Scripture Reading Mark 5:21-43
Jesus Raises a
Dead Girl and Heals a Sick Woman
When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other
side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the
lake.
Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus,
came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet.
He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is
dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed
and live.”
So Jesus went with him.
A large crowd followed and pressed around him.
And a woman was there who had been subject to
bleeding for twelve years.
She had suffered a great deal under the care of many
doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew
worse.
When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the
crowd and touched his cloak,
because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I
will be healed.”
Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body
that she was freed from her suffering.
At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from
him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”
“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples
answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”
But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done
it.
Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came
and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth.
He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed
you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the
house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” they said.
“Why bother the teacher anymore?”
Overhearing what they said, Jesus told
him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”
He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and
John the brother of James.
When they came to the home of the synagogue
leader, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing
loudly.
He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion
and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.”
But they laughed at him.
After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and
mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child
was.
He took her by the hand and said to
her, “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you,
get up!”).
Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around
(she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished.
He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about
this, and told them to give her something to eat.
Here ends this reading of the Word of God for the People of God. Thanks
be to God. Amen.
Prayer for Understanding
God of each and
every generation, send us your Holy Spirit as we listen to the scriptures read
and interpreted. Open our minds to your wisdom, open our eyes to see how to
serve you, and open our hearts to receive and share your healing love. Amen.
Message “Healing Prayers”
When Lucia was a
toddler, she experienced the normal falls and bumps that all little people
face. She would skin her knees or scrape her elbows. Every once in a while, she
would irritate the cat and have a resulting scratch. And, when Lucia came to Mom
and tearfully reported her injury, she expected me to kiss her wound and tell
her it was all better. And, miraculously, that kiss from mom was all it took to
stop the pain. Lucia could then move on
with her day and get back to playing.
When Jesus was on
earth the first time, he began to be known as a miraculous healer. In today’s
reading, Jesus returned to Capernaum. He
was there before he went on the boat ride across the Sea of Galilee that
resulted in his calming the storm—the story we focused on last week. When Jesus returned to Capernaum, a crowd
gathered as soon as his boat pulled up to the Shore. Jairus, a leader in the
synagogue, rushed to meet the boat. His
daughter was dying, and Jairus wanted Jesus to come and heal her.
While Jesus and
his disciples rushed to Jairus’ home, Jesus was swamped by people. They all wanted
to see what he would do next. They wanted his attention. They wanted him to
heal them.
In the midst of the
crowd and the rush and the turmoil that cascaded around Jesus, a woman who had
been ill for 12 years reached out and touched Jesus. Jesus was so distracted
and focused on getting though the crowd that he didn’t see who touched him. He
stopped and asked who touched his clothes.
The woman came
forward and bowed at Jesus feet and admitted it was her. Jesus blessed her and told her that her faith
had made her well. The woman’s faith was
so strong she knew she only needed to touch the hem of Jesus’ cloak and she
would be healed.
Just after this
healing miracle happened, a group of people who had been at Jairus’ home came
and told him his daughter died. Jesus told everyone to believe in God and to
believe in God’s healing. He kept walking to Jarius’ home and found a sad group
there. Jesus made the weeping people leave the home, then he went and
resurrected Jairus’ daughter from the dead.
This was Jesus’
first act of restoring a dead person to life.
His first resurrection was of a 12 year old girl. And, on the way to the
resurrection of Jairus’ daughter, he healed a woman who had bled for 12 years.
In the Bible, and
in Christian history, the number 12 is important. You may recall, Jacob had 12 sons, and the
descendants of those 12 sons became the 12 tribes of Israel. Jesus was 12 years
old when he visited the Temple in Jerusalem and explained scripture to the
priests and elders gathered there. Jesus had 12 Disciples, and after his death
and the death of Judas, the followers of Jesus made sure there were 12 Apostles.
Jairus’ daughter was 12 years old and the bleeding woman bled 12 years. 12, 12,
12…
In the Bible, the
number 12 represents the perfection of government and rule. Twelve is the perfect number to represent
leadership – Jesus is revealed as a 12 year old. There are twelve tribes,
twelve disciples, and twelve apostles.
And, yet, in our
story today, the number 12 is used to demonstrate healing and resurrection in very
lowly people. The bleeding woman would
have been an outcast. Because of her
blood, she would have been considered unclean.
And, since she bled constantly, she wouldn’t have been able to undergo
the purification rituals women at that time underwent to be restored to symbolic
wholeness. The woman was therefore forced to live on the margins of society.
In the 1st
century, in Israel, children had low status and girl children had every lower
status. Yet, in today’s example, Jesus compassionately raised a girl child from
the dead.
In both healings, Jesus
demonstrated the Kingdom of God, the perfect way of living, was being revealed
in Jesus’ teachings. And, when we live following Jesus teachings, and when the
people of the world live following Jesus’ teachings, we create a world where
the former exiles and marginalized people become welcome and whole. Everyone is
beloved by our God, everyone is welcome into the Kingdom of God – the former
outcasts are now part of the group, the former exiles are now welcomed home.
Our job as Christians
is to see the people we are excluding. We are called to keep an eye out for the
people who don’t feel invited to the party. When Jesus healed the bleeding
woman, he didn’t see who had been healed. So, he asked the Disciples who it
was.
We are called upon
to pay more attention than the Disciples did.
We are called upon to watch out for our neighbors. Our neighbors may not
look like us, or live in the kinds of houses we live in, and may not be our age
or in our stage of live. Our neighbors are undocumented and citizens; our
neighbors are children, and teenagers, and young adults, and middle aged
adults, and senior adults; our neighbors are white and black and Indian and Korean
and Latino and Middle Eastern and every other ethnicity; our neighbors are
already Christians or are not Christians yet or are Jewish or Hindu or Muslim
or Wiccan; our neighbors are straight or gay or trans or questioning; our
neighbors are depressed or anxious or struggle with addictions or struggle with
illnesses or struggle with worries; our neighbors are just like us or are
nothing like us and are more like us than we realize.
Through Jesus, we
learn about God’s ideal world, the Kingdom of God Jesus came to earth to
establish. Jesus’ actions show us that
everyone is welcomed and loved by our God. It is our work as the followers of Jesus
to reach out to others and treat them with the love and respect and kindness
that everyone deserves. It is our work as Christians to follow Jesus’ example
and uphold the cause of the oppressed and give food to the hungry, to set the
prisoners free and give sight to the blind, to lift up those who are bowed down
and love the righteous, to watch over the foreigner and sustain the orphaned
and the widow.
May we walk in the
path of Jesus and remember that we are the beloved children of God as we spread
the message of God’s love to everyone we meet.
Amen.
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