, like the woman with the issue of blood, we also come to Jesus as a kind of last resort, when all other avenues have been exhausted. “Might as well try Jesus,” is the thought.
In fairness to the woman, this passage does not present her as avoiding Jesus until everything else had been tried. For one thing, she had the problem long before Jesus began his public ministry. But, once Jesus did make himself known publicly, she no doubt heard quite a lot about him. And her ears must have pricked up when she kept hearing reports of these miraculous cures he was conferring on people whose illness was, indeed, desperate. And that leads us to the second lesson, -- the primary priority of faith.
Faith in Jesus is so vital a matter in these miracles of healing that it can – as it were – snatch from Jesus what is sought in faith. The woman does not even ask. She simply believes that touching Jesus’ garment will heal her. And when she touches his garment, she is healed.
She senses immediately that she is healed; Jesus senses immediately that he has healed someone. I honestly do not know what to think about Jesus’ question here. We can excuse the disciples, for the moment, for they do not know what Jesus knows. But, it is what Jesus evidently does NOT know that is startling. He knows that faith in him has effected some miraculous cure, but – unless he is dissembling – he does NOT know WHO has been cured. So, he turns around and asks, “Who touched me?”
It was a nonsense question to the disciples; but the woman knew that Jesus knew. And, so when he no doubt searches the faces in the crowd for signs of someone who has been healed of some disease, the woman confesses – not her sin, but her faith in Jesus. And, Jesus is straightforward in what he wants her and all the others around them to know – her faith in him has made her well, not some magical touch of his garment. Her faith is imperfect, even superstitious. But, it is genuine faith, and so Jesus corrects it.
Let us turn to Jairus and his dying daughter. Just after the woman had been graciously dismissed by Jesus, messengers from Jairus’ house arrive to tell him his daughter has already died. Jesus’ responds to this news by saying to Jairus – “Do not be afraid; only believe.” The forms of the verbs in Mark’s account allow us to give a more accurate translation than that. Jesus says, “Stop being afraid.” And, so we know that the messengers from home have caused Jairus to fear that everything is too late.
And, then, Jesus says, “Keep on believing.” Believe what? Well, the man has believed Jesus could help him, and Jesus’ exhortation encourages this – yes, I can and will help you. “Keep on believing that.”
It is important to notice here the difference in how Jesus relates to the woman’s faith, and how he relates to Jairus’ faith. The woman’s faith was flawed. She evidently had some sort of magical notion about how healings were brought about by Jesus. And, if you knew the kinds of things she submitted herself to at the direction of the physicians she consulted, you’d be sympathetic to her superstitious notions. Medicine in those days was about 90 percent superstition. Consequently, Jesus sets aside her superstition and points to the one thing that prevailed – her faith in Him.
In Jairus’ case, however, his faith is not imperfect so much as it is threatened by fear and despair. And, so Jesus exhorts him to stop being afraid, but to keep on believing in Jesus.
So, they set out for Jairus’ home. Jesus only takes three of the disciples with him, the three who were witnesses to his transfiguration and to his passion. And, when they arrive, Jesus, Jairus and the rest are met by professional mourners who are wailing. When Jesus tells them their commotion is unnecessary, the ridicule him. And, so he shows them the door.
The only ones to see this miracle are Jairus, his wife, and the three disciples Jesus brought with him. Note, again, the contrast with the miracle of healing with the woman. If Jesus had left matters alone, no one but he and the woman would have known that she was healed. Jesus, however, takes steps to make it plain what has happened.
In this case, we have almost the opposite. A lot of people know Jairus and his appeal to Jesus. Everyone at Jairus’ home, and certainly the crowd around Jesus that included the woman with the issue of blood. And, of course, the neighbors and the professional mourners know that the child is dead. Jesus may be able to heal the sick, if the reports are to be given any credit. But raise the dead? Piffle.
And, so, Jesus does not defend himself. Nor does he make a spectacle of showing the naysayers that they’re wrong. Instead, he deprives them of the very evidence that would show them to be wrong. He puts them all out of the house, and only the mother and father are permitted to witness the miracle.
Indeed, no one witnessed the earlier miracle either. It happened in the middle of a thronging crowd of people, and everyone missed it, except Jesus and the woman who was healed. Yes, the crowd was told that a miracle had occurred, but no one saw it. They learned of it only via a testimony, given on the spot by the woman who was healed.
When I was a boy, television was a big deal, a new thing, and we watched it simply for the novelty of it. It was black and white TV too. I can remember three things from those days of early TV watching. I remember watching the Walt Disney Show. I remember watching the Ed Sullivan Show. and I remember watching Oral Roberts when he was just getting started. He had a TV show and it was all about his miraculous healing services. He’d put his hand on the person’s forehead, and squint his eyes, and take a few halting breaths, and then he’d shout “HEAAAAL” while throwing his hands in the air, and everybody else would do the same, and the person who was sick, or in a wheel chair, or on crutches take off dancing around. It made quite a show, and I think it must have sold a lot of Tide Detergent or Hellman’s Mayonnaise or Velveeta Cheese or whoever was sponsoring the broadcast.
If you compare that show with what you find in the gospels, or in the Book of Acts, the spirit of the enterprise is remarkably different. And, nothing could show that more than what we have in today’s gospel. To be sure, Jesus’ miracles of healing were signs, but they were not the kind of stage-show spectacle Oral Roberts or others like him have produced for our entertainment since television appeared on the scene.
Far more likely than what I watched as a boy is what you see in the gospels. I do not wish to deny the power of Christ to heal people today. The credible accounts of miraculous healings when prayer is made to God are simply too numerous to discount. We are specifically commanded to anoint with oil in the name of the Lord and to pray for healing. And, yes, in his grace, God is even pleased to heal folks who showed up in Oral Roberts’ tent meetings. But, if I were a wagering man, I’d bet a bundle on the fact that there have been vastly more healings like what we see in here the gospels than what I used to watch on television. Miracles of healing like the woman – where no one but the person who is healed ever knew a miracle of healing had occurred. Miracles of healing like Jairus’ daughter, where only a handful of people were privy to the facts that demonstrated a true miracle had happened.
And, more than that, I want to emphasize this from today’s gospel lesson. The point of the healings is not that Jesus could heal the sick or cast out demons. That had already been amply demonstrated by this point in his ministry. That is why the woman and Jairus come to him in the first place. Mark does not record these two miracles of healing to make the point that Jesus could perform miracles of healing. Instead, he recorded these two miracles of healing to make this point: that FAITH in Jesus was paramount for any salvation – from disease, or from the wrath of God that is coming one day on the earth.
I could not close this homily to this congregation without commenting on its relevance to the illness and death of my own daughter, who died from a brain tumor at an age three years younger than Jairus daughter. This episode in the gospels, as you might imagine, popped up right away. Was the outcome for me the same as, or different from, the outcome for Jairus? His daughter came back from the dead; mine died.
One might dismiss the parallels as superficial – both I and Jairus had daughters who were ill. Both daughters died. Jairus’ daughter was raised from the dead, mine was not. At least not yet. On that reading, there is no real parallel, for I do not know anyone who appeals to this episode of the gospels to make the point that resurrection from the dead is the normal thing Christians may expect from their appeals to Jesus. Yes, Cheska will be raised from the dead, but that is her hope, and my hope for her, based on something else entirely – Jesus promise to raise all those who are his when he returns to the earth.
On the other hand, there is a strong parallel between Jairus’ daughter, and the woman with the issue of blood, and my daughter’s illness. And the point of contact is not the outcome of the trial as far as illness is concerned. No, the parallel lies in the point of these miracles of healing: that faith in Jesus is what saves, and faith in Jesus is what provides comfort, and consolation, and – yes – even something that my properly be called miraculous. And, what was that miracle, you ask? Well, in a nutshell, the miracle occurred on two levels.
For our family, the miracle is that we survived the ordeal intact. For the entire 16 months, and for six months or so after Cheska died, I read an internet mail list inhabited by brain tumor patients, their families, and their caregivers, including many physicians and nurses. What I saw was a horrific toll of personal devastation on families. Divorce rates skyrocketed. Other family ties were ruptured. People – with and without brain tumors – commited suicide, or sunk into escapist drug abuse. I won’t say that what our family went through was easy; it was not. But we got through it without the domestic devastation I read about so often in the letters to the brain tumor list.
And, the second miracle was Cheska herself. In 16 short months, she was transformed. She is the first person in whom I could say that I actually witnessed what Paul spoke about when he wrote this in his second letter to the Corinthians: [4:16] 16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. Her body perished, slowly but steadily, day by day. But, over those short months, her character was transformed from that of a fearful, anxious, worried, pessimistic, and often whiney eight-year old girl, into something approaching an adult character who was brave, calm, trusting in the Lord, optimistic and hopeful of her eternal destiny in Christ. I know parents who cannot say this about their children who are in their twenties and thirties and forties. But, I saw the change from a run-of-the-mill sinner to extraordinary saint in the span of 467 days. This does not happen without what we see in the gospel for today – it does not happen with out faith in Jesus, and it does not happen without the compassion and grace of the Jesus in whom we placed our faith.
“7 For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. 8 For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. [Romans 14:7-8] May it please our Father in heaven, for Jesus’ sake, to grant the petitions we bring to him in Jesus name. And, God grant that our faith in Christ may match that of the woman in Mark 5, that it may match the faith of Jairus and his wife, so that in our desperation, in the crises we encounter, and in our day to day living as well, we may find as they did that Jesus is truly worthy of our trust.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
