Mark 5:21-43
The Gift of Hope
When I was in college some of us would travel to the border of
Tennessee and North Carolina to climb Roane Mountain. It’s a beautiful spot.
Near the summit was a path that wound through huge Rhododendrons. I remember hiking to a point on the
mountain that was popular with hang gliders. Have you ever watched someone jump off the side of a
mountain strapped to a hang glider?
It’s one of those moments that makes you feel better about yourself,
because you recognize that maybe you really aren’t all that crazy.
It’s an amazing sight to watch someone soar on the wind with just
that little piece of fabric and aluminum frame keeping them from plunging down
the side of the mountain. I may
think it’s crazy to jump off a mountain strapped to a hang glider, but I know
it’s possible and almost always safe.
But imagine what it was like to be the first person. Imagine the courage (I guess it would
be courage) it took.
Why do people do such things?
Why would someone strap a bungy cord to their ankle and jump off a
bridge, or strap a parachute to their back and jump out of an airplane? I think it’s because we are so in fear
of tragedy, and pain, and suffering, and death that we want to do something to
make us feel we can conquer those things.
We feel so at mercy to those forces that we are driven to do dangerous
things just so we can thumb our noses at tragedy and death and say you didn’t take me today. I looked in your eye today and walked
away and showed you don’t have total control over my life.
There is a very thin veneer to life. We go through our daily routines trying to ignore the fact
that life is fragile and tragedy may be lurking around the very next corner. One moment life is fine and the next we
get a phone call with shocking and tragic news. One day we feel fine and the next we receive frightening
news from the doctor. One moment
someone we love is here and the next they are gone.
This morning, we study a passage from Mark’s gospel about two
individuals whose lives had changed very dramatically. Jesus had crossed the Sea of Galilee
and as soon as he steps out of the boat he is met by a man named Jairus, one of
the officials at the local synagogue.
His twelve-year-old daughter is near death, and while he and Jesus are
on their way to his house Jairus receives the news that his daughter has
died. Life changed in an instant
for Jairus and his family. Along
the way Jesus encounters a woman who had been ill for twelve years. Mark tells us that she had
suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had,
yet instead of getting better she grew worse (verse 26).
Here were two characters who understood how life could change very
drastically. One had been dealing
with difficulty for many years, while the other was about to enter a life
dramatically changed because of loss.
This message – and this passage – is about hope. The Gift of Hope. Hope
spring eternal in the human breast, wrote Alexander Pope in 1773, and it is
hope that has allowed people to survive through the most difficult of
circumstances.
The picture of Jairus at the beginning of this passage is almost
difficult to read. Here is a man
who comes and throws himself at the feet of Jesus. It’s hard to see people when
they reach the point of desperation.
My little daughter, he says, is dying. You can hear the desperation in his
voice.
And Mark simply says that Jesus went with him. There is no discussion of anything
Jesus said; Mark just says Jesus goes along with him. Sometimes the best thing we can do is to walk with people
during their struggles. There are
times we talk too much. I have
been guilty many times of blundering along, trying to give a theological
explanation when I should have just kept quiet. One thing I have learned over the years is that people
aren’t always looking for an answer; they just need our presence. I remember very vividly when my father
passed away and we were at the funeral home and people were coming through the
line. My father sang in a choir at
the steel mill where he worked, and all the members of that choir came to the
visitation in the tuxedoes they wore for their performances. Very few words were spoken as they
greeted us, but I didn’t care; I was just grateful they were there.
This was a great gift for Jairus, just to have Jesus walk along
beside him. Presence is a great
gift in the life of another person.
Don’t worry about having the right words to say; just walk with people.
We also notice something that Jesus does not do – he was not
judgmental toward Jairus or this woman.
Why is it that people who are suffering are often judged for their
circumstances? There is a reason. Do you know why people sometimes judge
the hurting and those in need?
It’s a way of excusing one’s self from an obligation to help. If we can find a way to blame people
for their circumstances then we can excuse ourselves from helping them. After natural disasters, such as
Hurricane Katrina, there are always some from the religious community who want
to judge people, and it’s a very convenient way to be removed from the calling
to help people.
By this point in his ministry Jesus was facing a great deal of
opposition from the leaders of the synagogues but he didn’t say, you know, you guys have been pretty hard on
me down at the synagogue. I can’t
help you because I’ve been treated poorly.
And when the woman touched the fringe of his cloak he didn’t say, why didn’t you come to me sooner? Why did you wait until you ran through
all your money and tried every other solution first? Why am I always the last resort for people? Why can’t I be the first resort for a
change?
Sometimes we stumble around and it takes awhile before we come to
the realization that God wants to be present with us and to help us. Notice that the woman came before
Jesus, trembling with fear, Mark says in verse 33, perhaps because she
thought he’s a religious person, and
those religious people can be tough.
But Jesus isn’t tough with her, he isn’t judgmental, he isn’t critical;
he gives her hope and healing.
I find it fascinating that Mark makes sure we have the story of
Jesus dealing with these two people linked together. These are two very different people in, at least in the eyes
of society at that point in history.
Jairus, as a synagogue ruler, was a prominent person in the
community. This woman, not even
named, would have been very low on the social scale. She was ill – bleeding for twelve years – and would be
unclean. What Jesus saw was not
people on different rungs of the social ladder but two people who had very
great needs. The need of this
woman was as great as that of Jairus, and Jesus was going to meet that need
even if it brought about grumbling from his disciples.
To the disciples she remained anonymous – “you see the people crowding
against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, “who touched me?”
(verse 31). Everybody’s touching you. Let’s just move on.
We live in a world that is always categorizing and stratifying
people, and as the body of Christ we must fight that temptation. There are no disposable people in this
world, not in the eyes of God.
This story turns out well for both Jairus and this woman. The daughter of Jairus is raised and
the woman is healed. It doesn’t
always work out that way, unfortunately.
Sometimes we beg and plead for healing and it doesn’t come. And when healing does not come, it’s
easy to lose hope. But, as one
writer says, Christ did not come to do
away with suffering; he did not come to explain it; he came to fill it with his
presence (Paul Claudel).
Don’t be afraid, just believe, Jesus says in verse 36. He wasn’t just speaking to Jairus, but
to us as well.
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