Sermon for June 27, 2021 Pentecost 5 B House of Prayer Lutheran Church

Mark 5:21-43 Rev. Karl-John Stone

They come from the same town, but each has a different kind of life. Jairus is a leader in the local synagogue. He enjoys a high level of prestige and is one of the best educated people around. Yet he is panic stricken and desperate, because his 12 year old daughter is at the point of death. He begs: “Please, Jesus, just lay your hands on her, that she may be made well and live.”

There’s also a woman--unfortunately, we don’t know her name--from the same town. She once lived a comfortable life, but had spent all her money on medical bills over the past 12 years. For all her effort and sacrifice, she still suffered from the same hemorrhages that she’d been having for 12 long years, and they were not only getting worse, but she also became more and more cut off from being truly part of her community. No one would help her, so she jostled her way through the large crowd of people to get closer to Jesus. “If I can just reach out to touch Jesus’ clothes,” she thinks to herself, “then I will be made well.”

And then there was the daughter of Jairus, just 12 years old. When she was born, the woman I just mentioned had just been afflicted with her hemorrhages. And now this poor girl, who had almost made it to young adulthood and should have had her whole life in front of her, instead lay helpless, unfairly on the verge of death. She is so close to being gone, that she can’t even form the words to offer a prayer.

Each one, a different person. Each one, a different place in society. Each one facing a different problem that is too big for them to handle alone. And to each of them, Jesus responds with compassion. He notices them on a personal level; he notices the particular need each one faces, notices what it would take for each one to be made well. And he heals them, not in a one-size-fits-all approach, but in a way that fits each one’s circumstances.

For Jairus, his desperation is not met with indifference: Jesus walks with him to his daughter’s bedside--and he knows that he is not alone; that God has met him in his suffering.

For the woman with the hemorrhages, at first she just blends in with the crowd. Jesus knows that someone has touched him, but can’t tell who. The disciples insist that in a crowd this large they will find no clarity about this person’s identity; but Jesus is more interested in showing charity and mercy because someone is in need. The woman speaks up, in fear and trembling, and Jesus tells her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease.”

And finally, the young girl, Jairus’ daughter. Even as Jesus approaches her house, the people there have given up hope. But Jesus puts his arm around her father and says “Do not fear, only believe.” He takes her by the hand and says “Little girl, get up.” And to everyone’s amazement, she gets up, and they give her something to eat.

This story from Mark’s gospel is a story of hope, of God’s ability to bring life out of death. But it also brings up a few questions. Like: do you need to have faith to be made well? If you don’t have faith will you not be healed? If you have lots of faith, will you always be healed?

Human experience teaches us that even people who have a very strong faith are not always healed, and that people who don’t have any faith can still receive healing. Who gets healed? When? Why? I don’t have all the answers to these questions. I wish I did. All I can say is that it’s all kind of mysterious, just like God is mysterious. It’s not something I am really able to explain, other than to say that there have been times when I--and perhaps you, as well--have seen how faith has made a positive contribution to someone’s healing. Maybe even a miraculous contribution. But, not always.

Human experience also teaches us that people who put their faith in God are very often able to deal with their illnesses and diseases, or even to accept death, in a healthier or more constructive way than those who don’t put faith in a higher power.

Faith is not a guarantee that you won’t need to deal with illness or disease, face setbacks, feel down, or wonder how you’re going to make it. But through faith, God can provide help, perseverance, hope, comfort, strength, perspective, honesty, acceptance, the permission to lift up in prayer anything that you are feeling--and all of these things do contribute to health, even if a full cure is not possible.

So then another question. Is healing the same as a cure? No, I don’t think so. I think they are related but different. A cure means that you’ve become free of your disease. But healing can come even if a full cure doesn’t happen. Healing comes when you gain perspective to know that no matter what happens, you are held in the caring hands of God; that nothing can separate you from the love of Christ. Healing comes when you find things that are life-giving and uplifting, even when you are in the middle of difficult times. In today’s gospel story, we see how healing and life-giving it was when Jesus took notice of each person, and valued them as a whole person, even when they may not have felt whole.

Likewise, healing can come to each of us when, through faith, we receive the confidence to believe that we are always held in the caring hands of God, and that Christ looks upon each of us as a whole person, and cares about each aspect of our lives--whether that is physical, emotional, social, intellectual, or spiritual. Healing happens when we realize that Jesus notices us as we are. Healing also happens when another person might notice us and they become a vessel for the healing ministry of Christ.

Jesus was born into this world in order to lead us to healing and salvation. In the healing we receive, God gives us little tastes of salvation--like the family feeding Jairus’ daughter after Jesus lifts her up and she begins to walk around. We get little tastes, little sneak peeks, of God’s ultimate salvation. And when we get those little tastes of salvation, when we know how much God cares for us, that helps us to give a little taste of God’s salvation to others--when we do things like: feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, care for the vulnerable, lift up the suffering, remember the forgotten, notice those who feel unseen. We share our love for God by learning to be more compassionate and less judgemental; by learning to be more loving toward others with the love we ourselves have received from Christ. Amen.