Proper 8 Year B

How to be held into healing. . .

Mark 5:21-43

She was barely forty years old and had been a resident in hospice for a couple of months. She called her very favorite nurse to her bedside and said, I think this is it.  I think I may be dying.

The nurse checked her vital signs and replied quite honestly, It’s possible that you are. She then asked the nurse, Will you hold me?  Because I think if you hold me, I can do this well.

The young nurse did not hesitate. She sat on the bed and cradled the emaciated body in her arms and embraced her with as much love as could ever be given by one person. The woman smiled as the nurse held her into eternity.

I don’t tell you this story merely because it tugs at your heart strings, but because it so clearly illustrates the true meaning of healing, of what it means to be made whole.  The woman in this story was not cured, but she most certainly was given the ultimate healing.

After reading our Gospel for this week, it would be easy for us to close our Bibles and say, Isn’t that nice? Jesus stopped the bleeding! Isn’t that wonderful? But there is so much more to this Gospel than a quick fix. What the woman who chased after Jesus in the crowd needed was to be cradled and embraced in the arms of a Savior, and really that is the only miracle that will hold any of us into eternity.

Mark doesn’t tell us a whole lot about this woman, but we know enough about the social life and religious purity codes in first century Palestine, that we can sketch a reasonable composite of her life.

Firstly, notice that she is just simply called woman. The leader of the Synagogue, a man, is given a name, Jairus, but the one who is sick and bleeding is simply called woman.

Secondly, note that this woman would have been considered unclean, by virtue of the doctrinal purity codes that her religion had insisted MUST be kept; after all, those doctrines have been around for centuries.  

Does that have a ring of familiarity to it?

Today, we can keep our trips to the doctor and our medical conditions and treatments as private as we wish, but this woman did not have that choice. Her condition was a matter of public scrutiny every single waking minute of her life.  She was shunned by her community. She could not eat from the same dishes as the rest of her family. There was no One-A-Day with Iron or Matzos fortified with folic acid in Jesus’ day, so very likely this nameless woman was anemic, and tired and had little energy.

What little energy she could muster, she would use up just trying to keep herself from being repulsive to those around her. And yet, bearing all these burdens, she manages to bring to the surface just enough hope and energy to set out after this Jesus of Nazareth who is rumored to have done some marvelous things in that region. 

Can you see the woman trying to lay low; trying keep her face covered so she might not be recognized?  Hoping that all the busyness around Jesus might help to draw attention away from her?

Can you feel her heart pounding nervously as she comes close to Jesus? She thinks to herself, I’ll just touch his robes.  He won’t even notice me, a woman. I won’t embarrass him or shame him by asking anything. I won’t defile him by actually touching him. I’ll just whisk my finger over the fabric, and nobody will ever know I was here.

She does just that, and Jesus immediately notices.  He does quick about face, and he looks for her.  He is not going any further until he can see her, know her and speak with her. This woman is a symbol, a stand-in, for every desperate person out there, and if you don’t remember anything else from this meditation, please remember that Christ felt the touch of a single, desperate person in a very large crowd. Remember that especially the next time you are tempted to think that in God’s cosmic enormity, God could never possibly care about your personal concerns. 

You know, with all the political fighting today about the shrinking Middle Class and whether Corporations really are people or not,

I hope we don’t forget about those who are most desperate. 

I really hope we don’t have a hemorrhage of another kind. I hope and pray that we don’t have a sudden and massive loss of our ability to connect with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I hope we don’t lose our ability to connect to the unrelenting grace of our God of love. I hope that the very poor, the millions of nameless ones, will still be given the chance to reach out and touch someone’s garment somewhere.

Jesus was headed in a different direction, but one request from Jairus, and Jesus changes course.  Then one who is rejected touches his robe, and he changes course again.  I guess you could say, Jesus makes house calls.

As it turns out, people in need set Jesus’ agenda.  People in need schedule the Messiah’s time.  It should cause us to ask the questions, who sets our agenda and who schedules our time?

I don’t know about you, but I want to be part of a church in which this Jesus guy would at least stand a chance of being elected Presiding Bishop.       

I want to be part of a church that is as unlikely as Jesus!  I’m pretty certain I’ve found that church!  But it’s always good to re-visit the issue from time to time.

Salvation really is nearly synonymous with acceptance, and being accepted and embraced in love, truly is the way that someone can be held into eternity.

We are the body of Christ.  We can make it happen for others!