Proper 8

July 2, 2000

Healing Humanity's Hurts

Mark 5:21-43

Anyone can sneer at our human condition, consider our plight, examine our mixed up motives, or watch our folly. But what can be done about it? Some claim that nothing will ever make much difference. Why bother?

But look again at today's gospel story. Me meet two remarkable people.

They carried enormous hurts and worked at finding some way to ease their pain. One, the unnamed woman, carried her problem for a long time. The other, Jairus, staggered under the blow of an immediate crisis. The way Jesus dealt with both is instructive for our lives.

I. Christ and the Long, Drawn Out Agony

First, consider the woman. Her constant hemorrhage had caused her to spend all she had on doctors. To be fair, they could do nothing for her. Medicine in her time was little more than superstition. One remedy for her condition called for the patient to carry ashes on an ostrich egg in a linen bag in the summer, and in a cotton rag in the winter.

But whatever she had done, she found no relief. Her suffering was made worse by the fact that her own people considered her "unclean." They had read Leviticus 15:25-27 and understood what it meant. By the time this woman met Jesus, her life was characterized by despair.

Despair still plagues humanity. Actor Dean Jones writes of despair in his autobiography, Under Running Laughter. Jones visited Mexico and saw a small girl begging in the street. The child had flies buzzing around her and landing on her eyes. She wouldn't even go to the trouble of chasing them away. Jones said that scene hit him hard because the child already seemed to despair over life. Have you ever felt that way?

The woman in the gospel story felt like an outsider, an untouchable, a nobody. She would have tried anything in her desperation. She dared to reach out in half faith and half desperation. She touched Jesus as He passed by.

Jesus' response was surprising. He asked, "Who touched Me?" The woman came forward. Perhaps she expected a strong rebuke for touching Him and making Him "unclean." But Jesus asked, "Who touched Me?", not "What touched Me?" He treated people as persons, not as things.

It was a personal question. It cost the woman something to reach out to Him. It cost Him something, too. The "power went out" of Him. Whatever else that means, it gives the sense that something vital transferred from Him. Jesus took healing out of the realm of superstition. Genuine healing does not come from shrines and statues, from prayer cloths or "holy" water. It comes from the deeply personal inter-action between a person and the Lord.

Her faith had made her well. Jesus said, "Go in peace." The word "peace" here means completeness and wellness. She was well in body but especially in spirit. That is what the gospel offers.

II. Christ and the Crisis of the Immediate

Another person came into Jesus' path. He was a soldier. His daughter was ill at home. His asking for help was remarkable. There was no jockeying for position or power. He did not come as a person "in charge." He came as a father who was concerned with only one thing, his daughter's health. Those of us who are parents know that we will do anything to help our children.