30th June 2024, 8am (modified) and 5.45pm Eucharist

Wisdom 1.13-15; 2.23-24; 2 Corinthians 8.7-end; Mark 5.21-43

Revd Catherine Edenborough

What a bumper weekend it has been!  Two wonderful ordination services yesterday, Seafarers’ Service this morning and finally a Eucharist to end the weekend. Tonight as we gather to worship God we also come to the final Sunday service for our choral scholars -Nora, Liam and Angus - and for Mark, one of our lay clerks. We give thanks for all they have given us in music and singing, and how they have brought us closer to God in worship.  

So at the end of this bumper weekend, I want to go back to yesterday, when we had the joy of seeing 18 people ordained deacon and 6 new priests.  The services were full of thankfulness, hope and anticipation of what’s to come.  We celebrated with them God’s work in their lives and were reminded that God calls each of us to follow Christ in different ways and in doing so to know life in all its fullness. The joy and thanksgiving seems to stand in stark contrast to so much of what is going on in the world: the violence and suffering, the uncertainty internationally, the lack of integrity shown by some public servants and a general lack of trust in our politicians and political system in the run-up to the general election. If like me, you are feeling rather weary of all the election coverage, today’s gospel passage stands as a beacon of hope.  It reminds us why we CAN celebrate with those new deacons and priests.  It shows us who this Jesus is that we follow and reminds us so clearly why we do so.  For the scholars leaving us today – this is a good one to go out on!

There is so much to say about this passage - far more than we can fit into the next few minutes – these 23 verses are densely packed with meaning and connections that go far beyond the stories of the individual healings.

Here we have not one but two miracles with a break in the middle.  It is easy to see them as two individual accounts of healing and transformation, but if we do that, we miss much of the richness and layers of meaning we find when we look at the whole story.

What we have here is one story wrapped around another.  We start with Jairus, the synagogue leader, coming to Jesus to ask him to heal his sick daughter.  Then we move to the woman with the haemorrhage and her being healed, before returning to Jairus’ daughter who by this time has died and Jesus brings her back to life.  This wrapping one story round another is a narrative technique called intercalation that Mark uses to shine a light on things he considers particularly important.  The idea is that one story interprets the other, one illuminates the other, so we need to look at the connections between them and see what they show us.

Before we do that - to put it into context, these stories are the final two in a string of miracles beginning in the preceding chapter in Mark.  We’ve had the stilling of the storm, where Jesus showed his power over the elements, the casting out of unclean spirits from the Gerasene demoniac – a healing done in Gentile country - and now we are back with a synagogue leader, so among the Jews again.  The two stories in this passage are like a grand finale, to capture our attention and our imagination.  They point to the identity of Jesus and the magnitude of his mission. The implication is that the salvation to come is for all, both Jews and Gentiles, and that no-one is beyond his reach.

There are several connections between the two – firstly the number 12.  Jairus’ daughter was 12 years old and the women had been bleeding for 12 years.  For the Jews, the number 12 is significant because it would have pointed to the 12 tribes of Israel, meaning that this story is about more than just healing or raising the dead - it relates to Israel as a whole.  Another connection is the word ‘daughter’- we have Jairus’ own daughter and Jesus calling the woman his daughter.  There is something here about what it means to be part of God’s family, one that goes beyond blood ties.  Thirdly there is the healing of a sick woman who is considered unclean, and there is a raising from the dead.  This is about both individual transformation of current circumstances and longer term salvation, redeeming all people.

With the woman with the haemorrhage, her bleeding is believed to have been menstruation - something considered unclean since God’s pronouncement on Eve in the garden of Eden following the fall.  She would have been ostracised from society, unable to participate in worship or even social gatherings.  Anything she touched would be considered unclean. It is remarkable then that she had the courage to reach out to touch Jesus’ cloak.  She knew she would have been contaminating him.  Perhaps that’s why she only touched his garment.  It is striking that in the crush of people around him, Jesus sensed her touch.  He felt power go out of him.  As she falteringly confesses that it was she who touched him, he responds by calling her ‘daughter’.  The significance of this cannot be stressed enough.  We can easily gloss over it and read on, but we need to stop and take it in. This unclean woman, beyond the pale to many, is called daughter and brought into the family of God.  She is no longer bleeding but healed, no longer impure but clean, no longer outside, but welcomed in.

Many of us find it hard to believe that God loves us in this way.  We might have been a Christian a long time and know in our heads God loves us, but have never really been able to hear Jesus calling us ‘Daughter’ or ‘Son’.  However we may feel about ourselves and our own unworthiness of God’s love because of things we’ve done or not done, this says to us in capital letters: ‘You are loved.’  Like the woman seeking healing all those years, when we finally come to God after having tried and tried to achieve something in our own strength and got nowhere, Jesus says to us: ‘I’ve got you, my daughter, my son’.  This also challenges us to consider our own prejudices and judgements of other people – the stranger, the asylum seeker, those we might quietly file in the unclean drawer of our minds.

Beyond the healing itself, there is a sense of reciprocity with the woman, because later Jesus will go on to be the one who is ostracised.  He will stand in solidarity with her as he is cast out of society and hangs on a cross, rejected, alone and forsaken.  

Moving to Jairus’ daughter, by the time Jesus reaches her, she has died.  Touching a dead body was also considered unclean and required a period of quarantine and ritual washing, so by taking her hand and speaking to her, he was again going beyond what was deemed acceptable.  At 12 years of age, she would have been considered old enough to be married, which again would make his actions shocking.  He tells her to get up.  The word in Greek is the same word as for ‘resurrection’, so in addition to raising her from the dead, this is pointing to his own resurrection to come and the salvation that he will bring to all.

So these two overlapping stories show us more as a whole than they can individually.  They reveal the uncomfortable and yet wonderful truth about who Jesus is and the extent of his love both for individuals and for humankind, that nobody is beyond his reach.  For us today whatever is happening in the world, that love is constant.  Whatever is going on in the general election campaigns, that love is real.  And that’s not to say that we can sit back and somehow abdicate responsibility for what’s happening.  On the contrary, once we have experienced this love, our lives are changed.  We have to do something with it.  We have to get up and follow, we have to go after this Jesus.   Amen.