Sermon 27th June 2021 – 5th Sunday after Pentecost
Text: Mark 5:21-43 – persisting in
hope
In today’s Gospel, we hear two
stories of healing. But they come about in different ways. One is what we call
through intercessory prayer. When we pray for someone who is unable to pray for
themselves. Jairus’s daughter is ill – on the verge of death and Jairus pleads
with Jesus to come and lay his hands on her to make her well. The other is a
prayer of last resort.
A woman who has tried everything to
find healing for herself – “She had
endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was
no better, but rather grew worse” There are similarities that Mark is wanting
us to see.
We know neither of their names. One
is Jairus’s daughter – the other simply a woman suffering from hemorrhages. Jairus’s
daughter is 12 years old – the woman has been suffering for 12 years. But they
go about their plea for help in different ways.
Jairus fell at Jesus’ feet and begged
him repeatedly,. The woman sneaks up
from behind and does not ask for permission of any kind; Both show great faith
in Jesus ability to heal. But the healing happens in opposite ways: Jairus asks
Jesus to lay his hands on his daughter while the woman, without permission,
lays her hand on Jesus’ clothes. She does this because there is no one there to
advocate for her. She has no friends to
carry her on a mat or lower her through the roof to be seen by Jesus. She has
no father like Jairus’s daughter.
I feel that the woman is a lot like
many of us. She has tried everything. She
has done everything money can buy. She
has seen countless doctors and has only grown worse. When do we normally turn to God? After we have
exhausted all our other options? But something in her still has hope. And so do we even though we try our own ways
first. Despite all she has been through, something in her believes, trusts, and
even expects that if she simply reaches out and touches the edge of Jesus’
cloak, she will be healed. Even though her ways are sneaky. Even though she had
tried other ways first.
She still has faith in Jesus albeit a
flickering wick. Does that sound familiar?
Do we sometimes approach Jesus rather
sheepishly because we’ve tried everything else and now we will try asking
Jesus?
Well the good news is that she still
is able to discover healing despite her ways of going about it. But is that the
full extent of her healing? She is immediately physically healed as she touches
Jesus’ clothes but her spiritual needs do not end there. She needs further
healing in her relationship with God to enable her to trust him.. She can’t
just sneak off after having had an encounter as such with Jesus. Jesus, knowing
exactly what has happened, turns to her and reassures her that she’s not in
trouble. Jesus is not going to scold her or take back the healing asking why
she didn’t come to him first or ask for permission to touch him. She feels that
he is going to reprimand her. She came in fear and trembling, fell down before
him, and told him the whole truth – much like our confession and forgiveness. But
he reassures her: Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be
healed of your disease. It had nothing to do with any magical powers hidden in
his clothes but the faith she put in Jesus. Whereas in the past it was sickness
that had defined her, Jesus has set her free and redefined her to be a daughter
of God She had no father like Jairus’s daughter did to plead with Jesus. She didn’t need to – she is a daughter of God.
God is her heavenly Father and Jesus pleads for her healing.
Again Mark wants us to see this
connection as Jesus calls her daughter and now he goes to heal Jairus’s
daughter. But again Jesus must deal with negativity and doubts with people
saying that hope for Jairus’s daughter’s
life is already lost as some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your
daughter is dead. And even though Jesus
says “the child is not dead but sleeping” they laughed at him. Jesus ignores
their laughter because his hope is in his heavenly Father’s power and
compassion. A reminder to us to ignore the laughter of the world because we put
our hope in Jesus Christ and him rising from the dead. Jesus enters the home,
gathers with the young girl’s parents and loved ones, and invites her to get up
and walk around. She is healed, and they are all overcome with amazement. Both
of these stories contain amazing healing but it is the persistent hope that
Mark is wanting us to focus on.
The woman has exhausted everything
she has—her finances, her options—but hope moves her to reach to Jesus when
everything is gone. Jairus’s daughter has exhausted her very life but Jairus
does not give up hope in Jesus. So the message here for us is to never give up
hope in Jesus. And sometimes that is what it takes for us to see that in Christ
alone is our hope. And hope will not disappoint us as St Paul points out: Suffering produces endurance, and endurance
produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint
us. And Jesus will not turn us away because we’ve left him till last. Jairus is
told not to bother the teacher any longer, that his daughter has already died
but he and Jesus carry on, continuing to the house to see her. Hope carries Jairus forward just as it did the
bleeding woman.
There is desperation and depletion in
both of these stories but hope is stronger. And sometimes it is when all else fails that
we realise where our true hope lies. After a year and a half of pandemic,
heated political divides, isolation, and unrest, we are hungry for healing
within our bodies, our tired souls, and our communities. Maybe we are where this woman and Jairus were.
All hope in anything else has been exhausted – we are exhausted. We need to
reach out for Jesus healing.
We need to ask for help, for rest,
through prayer. Let us identify with Jairus and keep trusting in Jesus when the
world has lost hope. Let us identify with the woman who has tried everything
else, as we have, – masks, santitizing,
social distancing, lockdowns, vaccinations and we’re still no better and in
fact many feel worse. Let us seek
healing where it is can be found when all other hope is lost and remember that
to believe in Jesus is to hope for—even to expect—healing and wholeness whether
it be in this lifetime or our full healing in Heaven.
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