13th Sunday B
Mark 5:21-43
Today’s gospel reports two stories of healing presented like a sandwich. One story tells us about a father’s great love for his dying daughter. The other story tells us about a desperate woman who risks much as she seeks healing from Jesus. In each story, the request for healing is itself a courageous act of faith, and yet very different circumstances are represented by the lives of each suffering person.
The contrast between Jairus, the daughter’s father and the woman with hemorrhage are stark and revealing. One is a man, the other is a woman. One is a public official, an important person in the community, the other is a woman who has lost everything to find a cure to the condition that separated her from the community. One approaches Jesus publicly, the other approaches him secretly. Yet in each case faith leads them to seek out Jesus in their time of need.
Let us analyze this. From the crowd a sick woman touches Jesus in an unseen way. But He discovers: Who has touched me?, he asks. "You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ "
Yes, that’s exactly what Jesus could ask. He could ask because he’d felt something quite different from the normal collisions of shoulders and elbows and sandals and hips and legs. He’d felt that "power had gone out from him" (verse 30). He’d sensed that someone had touched his clothes with a definite purpose in mind, a definite need, and that this person had done so believing that through this act God would give deliverance.
Jairus, was not afraid to walk right up to Jesus, fall at Jesus’ feet, and plead for the daughter he loved. But the sick woman was different. Though she was determined and believed that doing so she will be cured, she was very afraid to approach this mysterious man of God. Unlike Jairus, she sneaked up behind Jesus, flicked a finger across the wrinkles of his robe and sunk back into the anonymity of the crowd.
And despite her fear, despite her low opinion of herself, maybe because of her status as a woman, but even more likely because of her status as unclean because of the purity laws about menstrual flow, Jesus noticed her. And he called her to him: my daughter be cured.
Meanwhile, Jairus’ daughter died, and the messengers of this news told Jairus not to bother Jesus any more about it — after all, it was too late. But Jesus ignored them. He went straight to Jairus’ house and despite the scorn and disbelief at his statement that the girl was not dead, but only sleeping, he took her by the hand and brought her back to life.
The point is that the power of God cannot be prevented by what we are. Whether you’re timid and shy, young or old, a leader or an outcast, Jesus will still accomplish his mission. He knows you, loves you, cares about your needs and your fears and your crises, and is ready to help. He listens to your pleas and he senses hopeful hearts at the back of the line and behind the door.
Your personality, your temperament, your status, even your sinful condition cannot erect barrier in the mission of Jesus Christ because he came to break every barriers and limitations of sickness, sin, gender, nationality and death itself so that we all can enter into communion with God and with each other.
All that we need is to take courage and to express our need with faith and trust. What is your need? What is your crisis? What is your fear? Take it to Jesus, take it to him in whatever way works for you. He loves you, he is on your side, and he is waiting for you. Take courage to fall at his feet and express your request like Jairus, take courage to sneak up behind him and touch his cloth like the woman, he will grand all your needs.
No comments:
Post a Comment