Two Healings The Daughter Of Jairus and The Hemorrhaging Woman
Preaching
Preaching The Miracles
Series II, Cycle B
1. Text
When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea.21 Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet22 and begged him repeatedly, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live."23 So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him.24
Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years.25 She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse.26 She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak,27 for she said, "If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well."28 Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.29 Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, "Who touched my clothes?"30 And his disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, 'Who touched me?'"31 He looked all around to see who had done it.32 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth.33 He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease."34
While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader's house to say, "Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?"35 But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, "Do not fear, only believe."36 He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James.37 When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.38 When he had entered, he said to them, "Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping."39 And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was.40 He took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha cum," which means, "Little girl, get up!"41 And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement.42 He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.43
2. What's Happening?
By interjecting the story of the woman who suffered from hemorrhages into the middle of the story of Jairus' sick daughter, the writers suggest these two miracles are designed to be studied together.
First Point Of Action
As a crowd gathers around Jesus, who had just crossed the water, Jairus, a synagogue official, comes to Jesus and begs him to save his sick daughter. Jesus goes with him, the crowd following and pressing in on him as he goes.
Second Point Of Action
In the middle of this story, the Gospel called Mark interrupts with a second miracle story. As Jesus walks, a woman suffering from years of hemorrhaging touches his robe. Jesus, aware of power flowing from him, turns, asking who touched him. The woman comes forth to explain. Jesus speaks to her. His disciples say they cannot see how he could possibly tell who touched him in this crowd.
Third Point Of Action
The writer picks up the thread of the first story with a messenger coming from Jairus' house saying it was too late for the child. The messenger does not tell Jesus directly, but Jesus overhears him and responds.
Fourth Point Of Action
Jesus goes to the house. When he tells onlookers the child is only sleeping, they laugh at him. Sending everyone away except the parents, he takes the child by the hand and tells her to get up. The parents are amazed. Jesus orders them to secrecy and tells them to feed their daughter.
3. Connecting Points & Conversations
Interviewing Jairus
Asker: Jairus, even though you were sure your daughter was dying, you begged Jesus to come to your home and lay his hands on her. What gave you the strength to endure this ordeal?
Jairus: Belief. I don't think believing is ever easy, particularly when things happen suddenly. My daughter was at the point of death. That throws a parent into chaos. Really believing is like staking your life on something when you very well might lose it. Believing is like bravery. Real bravery does not come from the innocence of the untried but from knowing the risks and doing something anyway. It is far more than an attitude of "I have nothing to lose so É."
When they came from my house saying my child had already died, I did not want to believe the messenger. Yet, I could not hide my fear. Jesus saw fear take over my face and heard it shake my voice. He spoke directly to my agony. He told me not to fear, only to believe. So that's what I did. That's all I concentrated on. Do not fear, only believe.
Asker: Despite what Jesus told you, when he took your daughter by the hand, you were amazed.
Jairus: Despite my choice to believe, I did not know if my child would live. I had to hope. Sometimes hope, the leap of faith, is all we have. Hope is hope. It is not certainty. I am human. Not everyone has the capacity to give trust completely to another. I am vulnerable to fear and to the facts of reality.
I was amazed because Jesus actually did heal my daughter. I was so amazed that Jesus had to call me back to the practical. When he gave my little girl back into my wife's and my hands, he had to remind me that my child was hungry, that I was in charge of her again. We had turned her over to God. Now it was our responsibility to care for her again and to give her nourishment. I realized from this that parents must be in partnership with God in raising their children. Even when we are most alone, God does not desert us. Ultimately, God is in charge.
Interviewing The Woman
Asker: When I read your story, I heard you crying this Psalm all those years of waiting and suffering:
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications! I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem.
(See Psalm 130, this week's lection.)
Twelve years is a long time to be suffering from hemorrhage both in terms of the physical drain and the exhaustion of your spirit. How have you endured?
Woman: Twelve years is a long time for depletion of the body, the purse, and the spirit. The cycle of hope and struggle has repeated itself many times in my life. In a way, my struggle has sharpened my focus on what is most important.
Over the long run, my urge to live as a whole person beyond malady has given me the energy and the courage to seek out many healers and physicians. It has been a journey up the wall of the well and back down into a pit. What I found strange in all this is the sustenance of hope.
The hope for a cure from one physician brings impetus to try again. Each time an anticipated cure hasn't worked, I have felt totally exhausted and wanted to give up. Always, in the back of my mind, I hoped that someday someone would know what to do.
Asker: You said if you could but touch Jesus' clothes, you would be made well. Where does your faith come from?
Woman: Prolonged illness has made me selfish.1 My illness has pulled me back into myself. If someone has a nagging problem that just won't go away, the problem continually calls. Illness requires most of our attention. It depletes strength for life.
When I heard about Jesus' healing touch, I knew I would find him. The longer my search, the more I believed he could help. But his time was filled. I wondered if I would ever reach him. I came to believe, well, I guess it was like standing in line for something you must have for survival. There is no other alternative.
I feared becoming totally disillusioned before I would ever find Jesus. To my surprise, the opposite happened. The closer I came to Jesus, the more certain I was he could heal me. As it became obvious the crowd was keeping us separate simply because of the numbers, I abandoned speaking directly with him. I began reaching out just to touch him. Then, there he was. I touched his clothes.
Asker: What happened when you touched Jesus' clothing?
Woman: I knew from that moment my life changed. It's strange, this business of wanting to give up, of almost settling for less, for a compromise. But, you must understand, I am more than this illness. Something from deep inside kept me going, deepening my faith. Is that what a miracle is all about? I certainly couldn't be passive about approaching Jesus. Passivity is not my nature.
Maybe my initiative makes this miracle unique. I sought Jesus. I was stubborn enough to persist. I was doing the acting. I have heard that some other suffering people whom Jesus healed did not even call out to him. Either Jesus spotted them and initiated the healing or their friends interceded.
When Jesus asked who touched him, I knew the healing was real. If Jesus himself acknowledged power draining from him, then certainly I had not imagined it. I know well the feeling of energy draining, but this was not lost, wasted energy. This energy was spent to empower another's healing. It turned my life around from being depleted to being filled. At the same time, I was scared.
Asker: Scared?
Woman: Remember, I was ostracized. I was unclean because of the bleeding. Although the writer does not give me a name, I do stand out as woman. Only a woman can have my illness. I was forbidden to touch anything holy. I should not even have been there in the crowd. Any hemorrhaging woman is in a demeaning position.
Interviewing Jesus
Asker: Jesus, as usual, you do not waste words in these two miracles. You asked, "Who touched my clothes?" Then, you made little of the woman's touching. When you reached out to the child, you not only touched her but took her by the hand and drew her up. Don't you know, Jesus, what an unholy bind we have gotten ourselves into today with touching?
Jesus: First of all, it is precisely when one is most untouchable, such as the bleeding woman in my time, that we are called to reach out with the healing touch. It is precisely when one is most unloveable that we are called to love. A handclasp or the gentle meeting of eyes can be a welcome touch, an invitation to return to life.
Now, about unholy touch. Touch, human contact, is a connecting point between the tangible and the intangible. It symbolizes the faith that connects us with each other and to God.
I once told Jairus, "Do not fear, only believe." These words held one meaning in my early ministry. They hold even fuller connotations in your time when caution and distrust also threaten to violate relationships. Yours is an era when wrongful body contact must awaken caution. We also need to see that Christians are called to teach each other to become sensitive both to unholy touch and to holy touch. Might we call this spirit of gentleness educated trust? If we are to be Christian, at some point we must choose to let trust transcend fear.
Asker: Jesus, both persons you healed in these two miracles are female. One is the daughter of a high official. The other, an adult, essentially is ostracized from society because of her illness. You called the hemorrhaging woman "daughter," as if you claimed her in the same way Jairus claimed his daughter.
Jesus: I do claim her as family. As unacceptable as she must have felt all her adult life, she needed claiming. She needed to hear that she is accepted as part of God's family. All who stood around her that day also needed to hear this truth.
It might be argued that the writers juxtaposed these two stories to illustrate the socially accepted and socially unaccepted "daughters." I say everyone is acceptable. We must see the person first before we look at any of the superficial circumstances we tend to connect with that person's identity.
Asker: Jesus, when you healed the little child, you addressed her directly. Similarly, when you spoke to the hemorrhaging woman, you spoke face to face.
Jesus: Both participated actively in their healing. The bleeding woman sought me out. When I told the child to get up, something within her responded. She got up. Healing involves the whole person. Despite how it may look to the casual observer, God does not stand out there somewhere ready to tap us with a magic wand.
Asker: Jesus, what do you mean for these two miracles to tell us about God?
Jesus: First of all, God listens. God heard what Jairus said, then went with him to his house. God goes with us when we need help. God accepts what we say when we speak the truth. God believes our trust in our creator and sustainer. All this is obvious in the little word "so." Jairus asked me to come and lay my hands on his daughter, so that she may be made well, and live. (See Mark 5:23.) So I went with Jairus to his home.
God notices even the least noticable and God persists. With the woman, I felt someone draw energy from me. Despite the chiding of my disciples, I needed to find that person for her sake. Despite the messenger's words and the ready mourners outside the house of Jairus, I needed to get to that little child just in case there was still something God could do for her.
God recognizes the role people play in getting well. Our task is to have faith. In giving the bleeding woman the blessing of the ancient Shalom words "Go in peace," God means well for us. I wonder if the words "be healed," are not also a recognition of the mystery and the miracle of the healing process. God did not say, "Here, I heal you." Neither in this instance did God say, "You healed yourself." Rather, God said, "Your faith made you well." Perhaps this is the key link between these two miracles: the father's "so" and the woman's persistence.
Further, God's focus is not on God. God heals because God cares for us and loves us. God is in charge. God is not easily swayed. By ignoring the nay-sayers, doubters, and even the realists, God teaches us how to manage the negative voices in our lives. Go ahead and believe, God says. By encouraging Jairus not to fear but to believe, God nudges us toward positive attitudes and a greater spiritual depth.
4. Words
Hemorrhage
Any bleeding, whether visible or concealed, great or small, was called hemorrhaging in the day of Jesus. Scholars suggest the woman's difficulty probably stemmed from a uterine fibroid.
Because blood was considered sacred, all contact with it was prohibited. In the Old Testament, bleeding was seen as a ceremonial defilement. According to the laws of uncleanness, a hemorrhaging individual was restricted in religious and social life.
The period of uncleanness for usual menstrual flow lasted seven days. Persistent discharge of blood from a woman required a considerably longer time of uncleanness. A person with a bodily discharge was ostracized because the priests believed uncleanliness was infectious, a sin, and the work of evil.
Touch
An unclean woman was excluded from touching holy things. According to current beliefs, when the woman touched Jesus' cloak, she would have been touching a holy thing and thereby making it unclean.
Today, touching itself has become suspect. Even the word "touch," has become tainted. Consider balancing negative touching with positive touching.
Jesus transformed the meaning of touch. For Jesus, touch was a means of communicating, a transmission of healing power, and a message that we are all connected. Touch is direct contact. Touch is spiritual as well as physical contact. Think about how touching relates to the leper or to a person living with AIDS. Consider that person, no matter what the circumstance, as holy, that is, touchable. When one is thought untouchable, consider the hungering for human contact -- a hug, a pat on the arm, a meeting of the eyes that shows no disgust.
What about the phrases "rubbing shoulders with" or "shying away from" someone? What about not wanting to have anything to do with someone who is different? Think about the isolation, our projections of our own uneasy feelings, and our pre-judging. We sometimes avoid getting close to others emotionally as well as physically.
Daughter
In both stories, "daughter" is used. The little girl was identified as the daughter of Jairus, a synagogue leader. Later, when the messenger returned, he spoke of the child as the daughter. The child was defined by the father/daughter relationship. Although approaching the age of first menses and womanhood, the twelve-year-old was called "little girl." Although the hemorrhaging woman was probably of equal age to Jesus or older, Jesus addressed her as daughter.
Consider the following connections: (1) the prepubescent age of the girl child and the woman in relation to natural and unnatural biological changes, (2) purity and impurity, (3) the familial father/daughter relationship and the spiritual father/daughter relationship, and (4) the possible conclusion that Jesus was suggesting a guideline, that the spiritual relationship between God and woman or between mentor and follower is of father and daughter.
If one's own father/daughter relationship were positive, then one might think of these qualities: tenderness, kindliness, shelter, guidance, respect, encouragement. Consider these elements of a less than positive relationship: financial liability, paternalism, sexism, ownership, irresponsibility, absence.
Father is not a nasty word. One need not degrade the father in order to elevate the daughter's status. From the perspective of evolving mores in the year 2002, consider the differences between paternalism and fathering/parenting.
Jesus used the father/daughter terms as a metaphor for the positive, nurturing relationship he shared with his parent/God. Would we be more comfortable today using the inclusive terms of peer, companionship, mentor, and a sustaining, supportive relationship?
Talitha Cum
Of the three Gospel tellings of this story, only Mark uses these Aramaic words which translate as "Little girl, I say to you, arise." Aramaic is the language of common folk. It is homey and close to the heart. Talitha cum speaks to everyone's ears.
According to the Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible2, three other connections associated with the Aramaic are worthy of comment: Retention of the Aramaic in a healing story emphasizes the aspect of healing. The Aramaic words lift up the miraculous event for gentile readers as well as show interest in retaining the actual words of Jesus.
Healing
Was Jesus ahead of his time as a healer? He understood the importance of relating to God as opposed to alienating oneself from God. Psychologist Robert Ornstein and physician David Sobel, medical school professors at the University of California in San Francisco and at Stanford University respectively, and co-authors of The Healing Brain3, suggest it is probably no accident that these words -- whole, heal, health, hallow and holy -- all stem from a common Indo-European root, kailo. (See The American Heritage Dictionary.) These words sing of a one-ness and an interconnection, a sense of the whole of all creation.
As we realize our bodies are holy because God created us, we honor both God and our whole being by trying to maintain the best possible level of health. Because God wishes well for us, we sense that healing is the natural direction toward mind/body/spirit wholeness. This circle of creation continues.
As a result, an attitude of eagerness burgeons. In one of this Sunday's pericopes, Paul speaks of it: "For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has -- not according to what one does not have . . . . As it is written, 'The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little' " (from 2 Corinthians 8:7-15).
Healing is more than only something external or done to us. Jesus understood that healing involves something internal to the person. Healing involves the whole person in partnership with the ingredients of the healing process.
When the physician in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables came to the house of Jean Valjean, he saw an old man whose will to live was gone. The physician knew nothing he might do could save the man's life. On the other hand, in her search for Jesus, the hemorrhaging woman brought her willingness to be well. The poem which follows touches upon these choices:
SOUL TALK4
(An Imaginable Conversation With The Physician
In Victor Hugo's Les Miserables)
You speak of a mystery in your work
As a practitioner of medicine
Who learns to modulate science with art
When an old man says to you,
"I'm going to die" and you bow,
There is nothing you can do
To turn around the man's will.
I speak the mystery of a woman
Whose body always has spurned the journey
Whose energy of soul finds
Another then one more way
In her work as a practicer of life,
And I yield, there is nothing I would do
To turn around her "I will live."
The body wants to heal. It wants to be as healthy as possible. When the internal healing mechanism of the brain can be triggered, the brain is quick and specific in dispensing its healing chemicals. This immediacy parallels the directness and quickness of healing in the miracle stories.
Who cares precisely how we start the internal healing mechanism as long as we can marshal up the forces for healing? One dynamic of healing is a partnership. Persons needing healing give themselves over to another power -- to God or to medicines. By taking on an attitude of hope and by taking the best possible care of ourselves, we participate in healing.
Might belief or faith alone turn on the internal, healing pharmacy? Ornstein says we are "a sea of suggestion." Jesus' coming through the door at the home of Peter's mother-in-law, the arrival of the doctor, the recitation of a prayer or a healing ritual, the hope of the hemorrhaging woman simply to touch Jesus' robe, somehow distracting ourselves so we do not always pay attention to the chronic pain -- all of the above could trigger profound emotional reactions with physiological effects.
What about positive expectations, faith, and the placebo effect? "Placebo," an inert substance used in control experiments, means "I shall please" in Latin. Does the cynic within us only associate the role faith plays in healing with cheapening, prepaid, healing exhibitionism? Wanting to give the credit to God rather than to himself, Jesus took care to separate his healing from crowd audiences and the embellishments of the enthusiastic. Still, the doubter within us at times prefers to diminish rather than to elevate the healing work of Jesus.
What if we were to redefine placebo as the will to please the brain's natural, or God-given, process of wanting to heal rather than as a physician's pacifier? The human brain carries an extensive role in healing. The brain has the capacity to influence physiological states. Studies of our decade show the brain's chemical neuro-transmitters, the body's intrinsic healing systems, may number in the hundreds. Among these natural, precise, brain-directed morphines are endorphins, dopamines, norephron, serotonin, and acetocolin.
Nevertheless, sometimes all the will and all the desire in the world to heal does not promote healing. Does that suggest a weakness of will? Ornstein concedes that management using the brain's positive influence works best in preventive medicine and in maintaining good health. However, eventually biological deterioration prevails. The laws of natural order still apply. Our bodies are still finite.
Even so, with a high degree of psychological hardiness, one is better equipped to believe in the capacity to improve or at least to hold negative and positive events in balance. Tell patients readying for surgery they have a fifty per cent chance of living and they call up hopes and plans for things yet to do. Tell them they have a fifty per cent chance of dying and they begin making funeral arrangements.
It still is possible to mobilize hope rather than despair. Despite having a less than perfect body, we can still maintain a sense of well-being. Healing, however, is more than willpower. The miracle of God's action in healing remains a mystery.
Faith
Some degree of faith is conditional to healing. Jesus presupposed divine love and faith on the part of either suffering persons or someone connected with them. For Jesus, healing was not only physical or psychological but also spiritual.
Healing is not somehow entirely our doing. We yearn to be totally in control of our bodies. Yet, when the body does not heal, it is not necessarily due to a weak faith. When the body cannot heal, it cannot heal despite the immune system and white blood cells usually given as part of human creation. Sometimes the body cannot heal because it has lasted as long as it can.
5. Gospel Parallels
All three Synoptic Gospels tell these two healing miracles, however Matthew offers a condensed version. Matthew begins the telling as a continuation of Jesus' healings.
The Lukan pair of miracles is somewhat shorter but close in rendition to the Markan story. Mark describes the details of the setting of the miracle, that is, Jesus' crossing the sea in the boat.
The Crowd
In Mark 5:21 and 24, adjectives "great" and "large" stress the size of the crowd. Luke emphasizes the relationship or response of the crowd to Jesus (Luke 8:40). They are waiting for him. They welcome him. For Luke, later in the story of the suffering woman, the witnessing crowd again is important as the woman "declared in the presence of all the people" (Luke 8:47).
In the story of Jairus' daughter, the crowd is generally disbelieving and has already begun the mourning ceremonies. They ridicule Jesus' words that the child is not dead but asleep (Matthew 9:24, Mark 5:39-40, and Luke 8:52-53). Jesus heals the child only after he has dismissed the crowd.
Prefacing Jesus' words to the crowd that the child is not dead, Matthew relates that Jesus told the crowd, "Go away" (Matthew 9:24). Mark's version is more of a suggestion: "Why do you make a commotion and weep?" (Mark 5:39) Luke's even gentler report has more feeling for the crowd when Jesus says, "Do not weep" (Luke 8:52).
In Luke, the representative from Jairus' house speaks more directly than in Mark. Both report that Jairus' daughter is dead. In Luke, he commands, "Do not trouble the teacher any longer" (Luke 8:49). In Mark, he suggests not troubling the teacher any further (Mark 5:35).
Mark reports Jesus' response as closer and in present tense: "But overhearing them, Jesus says . . . " (Mark 5:36), while Luke's report is slightly removed, perhaps secondhand: "When Jesus heard this, he repliedÉ" (Luke 8:50).
Both writers quote Jesus, "Do not fear. Only believe, and" Luke adds, "she will be saved" (Luke 8:50).
Both Mark and Luke report that Jesus took with him into the house the parents and the disciples who accompanied him (Mark 5:40 and Luke 8:40). Still negative toward the crowd, Luke states that Jesus "did not allow to enter with him" any people except for the three disciples and the child's parents (Luke 8:51). Matthew's brief telling makes no mention of the parents or the disciples (Matthew 9:25).
Jairus
Both Luke and Mark name Jairus (Luke 8:41 and Mark 5:22). Matthew calls him a "leader of the synagogue" (Matthew 9:23).
____________
1. For further discussion of selfishness and illness, see Susan Sontag's collection of stories depicting eight frail men and women coping with their lives, I, Etcetera (New York: Doubleday, 1991).
2. George A. Buttrick, Ed., The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible 4 Volumes (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962).
3. Robert Ornstein and David Sobel, The Healing Brain (California: The Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge, 1987).
4. Written by Brauninger with copyright held by the author.
When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea.21 Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet22 and begged him repeatedly, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live."23 So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him.24
Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years.25 She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse.26 She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak,27 for she said, "If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well."28 Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.29 Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, "Who touched my clothes?"30 And his disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, 'Who touched me?'"31 He looked all around to see who had done it.32 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth.33 He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease."34
While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader's house to say, "Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?"35 But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, "Do not fear, only believe."36 He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James.37 When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.38 When he had entered, he said to them, "Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping."39 And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was.40 He took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha cum," which means, "Little girl, get up!"41 And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement.42 He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.43
2. What's Happening?
By interjecting the story of the woman who suffered from hemorrhages into the middle of the story of Jairus' sick daughter, the writers suggest these two miracles are designed to be studied together.
First Point Of Action
As a crowd gathers around Jesus, who had just crossed the water, Jairus, a synagogue official, comes to Jesus and begs him to save his sick daughter. Jesus goes with him, the crowd following and pressing in on him as he goes.
Second Point Of Action
In the middle of this story, the Gospel called Mark interrupts with a second miracle story. As Jesus walks, a woman suffering from years of hemorrhaging touches his robe. Jesus, aware of power flowing from him, turns, asking who touched him. The woman comes forth to explain. Jesus speaks to her. His disciples say they cannot see how he could possibly tell who touched him in this crowd.
Third Point Of Action
The writer picks up the thread of the first story with a messenger coming from Jairus' house saying it was too late for the child. The messenger does not tell Jesus directly, but Jesus overhears him and responds.
Fourth Point Of Action
Jesus goes to the house. When he tells onlookers the child is only sleeping, they laugh at him. Sending everyone away except the parents, he takes the child by the hand and tells her to get up. The parents are amazed. Jesus orders them to secrecy and tells them to feed their daughter.
3. Connecting Points & Conversations
Interviewing Jairus
Asker: Jairus, even though you were sure your daughter was dying, you begged Jesus to come to your home and lay his hands on her. What gave you the strength to endure this ordeal?
Jairus: Belief. I don't think believing is ever easy, particularly when things happen suddenly. My daughter was at the point of death. That throws a parent into chaos. Really believing is like staking your life on something when you very well might lose it. Believing is like bravery. Real bravery does not come from the innocence of the untried but from knowing the risks and doing something anyway. It is far more than an attitude of "I have nothing to lose so É."
When they came from my house saying my child had already died, I did not want to believe the messenger. Yet, I could not hide my fear. Jesus saw fear take over my face and heard it shake my voice. He spoke directly to my agony. He told me not to fear, only to believe. So that's what I did. That's all I concentrated on. Do not fear, only believe.
Asker: Despite what Jesus told you, when he took your daughter by the hand, you were amazed.
Jairus: Despite my choice to believe, I did not know if my child would live. I had to hope. Sometimes hope, the leap of faith, is all we have. Hope is hope. It is not certainty. I am human. Not everyone has the capacity to give trust completely to another. I am vulnerable to fear and to the facts of reality.
I was amazed because Jesus actually did heal my daughter. I was so amazed that Jesus had to call me back to the practical. When he gave my little girl back into my wife's and my hands, he had to remind me that my child was hungry, that I was in charge of her again. We had turned her over to God. Now it was our responsibility to care for her again and to give her nourishment. I realized from this that parents must be in partnership with God in raising their children. Even when we are most alone, God does not desert us. Ultimately, God is in charge.
Interviewing The Woman
Asker: When I read your story, I heard you crying this Psalm all those years of waiting and suffering:
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications! I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem.
(See Psalm 130, this week's lection.)
Twelve years is a long time to be suffering from hemorrhage both in terms of the physical drain and the exhaustion of your spirit. How have you endured?
Woman: Twelve years is a long time for depletion of the body, the purse, and the spirit. The cycle of hope and struggle has repeated itself many times in my life. In a way, my struggle has sharpened my focus on what is most important.
Over the long run, my urge to live as a whole person beyond malady has given me the energy and the courage to seek out many healers and physicians. It has been a journey up the wall of the well and back down into a pit. What I found strange in all this is the sustenance of hope.
The hope for a cure from one physician brings impetus to try again. Each time an anticipated cure hasn't worked, I have felt totally exhausted and wanted to give up. Always, in the back of my mind, I hoped that someday someone would know what to do.
Asker: You said if you could but touch Jesus' clothes, you would be made well. Where does your faith come from?
Woman: Prolonged illness has made me selfish.1 My illness has pulled me back into myself. If someone has a nagging problem that just won't go away, the problem continually calls. Illness requires most of our attention. It depletes strength for life.
When I heard about Jesus' healing touch, I knew I would find him. The longer my search, the more I believed he could help. But his time was filled. I wondered if I would ever reach him. I came to believe, well, I guess it was like standing in line for something you must have for survival. There is no other alternative.
I feared becoming totally disillusioned before I would ever find Jesus. To my surprise, the opposite happened. The closer I came to Jesus, the more certain I was he could heal me. As it became obvious the crowd was keeping us separate simply because of the numbers, I abandoned speaking directly with him. I began reaching out just to touch him. Then, there he was. I touched his clothes.
Asker: What happened when you touched Jesus' clothing?
Woman: I knew from that moment my life changed. It's strange, this business of wanting to give up, of almost settling for less, for a compromise. But, you must understand, I am more than this illness. Something from deep inside kept me going, deepening my faith. Is that what a miracle is all about? I certainly couldn't be passive about approaching Jesus. Passivity is not my nature.
Maybe my initiative makes this miracle unique. I sought Jesus. I was stubborn enough to persist. I was doing the acting. I have heard that some other suffering people whom Jesus healed did not even call out to him. Either Jesus spotted them and initiated the healing or their friends interceded.
When Jesus asked who touched him, I knew the healing was real. If Jesus himself acknowledged power draining from him, then certainly I had not imagined it. I know well the feeling of energy draining, but this was not lost, wasted energy. This energy was spent to empower another's healing. It turned my life around from being depleted to being filled. At the same time, I was scared.
Asker: Scared?
Woman: Remember, I was ostracized. I was unclean because of the bleeding. Although the writer does not give me a name, I do stand out as woman. Only a woman can have my illness. I was forbidden to touch anything holy. I should not even have been there in the crowd. Any hemorrhaging woman is in a demeaning position.
Interviewing Jesus
Asker: Jesus, as usual, you do not waste words in these two miracles. You asked, "Who touched my clothes?" Then, you made little of the woman's touching. When you reached out to the child, you not only touched her but took her by the hand and drew her up. Don't you know, Jesus, what an unholy bind we have gotten ourselves into today with touching?
Jesus: First of all, it is precisely when one is most untouchable, such as the bleeding woman in my time, that we are called to reach out with the healing touch. It is precisely when one is most unloveable that we are called to love. A handclasp or the gentle meeting of eyes can be a welcome touch, an invitation to return to life.
Now, about unholy touch. Touch, human contact, is a connecting point between the tangible and the intangible. It symbolizes the faith that connects us with each other and to God.
I once told Jairus, "Do not fear, only believe." These words held one meaning in my early ministry. They hold even fuller connotations in your time when caution and distrust also threaten to violate relationships. Yours is an era when wrongful body contact must awaken caution. We also need to see that Christians are called to teach each other to become sensitive both to unholy touch and to holy touch. Might we call this spirit of gentleness educated trust? If we are to be Christian, at some point we must choose to let trust transcend fear.
Asker: Jesus, both persons you healed in these two miracles are female. One is the daughter of a high official. The other, an adult, essentially is ostracized from society because of her illness. You called the hemorrhaging woman "daughter," as if you claimed her in the same way Jairus claimed his daughter.
Jesus: I do claim her as family. As unacceptable as she must have felt all her adult life, she needed claiming. She needed to hear that she is accepted as part of God's family. All who stood around her that day also needed to hear this truth.
It might be argued that the writers juxtaposed these two stories to illustrate the socially accepted and socially unaccepted "daughters." I say everyone is acceptable. We must see the person first before we look at any of the superficial circumstances we tend to connect with that person's identity.
Asker: Jesus, when you healed the little child, you addressed her directly. Similarly, when you spoke to the hemorrhaging woman, you spoke face to face.
Jesus: Both participated actively in their healing. The bleeding woman sought me out. When I told the child to get up, something within her responded. She got up. Healing involves the whole person. Despite how it may look to the casual observer, God does not stand out there somewhere ready to tap us with a magic wand.
Asker: Jesus, what do you mean for these two miracles to tell us about God?
Jesus: First of all, God listens. God heard what Jairus said, then went with him to his house. God goes with us when we need help. God accepts what we say when we speak the truth. God believes our trust in our creator and sustainer. All this is obvious in the little word "so." Jairus asked me to come and lay my hands on his daughter, so that she may be made well, and live. (See Mark 5:23.) So I went with Jairus to his home.
God notices even the least noticable and God persists. With the woman, I felt someone draw energy from me. Despite the chiding of my disciples, I needed to find that person for her sake. Despite the messenger's words and the ready mourners outside the house of Jairus, I needed to get to that little child just in case there was still something God could do for her.
God recognizes the role people play in getting well. Our task is to have faith. In giving the bleeding woman the blessing of the ancient Shalom words "Go in peace," God means well for us. I wonder if the words "be healed," are not also a recognition of the mystery and the miracle of the healing process. God did not say, "Here, I heal you." Neither in this instance did God say, "You healed yourself." Rather, God said, "Your faith made you well." Perhaps this is the key link between these two miracles: the father's "so" and the woman's persistence.
Further, God's focus is not on God. God heals because God cares for us and loves us. God is in charge. God is not easily swayed. By ignoring the nay-sayers, doubters, and even the realists, God teaches us how to manage the negative voices in our lives. Go ahead and believe, God says. By encouraging Jairus not to fear but to believe, God nudges us toward positive attitudes and a greater spiritual depth.
4. Words
Hemorrhage
Any bleeding, whether visible or concealed, great or small, was called hemorrhaging in the day of Jesus. Scholars suggest the woman's difficulty probably stemmed from a uterine fibroid.
Because blood was considered sacred, all contact with it was prohibited. In the Old Testament, bleeding was seen as a ceremonial defilement. According to the laws of uncleanness, a hemorrhaging individual was restricted in religious and social life.
The period of uncleanness for usual menstrual flow lasted seven days. Persistent discharge of blood from a woman required a considerably longer time of uncleanness. A person with a bodily discharge was ostracized because the priests believed uncleanliness was infectious, a sin, and the work of evil.
Touch
An unclean woman was excluded from touching holy things. According to current beliefs, when the woman touched Jesus' cloak, she would have been touching a holy thing and thereby making it unclean.
Today, touching itself has become suspect. Even the word "touch," has become tainted. Consider balancing negative touching with positive touching.
Jesus transformed the meaning of touch. For Jesus, touch was a means of communicating, a transmission of healing power, and a message that we are all connected. Touch is direct contact. Touch is spiritual as well as physical contact. Think about how touching relates to the leper or to a person living with AIDS. Consider that person, no matter what the circumstance, as holy, that is, touchable. When one is thought untouchable, consider the hungering for human contact -- a hug, a pat on the arm, a meeting of the eyes that shows no disgust.
What about the phrases "rubbing shoulders with" or "shying away from" someone? What about not wanting to have anything to do with someone who is different? Think about the isolation, our projections of our own uneasy feelings, and our pre-judging. We sometimes avoid getting close to others emotionally as well as physically.
Daughter
In both stories, "daughter" is used. The little girl was identified as the daughter of Jairus, a synagogue leader. Later, when the messenger returned, he spoke of the child as the daughter. The child was defined by the father/daughter relationship. Although approaching the age of first menses and womanhood, the twelve-year-old was called "little girl." Although the hemorrhaging woman was probably of equal age to Jesus or older, Jesus addressed her as daughter.
Consider the following connections: (1) the prepubescent age of the girl child and the woman in relation to natural and unnatural biological changes, (2) purity and impurity, (3) the familial father/daughter relationship and the spiritual father/daughter relationship, and (4) the possible conclusion that Jesus was suggesting a guideline, that the spiritual relationship between God and woman or between mentor and follower is of father and daughter.
If one's own father/daughter relationship were positive, then one might think of these qualities: tenderness, kindliness, shelter, guidance, respect, encouragement. Consider these elements of a less than positive relationship: financial liability, paternalism, sexism, ownership, irresponsibility, absence.
Father is not a nasty word. One need not degrade the father in order to elevate the daughter's status. From the perspective of evolving mores in the year 2002, consider the differences between paternalism and fathering/parenting.
Jesus used the father/daughter terms as a metaphor for the positive, nurturing relationship he shared with his parent/God. Would we be more comfortable today using the inclusive terms of peer, companionship, mentor, and a sustaining, supportive relationship?
Talitha Cum
Of the three Gospel tellings of this story, only Mark uses these Aramaic words which translate as "Little girl, I say to you, arise." Aramaic is the language of common folk. It is homey and close to the heart. Talitha cum speaks to everyone's ears.
According to the Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible2, three other connections associated with the Aramaic are worthy of comment: Retention of the Aramaic in a healing story emphasizes the aspect of healing. The Aramaic words lift up the miraculous event for gentile readers as well as show interest in retaining the actual words of Jesus.
Healing
Was Jesus ahead of his time as a healer? He understood the importance of relating to God as opposed to alienating oneself from God. Psychologist Robert Ornstein and physician David Sobel, medical school professors at the University of California in San Francisco and at Stanford University respectively, and co-authors of The Healing Brain3, suggest it is probably no accident that these words -- whole, heal, health, hallow and holy -- all stem from a common Indo-European root, kailo. (See The American Heritage Dictionary.) These words sing of a one-ness and an interconnection, a sense of the whole of all creation.
As we realize our bodies are holy because God created us, we honor both God and our whole being by trying to maintain the best possible level of health. Because God wishes well for us, we sense that healing is the natural direction toward mind/body/spirit wholeness. This circle of creation continues.
As a result, an attitude of eagerness burgeons. In one of this Sunday's pericopes, Paul speaks of it: "For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has -- not according to what one does not have . . . . As it is written, 'The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little' " (from 2 Corinthians 8:7-15).
Healing is more than only something external or done to us. Jesus understood that healing involves something internal to the person. Healing involves the whole person in partnership with the ingredients of the healing process.
When the physician in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables came to the house of Jean Valjean, he saw an old man whose will to live was gone. The physician knew nothing he might do could save the man's life. On the other hand, in her search for Jesus, the hemorrhaging woman brought her willingness to be well. The poem which follows touches upon these choices:
SOUL TALK4
(An Imaginable Conversation With The Physician
In Victor Hugo's Les Miserables)
You speak of a mystery in your work
As a practitioner of medicine
Who learns to modulate science with art
When an old man says to you,
"I'm going to die" and you bow,
There is nothing you can do
To turn around the man's will.
I speak the mystery of a woman
Whose body always has spurned the journey
Whose energy of soul finds
Another then one more way
In her work as a practicer of life,
And I yield, there is nothing I would do
To turn around her "I will live."
The body wants to heal. It wants to be as healthy as possible. When the internal healing mechanism of the brain can be triggered, the brain is quick and specific in dispensing its healing chemicals. This immediacy parallels the directness and quickness of healing in the miracle stories.
Who cares precisely how we start the internal healing mechanism as long as we can marshal up the forces for healing? One dynamic of healing is a partnership. Persons needing healing give themselves over to another power -- to God or to medicines. By taking on an attitude of hope and by taking the best possible care of ourselves, we participate in healing.
Might belief or faith alone turn on the internal, healing pharmacy? Ornstein says we are "a sea of suggestion." Jesus' coming through the door at the home of Peter's mother-in-law, the arrival of the doctor, the recitation of a prayer or a healing ritual, the hope of the hemorrhaging woman simply to touch Jesus' robe, somehow distracting ourselves so we do not always pay attention to the chronic pain -- all of the above could trigger profound emotional reactions with physiological effects.
What about positive expectations, faith, and the placebo effect? "Placebo," an inert substance used in control experiments, means "I shall please" in Latin. Does the cynic within us only associate the role faith plays in healing with cheapening, prepaid, healing exhibitionism? Wanting to give the credit to God rather than to himself, Jesus took care to separate his healing from crowd audiences and the embellishments of the enthusiastic. Still, the doubter within us at times prefers to diminish rather than to elevate the healing work of Jesus.
What if we were to redefine placebo as the will to please the brain's natural, or God-given, process of wanting to heal rather than as a physician's pacifier? The human brain carries an extensive role in healing. The brain has the capacity to influence physiological states. Studies of our decade show the brain's chemical neuro-transmitters, the body's intrinsic healing systems, may number in the hundreds. Among these natural, precise, brain-directed morphines are endorphins, dopamines, norephron, serotonin, and acetocolin.
Nevertheless, sometimes all the will and all the desire in the world to heal does not promote healing. Does that suggest a weakness of will? Ornstein concedes that management using the brain's positive influence works best in preventive medicine and in maintaining good health. However, eventually biological deterioration prevails. The laws of natural order still apply. Our bodies are still finite.
Even so, with a high degree of psychological hardiness, one is better equipped to believe in the capacity to improve or at least to hold negative and positive events in balance. Tell patients readying for surgery they have a fifty per cent chance of living and they call up hopes and plans for things yet to do. Tell them they have a fifty per cent chance of dying and they begin making funeral arrangements.
It still is possible to mobilize hope rather than despair. Despite having a less than perfect body, we can still maintain a sense of well-being. Healing, however, is more than willpower. The miracle of God's action in healing remains a mystery.
Faith
Some degree of faith is conditional to healing. Jesus presupposed divine love and faith on the part of either suffering persons or someone connected with them. For Jesus, healing was not only physical or psychological but also spiritual.
Healing is not somehow entirely our doing. We yearn to be totally in control of our bodies. Yet, when the body does not heal, it is not necessarily due to a weak faith. When the body cannot heal, it cannot heal despite the immune system and white blood cells usually given as part of human creation. Sometimes the body cannot heal because it has lasted as long as it can.
5. Gospel Parallels
All three Synoptic Gospels tell these two healing miracles, however Matthew offers a condensed version. Matthew begins the telling as a continuation of Jesus' healings.
The Lukan pair of miracles is somewhat shorter but close in rendition to the Markan story. Mark describes the details of the setting of the miracle, that is, Jesus' crossing the sea in the boat.
The Crowd
In Mark 5:21 and 24, adjectives "great" and "large" stress the size of the crowd. Luke emphasizes the relationship or response of the crowd to Jesus (Luke 8:40). They are waiting for him. They welcome him. For Luke, later in the story of the suffering woman, the witnessing crowd again is important as the woman "declared in the presence of all the people" (Luke 8:47).
In the story of Jairus' daughter, the crowd is generally disbelieving and has already begun the mourning ceremonies. They ridicule Jesus' words that the child is not dead but asleep (Matthew 9:24, Mark 5:39-40, and Luke 8:52-53). Jesus heals the child only after he has dismissed the crowd.
Prefacing Jesus' words to the crowd that the child is not dead, Matthew relates that Jesus told the crowd, "Go away" (Matthew 9:24). Mark's version is more of a suggestion: "Why do you make a commotion and weep?" (Mark 5:39) Luke's even gentler report has more feeling for the crowd when Jesus says, "Do not weep" (Luke 8:52).
In Luke, the representative from Jairus' house speaks more directly than in Mark. Both report that Jairus' daughter is dead. In Luke, he commands, "Do not trouble the teacher any longer" (Luke 8:49). In Mark, he suggests not troubling the teacher any further (Mark 5:35).
Mark reports Jesus' response as closer and in present tense: "But overhearing them, Jesus says . . . " (Mark 5:36), while Luke's report is slightly removed, perhaps secondhand: "When Jesus heard this, he repliedÉ" (Luke 8:50).
Both writers quote Jesus, "Do not fear. Only believe, and" Luke adds, "she will be saved" (Luke 8:50).
Both Mark and Luke report that Jesus took with him into the house the parents and the disciples who accompanied him (Mark 5:40 and Luke 8:40). Still negative toward the crowd, Luke states that Jesus "did not allow to enter with him" any people except for the three disciples and the child's parents (Luke 8:51). Matthew's brief telling makes no mention of the parents or the disciples (Matthew 9:25).
Jairus
Both Luke and Mark name Jairus (Luke 8:41 and Mark 5:22). Matthew calls him a "leader of the synagogue" (Matthew 9:23).
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1. For further discussion of selfishness and illness, see Susan Sontag's collection of stories depicting eight frail men and women coping with their lives, I, Etcetera (New York: Doubleday, 1991).
2. George A. Buttrick, Ed., The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible 4 Volumes (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962).
3. Robert Ornstein and David Sobel, The Healing Brain (California: The Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge, 1987).
4. Written by Brauninger with copyright held by the author.
