NL 224: Jairus' Daughter Healed

Mark 5:21-43

Initial Thoughts

  • We are returning to Jewish lands after healing a Gentile and being driven out of the Gerasene

  • Be careful with healing stories

    • The woman is healed, but many faithful are not

    • Jairus’ daughter is raised but many children still die

  • “Mark wants readers to interpret these two distinctive accounts in light of each other.  His "sandwich" technique (or, intercalation) is common in the larger narrative, especially in stories when women were involved (e.g. 3:20-25; 5:21-43; 6:7-44; 14:1-11).” (Emerson Powery, Working Preacher)

Bible Study

  • Jairus

    • Leader of a synagogue

    • Powerful

    • Most likely wealthy

    • Male

    • Recognizes and has faith in Jesus’ authority over life and death

    • double status - head of the family and head of the synagogue comes before Jesus on behalf of his daughter

  • Hemorrhaging Woman

    • Hemorrhaging- most likely menstruation - for 12 years - perpetually unclean (unable to even enter the synagogue)

      • Worth a possible conversation about how uncomfortable menstruation makes a lot of people

    • Poor - spent all she had

    • Suffering under care of physicians and her condition is worse

    • Because she had heard about Jesus…

      • Who has heard about Jesus because of you, your church, your actions, your social media...

    • Recognizes and has faith in Jesus ability to heal

    • double outcast - physically afflicted/unclean according to Levitical laws and poor due to medical exploitation - she has no one (no Jairus) to petition for her

  • Jairus and the woman are opposites- but they both believe in Jesus

    • What does this say about God? God is not interested in wealth, power, cultural patriarchy or social order - God cares about binding up the broken

    • Jairus professes his faith outwardly and the woman silently- yet both receive healing.

  • Woman - The woman “steals” Jesus power - she takes it without his permission, but she is not rebuked because the healing power and authority of Jesus is of God

    • How might we respond to those in need with our gifts- if all we have is truly from God, then what is it to give someone hope and healing?

    • She becomes doubly restored by Jesus

      • She is healed of her uncleanliness/affliction/bleeding

      • She, who has no one, is now the daughter of Jesus - lauded for her faith (as opposed to the disciples who were just chastized for their lack of faith)

  • According to custom- the woman touching Jesus would have made him “unclean”, instead it makes her “clean”- the Power of God turns (or reverses) the powers of social custom

    • This story of Jesus healing may have been a protest against the marginalization of menstruating women

  • Raising the little girl

    • “Do not fear, only believe” - Jesus urges Jairus to have the faith of the hemorrhaging woman

    • Frederick Buechner’s reflection is quite poignant

      • Funerals allow for the ability to “get up” and move forward.

      • “Celebration of Life” is all well and good, but don’t forget to mourn.

        • “Celebrate the life by all means but face up to the death of that life. Weep all the tears you have in you to weep because whatever may happen next, if anything does, this has happened. Something precious and irreplaceable has come to an end and something in you has come to an end with it. Funerals put a period after the sentence's last word. They close a door. They let you get on with your life.”

      • Jesus reminds us that death is as permanent as sleep.

        • “But if death is the closing of one door, he seems to say, it is the opening of another one. Talitha cumi. He took the little girl's hand, and he told her to get up, and she did. The mother and father were there, Mark says. The neighbors, the friends. It is a scene to conjure with. ...The other use of funerals is to remind us of those two words. When the last hymn has been sung, the benediction given, and the immediate family escorted out a side door, they may be the best we have to make it possible to get up ourselves.” 

    • A private healing- Jesus kicks out the scoffers- he is only interested in those who are willing to hope, believe and enter into relationship with him and one another

    • She is as old as the woman has been sick - 12 years

      • 12- like the 12 tribes of Israel. Everyone thinks the woman is beyond healing and the girl is beyond life, Jesus shows that God isn’t done with either of them yet - and heals them

      • The girl was “near her last” (near death) echoes Jesus’ later comments that the first will be last and the last will be first. This girl, who has lived a life of privilege is near her last, while the woman who has spent 12 years as the last was just elevated above all other to be first

    • Fed - a sign that she is not a ghost but truly alive

Thoughts and Questions

  • Emerson Powery (Working Preacher) asks: “Jesus chooses not to leave people in the conditions in which he finds them.  And he has the power to alter that condition. Do we? Can the Christian community alter the conditions of people's lives?  Can it, too, bring healing into troubled circumstances? Must it not also cross boundaries -- whether they are related to ethnicity, gender, race, sexual orientation, politics or any other boundaries that divide our society -- and advocate life-giving meaning and change?  May God grant us the courage to do so!”

  • How can we encourage people to profess their faith and live it out both verbally and silently?

  • How do we respond when we are approached and touched by the “unclean”? Do we see it as an invitation into relationship or as a theft of our personal space?

  • Discern who are the unclean in your community. Who are the ones who are too embarrassed, too wounded, or too afraid to ask for healing? How are you welcoming them?

  • Discern the message of God’s hope in this passage when faced with the reality that people suffering from years of disease are not cured and children die and are not raised. Name the complexity- don’t dismiss or explain it away, but discern how else healing might take place:

  • Michael Lindvall tells a story of a good friend with Parkinsons in the last days of his life saying "I have been healed, not of Parkinson's disease, but I have been healed of my fear of Parkinson's disease." Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season After Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16).

Year 2Eric FistlerMark1 Comment