PENTECOST 3

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: PENTECOST 3
PROPER: 8 B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: June 29, 2003


TEXT: Mark 5:22-43 – The Healing of the Woman with the 12 year hemorrhage, and Jarius’ Daughter

ISSUE: Once again in Mark’s gospel account, the Good News is being proclaimed in the healing of the woman, and the raising of the little girl. All that was hoped for is coming to pass in Jesus Christ: (Isaiah 35:1-10) Everyone will see the Lord’s splendor, see his greatness and power. Give strength to hands that are tired and to knees that tremble with weakness. Tell everyone who is discouraged, “Be strong and don’t be afraid! God is coming to your rescue, coming to punish your enemies.” The blind will be able to see, and the deaf will hear. The lame will leap and dance and those who cannot speak will shout for joy. Streams of water will flow through the desert; the burning sand will be come a lake, and dry lands will be filled with springs.
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Mark’s gospel account, the earliest of them all, proclaims from the very beginning: This is the Good News about Jesus Christ the Son of God. In the Hebrew Scriptures there was hope, particularly most beautifully expressed in the writings of Isaiah, that a new age would come.
(Isaiah 35:1-10) Everyone will see the Lord’s splendor, see his greatness and power. Give strength to hands that are tired and to knees that tremble with weakness. Tell everyone who is discouraged, “Be strong and don’t be afraid! God is coming to your rescue, coming to punish your enemies.” The blind will be able to see, and the deaf will hear. The lame will leap and dance and those who cannot speak will shout for joy. Streams of water will flow through the desert; the burning sand will be come a lake, and dry lands will be filled with springs.
The love, mercy, compassion, and healing of God is that Good News, expressed in the ministry and the teaching of Jesus Christ. When John the Baptist sends his disciples to ask if Jesus is The One who is to come, Jesus is reported to reply in Matthew’s Gospel account: “Go back and tell John what you are hearing and seeing: the blind can see, the lame can walk, those who suffer from dreaded skin diseases are made clean,, the deaf hear, the dead are brought back to life, and the Good News is preached to the poor. How happy are those who have no doubts about me!” (Matt. 4:11f)
In last week’s Gospel account from Mark, Jesus is revealed as Son of God upon the hierarchical realm of beings. Jesus has power over the evil spirits. He tells the mean spirited storm and winds to cease. He casts out and drown the legion of evil spirits that possess the Gentile demoniac in Gentile territory. He then crosses back over the Sea of Galilee to Jewish territory where he is confronted by Jarius, who is a Pharisee leader of the community, and president of the local synagogue. Jarius has a dying young child. He implores Jesus to come and lay hands upon the child that she might be made well. Jesus is seen here as a folk healer. We can assume the great desperation of Jarius in that 60 percent of children died before they were teens at this time. The loss of children was quite common. Jesus agrees to return with Jarius to lay hands upon the dying child.
The walk to Jarius’ home is interrupted by another story. The crowds are gathering around Jesus, and bumping into him. In the crowd is a woman who has been ill for some twelve years with a bleeding disorder. She bumps into Jesus at great risk to herself. It is totally inappropriate for a woman to touch a strange man in public. Furthermore, the woman is considered to be unclean according to the purity laws of the time. Anyone she touches she makes unclean because of the discharge of blood. She would not be allowed to worship in the Temple for the entire 12 years she possessed this impurity. Jesus is not sure who has bumped into him, but he has felt a release of power from his body. He demands from the crowd an explanation. The disciples think he is being too sensitive. After all, it is a big pushy crowd. But Jesus persists. The woman confesses at the risk of a dramatic scolding for being in public, and with her impurity. She confesses that she sought healing. For twelve years she has spent all that she had on doctors, to no avail. But her hopes and faith tell her that to touch only the hem of Jesus’ robe will give her the healing she needs, and the restoration to community and a new wholeness. Jesus says to her, “My daughter, your faith has made you well. God in peace, and be healed of your trouble.”
While this healing and exchange is taking place, messengers from Jarius’ home tell him that it is not necessary to bother the Teacher any longer. The little girl is dead. Jesus pays no attention but continues to Jarius’ home, where the mourners have already gathered to mourn the loss of the child. Jesus makes the profound statement that the child is not dead, but that she is only sleeping. The mourners mock him. Jesus takes the child’s parents, and his closes disciples to the bedside of the child. Jesus speaks the Aramaic words: “Talitha koum!” The child awakens. Mark notes the child is twelve years old, and Jesus tells them to give her something to eat.
The connection of these two stories is symbolically or metaphorically very significant in the early Christian Community. These are stories that help identify who Jesus is. These healing gestures have very significant meaning in terms of Jesus as the hoped for, and anticipated Messiah, and Messianic hope. Jesus has not only healed but has raised the dead, and has made a clear statement as to who it is that belongs in the realm of God, or Kingdom of God. Both of those healed are “Daughters:” the daughter of Jarius, and Jesus refers to the sick woman as “My Daughter.” These are very definite family inclusive names. Women are included in the Kingdom of God, and they are made worthy and pure. The two women are associated through the number twelve. The woman has been ill for twelve years, the child is twelve years old. The woman sick for twelve years, and impure, would be dead as far as the community was concerned. The twelve-year-old child who is about to die would be a dreadful loss to the family and community. What has Jesus done? In a true messianic move, he has raised the dead. He is the ultimate healer, and therefore the ultimate hope. Both women are also fertility symbols. Both are given new life, and incorporation into the family of God with the hope of bringing new life to the community. They are both daughters of the living God. Nothing is lost.
Certainly not unlike the casting out of the evil spirits in last week’s readings, the stories also tell of an enormous grace of God that freely comes to the world through Jesus Christ. The Demoniac of last week, freely receives the grace of God’s healing love through Christ without purchase or demand. The woman who touches Jesus receives the free gift of the power of God to cleanse her, so abundant in and through Jesus that it merely flows freely from him. There is abundance of grace for all who turn to Christ for healing and new life. Tell John, “The dead are being raised!”
What are these stories to profoundly expressing? It seems clear to me that the stories express a basic human need for healing, for inclusiveness, to embrace God and to feel the worthiness to be able to express God without shame or guilt. There is the longing for his power to envelop us with hope for the future of our own lives, and for the life of the world. To seek out Jesus Christ, to seek out his ways, and his teachings is to find faith and loyalty to a way of life that includes the poor, the lost, the lame, the impure, and provides new hope and dimension to all people as the people of God.
Notice that all of the lessons this morning, which is a bit unusual, are about issues of good stewardship, even the Psalm 112. (Deut 15:7-11 and 2 Cor. 8:1-9, 13-15) Each pf the lessons speak of an abundance whereby even the poor have something to give. We are all family in the sight of God, and we are called upon to share what we have in the way that Jesus Christ was willing to become poor himself that others should live in fullness of his love. As a Christian Community we do have much to give in terms of our talents and our purses and wallets, and time. And what we have to give through our faith is more than just our money, but the abundance of love, forgiveness, and hopefulness that has been so bountifully freely given to us through Jesus Christ. His servanthood and compassionate caring is our great resource. Turning to him, embracing him makes us partners, sons and daughters in the family of God the brings hope to the world in terms of healing old hatreds, and forgetting our prejudices, and being born from above, with new creativity and living in partnership with the abundance and fertility of God’s love

Isaiah 35:1-10) Everyone will see the Lord’s splendor, see his greatness and power. Give strength to hands that are tired and to knees that tremble with weakness. Tell everyone who is discouraged, “Be strong and don’t be afraid! God is coming to your rescue, coming to punish your enemies.” The blind will be able to see, and the deaf will hear. The lame will leap and dance and those who cannot speak will shout for joy. Streams of water will flow through the desert; the burning sand will be come a lake, and dry lands will be filled with springs.


“Go back and tell John what you are hearing and seeing: the blind can see, the lame can walk, those who suffer from dreaded skin diseases are made clean,, the deaf hear, the dead are brought back to life, and the Good News is preached to the poor. How happy are those who have no doubts about me!” (Matt. 4:11f)