The healing touch

“Do not fear, only believe” (Mark 5:36)

Wisdom 1:13-15, 2:23-24

Psalm 30

2 Corinthians 8:7-15

Mark 5:21-43

 New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

(Year B: Fourth Sunday after Trinity, 27^th June 2021)

There is a theme running through the two stories in today’s extract from the gospel of Mark: physical proximity and touch are signs and instruments of healing. It is important to remind ourselves of this every so often. Over the centuries Christians have sometimes sought to ‘over-spiritualise’ religion and regard physical touch of the body as suspicious and possibly dangerous. This has been carried to extremes on occasions. Of course, at the same time, a great scandal and evil emerged in the life of the churches when it came to light that children and vulnerable adults were sexually or physically abused.  Worse still these things were often covered up or minimised. Thus, the very purpose of Jesus’ mission to heal, restore and bring home each and everyone was thwarted and seriously undermined.

Faced with the evil of suffering, poverty and oppression we are called to exercise the healing ministry of Jesus where we are planted and with whom we are placed. Caring for the spiritual, emotional and physical needs of others is required in the right way according to what is appropriate for us.  Our first duty is to those whom we are bound by vows of marriage, family or kinship.  In today’s Gospel extract, the leader of the Synagogue, Jairus, certainly did not spare himself in doing everything possible to save his daughter’s life. No doubt he and his family tried physicians and others to save the girl. Now, begging on his feet in heart-felt prayer was all that he could do. He pleaded – persistently – with Jesus to come and lay his hands on his daughter.

Clearly, a ministry of healing by laying of hands was well established and known in the early Christian community centred around Mark. There was a clear line back to the teachings and actions of Jesus as the second generation of believers struggled to hold on in faith to the Risen Christ now present in their shared life and primitive liturgies. Just as Jesus was engaged with Jairus someone else unintentionally interrupted the conversation. That someone was an unnamed woman with a haemorrhage. The healing imparted by Jesus did not involve direct touch but the power coming from Jesus was enough to touch her soul and her body. He faith opened the way.

One of the biggest impacts of covid has been enforced social isolation and for many a prolonged absence of physical contact. It will take a long time before many of us will feel one hundred percent comfortable about meeting up with others indoors let alone giving hugs or even shaking hands with anyone other than those in our small inner circle. We humans are by nature sociable and tactile. Yet, cultural norms make us reluctant and reserved about being too close to others. This seems to be especially case in Northern Europe.  As we move gradually towards new norms of working, travelling and socialising we will need to figure out how best to re-engage with each other in the sacred liturgies where the Risen Lord touches our souls and bodies in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist.

Three ‘take-aways’:

1. Persistence in prayer and in faith bears fruit in God’s time and in God’s own way. Believe!
2. Jesus was no ordinary guy: he brought the dead back to life and cured incurable diseases. How far does our faith in Jesus the Son of Man and our Lord and God go in us today? What limits do we place on our faith?
3. Those deemed to be ritually impure and outside the tent may be more inside that tent than us.  In Jesus’ own culture, he overturned rules and taboos. To what extent are we prisoners of human-made rules and taboos in our own time?

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Notes on the Gospel of the day (Mark 5:21-43)

Introduction

Two healing stories are woven together.   Each story concerns an unnamed female. Each in their own way were seen as outside the privileged place of male adults in the society of the time.  A young girl, aged 12, is on the point of death while another woman has had chronic bleeding for 12 years. Neither person was ritually pure according to the religious norms of Jesus’ society. The first story of the daughter of Jairus is interrupted by another story about an adult woman. It is ‘sandwiched’ in between the beginning and the end of the story about Jairus’ daughter.

v. 21-24:  Begging for healing

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered round him; and he was by the lake. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.’ So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. 

Jesus is on the move. He had, ‘again’, crossed the sea by boat. The crowds were never far.  The scene is set by the sea as ‘one of the leaders of the synagogue’ (Jairus) approached him and literally fell at his feet begging Jesus for his little daughter. Who would not do likewise for our own daughter or son – if we had as much faith as Jairus had almost 2,000 years ago?

Jairus begs for help. Faith triggers a miracle of healing.

v. 25-34:  A ritually unclean woman is healed

Now there was a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.’ Immediately her haemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’ And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?” ’ He looked all round to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’

Faith breaks through even when all hope seems lost. The reaction of the woman was telling. She was in fear and in trembling. Likewise, on witnessing the healing of the young girl who was brought back to life the crowd was overcome with amazement (v. 42).