When Compassion trumps Law

‘… your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’ (Mark 5:34)

Mark 5:21-43 (Year B: Trinity+4)

This is a story about compassion..

There is something remarkably touching and simple about this very Markian passage. One of the ‘leaders of the synagogue’, Jairus by name, tells Jesus that his ‘little daughter’ is at the ‘point of death’. He says to Jesus to ‘come and lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live’. What parent has not experience moments of acute worry and upset when a child is very ill or in great danger?   In true Markian style there is no wastage of time or words. Mark writes, very simply: ‘So he went with him’ (verse 24).  We can just imagine Jesus ‘immediately’ (another very Markian phrase not actually used here) heading off with Jairus in a state of acute concern, worry and compassion.  Compassion was in charge here.  Form-filling, insurance numbers, ethics committees and all the paraphernalia of modern day healthcare may have their own place and use but compassion trumps everything time and time again in Jesus’ short life ministry of probably less than three years.

We hear two stories here wrapped around each other with the story of Jairus, Jesus and the child who was healed wrapped around another story about a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. What is the connection here and why did Mark use a ‘sandwich’ to relate the stories? It is unlikely to have been a case of random editorial writing on the part of Mark. All three synoptic evangelists use the same sandwich in tying these two stories together. A common thread in the stories is (a) compassion and (b) powerful ministry of God’s gentle touch where there is faith.  Compassion drove Jesus to follow Jairus immediately to a critical scene involving his sick daughter. Compassion detained Jesus when his clothes were touched by someone unknown to reveal that the healing power of God flowed freely out of Jesus’ body to someone who was suffering grievously and who was desperate for healing. Compassion drove Jesus to ignore the advice of officials sent to Jesus to tell him the little girl of Jairus was already dead and there was no need to proceed further to the house of Jairus. Compassion drove Jesus to ignore the crowds lamenting at the house of Jairus who only laughed at Jesus when he said that the little girl was only sleeping and not dead.  In these two interwoven stories we are hearing about a God acting in Jesus who is not constrained by social convention or religious taboo but who is compassion itself.  The healing and life that flows from this compassion just flows to those who ask in complete faith and trust as did Jairus on his knees as the story informs us and as did the woman in the crowd who was desperate enough to try anything including an approach to Jesus in faith.

Jesus engaged in conversation with the woman for a time. He addresses the woman as daughter hinting that in this new rule of God’s compassion (the kingdom of heaven on earth) everyone is a daughter or a son of compassion just as Jairus’ daughter is healed by compassion: “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease” (verse 34). Time and time again we are told in the Gospels and in the prophecy of Isaiah, among others, that trust combined with courage leads to healing, peace and renewal.

And it is a story about two women..

The use of the Aramaic phrase ‘Talitha Kum’ points towards a phrase carried through from witnesses who probably heard and saw what is relayed to us in this passage and story. We can note that neither the daughter of Jairus or the woman who touched Jesus’ cloak are named.  In the one case a child who is a girl not yet married has a place in the patriarchy of traditional family life. A 12 year old girl was probably close to marriage age at that time in that culture.

 In the other case a woman who has a condition of bleeding for 12 years is ritually unclean – not to be touched by a Rabbi or Teacher such as Jesus as far as the traditional interpretation of the Law was concerned. There was a hint of the ancient Jewish custom of purification in the Christian practice of ‘Churching of women’ following childbirth which survived into the 20^th century in many places.  We might miss an important detail of this story, namely, that the woman who suffered from haemorrhages for many years would have been classified as unclean. According to strict religious laws at the time Jesus was touched by someone who was ritually impure. Is this an issue for Jesus? No, his overriding concern is that suffering is lessened and that the one healed is sent away in peace and newness of life.

Compassion is to be our rule of life. It trumps all.