Jesus as Healer - December 14, 2008
Sermon Notes for Mark 5:25-34
Key verse: Mark 5:34 “And he said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.’”
Most of us have longed to hear these words at some point in our lives. We long to hear Jesus call us “Daughter” or “Son” and to know that our faith proved strong enough to bring healing. Yet, few of us actually experience the healing we seek, and some of us have come to believe that our lack of faith is to blame. However, I don’t think that is God’s desire for us. God longs for our healing and desires to give us the gift of faith that will see us through our lives. I guess the question Jesus asked still applies: Do we want to be healed? If so, healed of what? And are we willing to take the risks that healing demands?
The story of the healing in our passage from Mark today helps us wrestle with these questions. We actually pick up in the middle of the story. Mark has a technique called intercalation, which means he sandwiches one story in the middle of another. Both stories, then, rely on each other for interpretation, each shedding light on the other, enriching the meaning. In this case, we begin with a synagogue leader named Jairus who pleaded with Jesus to heal his deathly ill 12 year old daughter. Synagogue leaders held a place of high status in ancient Judaism, and also tended to be well-known, respected, and wealthy. Further, most of the religious establishment distrusted Jesus. So, the fact that Jairus approached Jesus for healing signaled his level of distress. Jesus began to go with Jairus to heal his daughter, when a woman approached him in the middle of the crowd.
She has heard about Jesus’ healing powers and she desperately seeks to be healed. She has been sick for 12 years, the same amount of time as Jairus’s daughter has been alive. Mark tells us that she has been hemorrhaging, and the presumption is that her bleeding was female-related. This bleeding, then, not only exhausted her physically and her search for a cure exhausted her financially, it also made her “unclean” in a society focused on purity codes. Therefore, she became a social outcast. No one was allowed to touch her or they would become unclean. She was not allowed to participate in daily household duties where women experienced friendship. And, she could not even enter the Temple because she was ritually impure. She was sick and alienated and alone.
Who knows, then, what gave her the hope to seek healing one more time. But, she faced the risks and sought Jesus out. She thought to herself that if she could just touch the hem of his garment she would be healed. Notice two things about this story. First, she had to risk going into the crowd. If she touched anyone, she would make them unclean. If anyone knew her, she risked exposure and shame for being in public. She appeared to be alone, which also brought shame on a woman in that society. But, she took the risk. Second, she did not want to risk touching Jesus and making him unclean. She hoped that by touching the hem of his garment, he might not notice and thereby would not be unclean.
But Jesus did notice. He felt the power going out of him. And although he was on his way to the home of a man of great status, Jesus stopped. He asked who touched him. His disciples expressed dismay at the question. After all, they were in the midst of a great crowd. To Jesus, though, they were not nameless faces in a crowd, but real people with real hurts and real needs. The woman realized she had been healed and that she had been caught. So she came before Jesus with fear. Jesus, however, dismissed her fear with one word: daughter. He not only valued her by equating her with one of his own family, he also implied that she could have access to him that a personal relationship within a family provided. He praised her faith, which she had been forbidden to express because she could not enter the Temple, and he proclaimed her healed. It almost seems as if the woman experienced a cure when she touched Jesus but a healing when she encountered him. He restored her to community with his powerful words.
Meanwhile, because of the interruption, Jairus’s daughter died. Jesus reassured the man that she was simply sleeping and people laughed at him. It must have been easy for Jairus to judge Jesus. After all, a man of his status did not experience interruptions often. But, Jairus had just seen the woman healed. So, he continued on with Jesus. The mourners served the same role as the crowd for the woman: obstacles to healing. Yet, Jesus went into the mess of death, again another place that was ritually impure. He did not avoid these places, but faced them head on, bringing healing and life wherever he went.
Jesus did not primarily define himself as a healer. His life was too short to be limited to that mission. However, God’s compassion filled Jesus’ heart whenever he encountered people who suffered, and therefore he offered them his healing power. These healings, then, point back to God’s heart and God’s desire, which is that there be no more sickness or suffering, pain, or death, or mourning, or crying. (See Revelation 21:3-5.) Jesus’ heart so resonated with God’s Spirit that he offered what power he had to heal. As the Body of Christ on earth now, God invites us, too, to get in touch with that compassionate desire and offer healing wherever we go.
Questions for Reflection
- Have you ever been healed in your life? What and who did that healing involve? Did you stop to thank God for that healing?
- What risks prevent you from seeking God’s healing desire for your life? Have you ever been an obstacle to someone else’s healing? In what ways?
- Do you ever feel unclean? Do you ever experience alienation in relationships or from community? How might Jesus be inviting you to experience healing in your life?
- How did the Holy Spirit speak to you in worship today?
