Jesus said: “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

Mark 5:34

Before Jesus died and rose again, he raised three people from the dead: the widow’s son at Nain, Lazarus, and Jairus’s daughter, the one in today’s gospel reading (Mark 5:21-43). To me, this begs the question: Why? Why only three? And what do these three mean? 

First, why only three? Surely there were other people who had recently died, who Jesus could have restored to life. For that matter, there were surely many sick people – then and now – that Jesus could heal, but did not. Here is how the biblical scholar, N.T. Wright explains this: 

“Just as Jesus wasn’t coming to be a one-man liberation movement in the traditional revolutionary sense, so he wasn’t coming to be a one-man emergency medical center. He was indeed starting a revolution, and he was indeed bringing God’s healing power, but his aim went deeper; these things were signs of the real revolution, the real healing, that God was to accomplish through his death and resurrection. Signposts are important, but they aren’t the destination. For that we must read on.” 

In today’s gospel reading we receive two such signposts, two signs of the real revolution, the real healing, that God was going to accomplish through Jesus’ death and resurrection. These two signposts are important, but they are not the destination. 

So, today, let’s look again at the raising of Jairus’s daughter and the healing of the woman along the way. Each of these miracles offers us insights and clues into the one-man revolution that Jesus was up to, then and now. 

Jairus

Let’s start with Jairus, one of the leaders of the synagogue and the father of a sick little girl. Jairus’s story reminds me of something that the Norwegian Lutheran writer Ole Hallesby said about prayer in his wonderful little book called “Prayer.” He said that to pray is “to let Jesus into our needs.” And then he went on to point out that there are two conditions that lead us to do this. The first is helplessness. Hallesby says that most of us “try everything before we finally resort to prayer.” 

Think about Jairus, the leader of the synagogue. I imagine that he tried everything before reaching out to Jesus. Jesus was already, by this time, causing problems in the synagogues, teaching with authority, and performing miracles on the Sabbath. He had disrupted the synagogues so much that their leaders were looking for a way to destroy him (Mark 3:6). So it would not have been a wise move for Jairus to turn to Jesus. It could endanger his career, and cause him to be ostracized in his community. 

But Jairus was desperate. His little girl was sick. At the point of death. Just twelve years old. Jairus would do anything for his little girl, just like any of us. He was desperate enough to turn to Jesus, and even to fall at his feet and to beg him to “come and lay his hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.” 

Which brings us to the second condition that Ole Hallesby says leads us to pray. The first is helplessness. The second is faith. Even if we are desperate, and have tried everything else, we won’t turn to prayer unless we believe that it might work. 

“Without faith,” Hallesby writes, “there can be no prayer, no matter how great our helplessness may be. Helplessness united with faith produces prayer.” 

Jairus, the leader of the synagogue, was not just desperate. He had also heard about Jesus. And he believed that Jesus could help. His request to Jesus is a confident one: 

“Come and lay his hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.” 

That is faith. His helplessness and his faith led him to Jesus. And they do for us as well. 

The Woman Suffering from a Flow of Blood

In fact, you might say that the same two conditions were met by the woman in this story who had been suffering from a flow of blood for twelve long years. 

“She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse.” 

I bet you have known some people in similar situations. Her story from two thousand years ago sounds like it could be happening right now, doesn’t it? 

She is desperate, helpless, and she had heard about Jesus, Saw him in the crowd, and thought to herself, 

“If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” 

There is her faith, along with her helplessness. A powerful combination. 

But her story teaches us more than the nature of prayer. It also teaches us something very important about Jesus. 

Her story teaches us that Jesus wants more than healing for us, more even than life. He wants wholeness, fullness, peace, shalom. 

The woman touched his cloak that day and was healed of her disease. Jesus knew it. He could have gone on his way, knowing that this woman’s life would be far better than it was. But he wanted more for her. So he stopped, looked around to see who had touched him. 

She came to him in fear and trembling, but she did not need to be afraid. Jesus was not upset with her. He wanted to meet her. He wanted the crowd to meet her, this woman of such faith. He wanted this ritually unclean woman to be able to return to her community, to worship in her synagogue, and to find peace and wholeness, not just physical healing. 

All of this is bound up in the statement that Jesus made to her that day, when he said to her, 

“Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” 

This is the one and only place in Mark’s Gospel where Jesus calls someone “daughter.” And this tender term for this unnamed woman shows that what Jesus wants for her is not just healing, but a relationship. He wants her to know that she is God’s beloved child. Nothing in her life has taken this away. 

This woman, to me, represents so many in this world who have fallen on hard times, people who for many and various reasons are not part of the community, people who struggle to believe that God loves them, people who need more than physical healing, people that Jesus also describes as the least of these. 

And these are the people that Jesus asks us to love on his behalf. They are God’s beloved children, just as we are, and as followers of Jesus we are being invited to do as Jesus did, and to love them as he did. To let our lives be interrupted, as happened in this reading, knowing that these interruptions and random encounters are often the most important part of our day. To stop what we are doing, and to share God’s peace with another. 

It may not seem like much. But it is what Jesus taught us, and what he continues to teach us. To do as he did, and to love as he loved. 

Talitha Cum

But the story does not end with the healing of this woman. As Jesus is speaking to her, some people from the leader of the synagogue’s house come to tell him that his daughter has died. It is too late for Jesus. But in Jesus’ eyes, it isn’t too late at all. 

“Do not fear,” he says to Jairus, “only believe.” 

Even now, especially now. Now that his daughter has died. 

Death seems so final in the eyes of the world. And there is a finality to it, to be sure. When someone dies, they go where we cannot yet follow. 

But they do not die. Not if Jesus has anything to say about it. And he does. 

And so he raises this girl to life, not because she is particularly special, or because she deserves it, or because her father is a leader of the synagogue. Jesus raises her to life simply to show us that he has power over death. Death does not have the last word. Jesus came to this world to put an end to death. 

When Martin Luther preached on this text, he said that “it is easier for Christ to awaken someone from death than for us to arouse someone from sleep.” 

Think of that. For Jesus, death is nothing more than sleep. We don’t need to fear death. We fall asleep in the Lord, and the next thing we know, we are awakened by the Lord. That’s what He promises to us all. 

I imagine that this brought comfort to Martin Luther when his beloved daughter, Magdalena, died at almost the same age as this twelve year old girl. Death does not have the last word. Jesus came to give us life. He promises that. 

And to show us that he can fulfill this promise, Jesus goes with Jairus to his house, takes his little girl by the hand, and raises her to life. 

Jesus has the power to make the sick well; and he even has the power to bring the dead to life. That is what this story shows us. And one day, scripture promises us that all will be made well; all will be made alive in Jesus. He went to the cross to make this sick world well, and to bring this dying world to life. Just as he brought this little girl to life. 

“Behold,” Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians, “I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed… then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’”

How do we know this to be true? Well, Jesus gave us signs. Like the raising of this little girl, and of Lazarus.

And the greatest of all these signs, his own resurrection. 

Because Jesus lives, we shall live also. That is his promise. And the world is hungry to be reminded of this good news. And it is our joyous task to share it. 

Closing

There are many in this world who are sick, many who face death. Stories like the one told in today’s gospel reading remind us that every one of them is beloved by God. 

Jesus died for every child of this earth. He came to save us all. He came to give us peace, the peace that surpasses all understanding. And all he asks of us is to share what we have been given, the faith and the hope and the love that gives us peace. 

May we live always in this peace, and share it always with our world. To the glory of God. Amen.