Mark 5:21-43
Last week I told the story about the wild man, possessed by a legion of demons, who fell at Jesus' feet. Jesus responded to the crazed man, throwing the demons out of him into a herd of pigs, who then threw themselves off a cliff and drowned.
Now we have a combined story about Jairus and his dying daughter, and a woman whose menstrual period lasted 12 straight years. Both of them, like the crazy, demon possessed guy, end up on their knees in front of Jesus. For the wild man, his motives of falling on his knees before Jesus was, initially, a mockery of Jesus, and his divinity. For Jairus and the bleeding woman, their motives of falling on their knees before Jesus are no less interesting.
Let's look at Jairus, first. Jairus was the chief official of the synagogue, responsible for overseeing the building and handling the details of worship. The question is, which synagogue? Mark doesn't tell us where Jesus and the disciples landed when they made their way back across the lake.
It is most likely Jesus and the disciples sailed to the north end of Galilee to Capernaum—their home base. This would be significant, because the last time Jesus was in the Capernaum synagogue, he faced some grumbling opposition leading to plots of murder against Jesus. Jesus had healed the man let down through the roof in his home. And then, in the synagogue, Jesus had healed a man with a withered hand. That's when the plot to have Jesus killed was hatched.
Jairus would have known about all this. He would have been an insider to the grumbling. At one point, some Pharisees mysteriously showed up, accusing Jesus of being in league with the devil. Those Pharisees wouldn't have come unless they were sent for by the chief official of the synagogue--Jairus.
But, now, in this story, look where Jairus is: down on his knees, not accusing Jesus, not harassing Jesus, not antagonizing Jesus, not putting out the "unwelcome mat" to Jesus. Instead Jairus is down on his knees begging for the life of his daughter who is sick. So sick, she is dying. Jairus asks Jesus to lay his hands on his dying daughter so she will live.
It's quite a turn-around for Jairus, isn't it? He’s been, up to this point, antagonizing Jesus, barking at Jesus’ heals whenever he could. Now the dire personal tragedy of his daughter’s illness and possible death have driven Jairus to Jesus for help. Making fun of Jesus for being a religious fraud has been instantly turned around into fox hole faith by the life-and-death need of his daughter. Makes you wonder what Jairus’ faith is all about, now. Evidently it’s enough to bring Jairus to his knees in front of Jesus in a posture of begging. Funny (not “ha ha” funny) how that happens.
So Jesus has just gotten out of the boat with the disciples, tired from sailing clear across the lake, pondering the whole way about what had just happened with the crazed man and the pigs. Glad to be back in their home town, Jesus and the disciples were maybe thinking they’d get a couple of days off. But Jairus puts an end to that dream.
On the way to Jairus’ home, there is another. A woman who has had her menstrual period for 12 straight years, hiding out in the crowd. I don’t even have the capacity to understand how awful that would be, to deal with what she had to deal with. Just being sapped of energy by the anemia alone would be enough to put me under. Not to mention all the other stuff that goes along with a normal period.
All that is compounded with the quack “medical” procedures used to cure such an ailment. One such cure for her condition was to dig an undigested oak tree acorn out of fresh cow poop, and make the woman swallow it. Yeah. Welcome to the nether world of women’s medicine in Bible times.
This woman, lurking in the midst of the crowd, is desperate. Just as desperate as Jairus. She has spent all her money, and any other wealth she had to bring herself back to health. So nothing has changed in the practice of medicine and its costs when dealing with chronic illness. Except, back then there was no such thing as insurance. When you had used up all your personal resources, you were done.
The woman’s severe anemia, exhaustion, and desperation, drove her to hatch a plan based on superstition—that if she could only get close enough to Jesus, and touch his clothing, she would be healed. It was the similar thing that happened with Peter in the book of Acts—people believed if only his shadow touched you, you would be healed. So they would position themselves hoping that when Peter walked by, his shadow would do the trick.
The woman is taking a chance. If she does touch him, and she is discovered or seen, she will be reprimanded for making Jesus ritually unclean, coming in contact with a menstruating woman, and he would be unable to attend Synagogue services for 7 days.
But the woman takes the chance because it is her last chance. Mark makes that clear: she “…had spent all that she had…”. She wasn’t down to her last penny. She was down to nothing. And she wasn’t any better. In fact, she was worse. In other words, Jesus was her last chance. She had tried everything else. She used Jesus, based on hearsay, as her last resort. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, she’s no worse off than she was before. Touching Jesus’ cloak is nothing more to her than swallowing a cow poop covered acorn.
As the story goes, in the confusion and press of the crowd, she makes it to Jesus and is able to surreptitiously touch Jesus’ cloak. She’s immediately healed. She knows it in her body. She has to be absolutely stunned. It worked!! Jesus worked!! At least his clothes did.
The problem is, the parade suddenly came to a halt, and Jesus is looking for who touched him. To the woman’s (and notice we are never told her name)—to the woman’s credit, instead of blending back in the crowd and making her escape, she fesses up. She kneeled before him, and probably not even looking into Jesus’ face, she blubbered out her whole story, from beginning to end. In the process, she made Jesus unclean. She was ready to accept whatever punishment Jesus would unleash—she didn’t care. She was healed.
Instead, Jesus called her “daughter”. It was a term of endearment. There was no harshness to it, like when Jesus called his mother, “woman” at the wedding in Canaan where he turned water into wine. “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed…”
Then, messengers come from Jairus’ home. The message is all bad news. Jairus’ daughter is dead. There’s nothing the “Teacher” can do now. Or so they say. You heard the story. Jesus continued on to Jairus’ home, and brought the dead girl back to life. Imagine Jairus’ surprise. Imagine what he’s thinking after the way he had treated Jesus. Everything is upside down, now.
So, adding last weeks story into these two, three people came to Jesus on their knees. The wild and crazed man was on his knees in mock homage to Jesus. He was just playing around with Jesus. He had no honor for Jesus. Jairus came to Jesus on his knees after attempting to make Jesus’ hometown life miserable with antagonism and disrespect. On his knees, he must have felt humiliated to make his pleading request for Jesus to heal his daughter. And the bleeding woman fell on her knees before Jesus, using Jesus as a last resort, not before she was healed, but after.
Three people, on their knees before Jesus. How did Jesus treat these three people from their kneeling stance? The demon possessed man who was only mocking Jesus from his knees, had his demons thrown out of him. Jesus didn’t seem to care that he was being mocked. Instead he did for the man what he couldn’t do for himself—saved him from a legion of demons.
And Jairus? Jesus didn’t seem to be bothered by the way that Jairus and his religious cronies had treated him. Jesus didn’t let that get in the way of him going personally to Jairus’ home and bring his daughter back to life.
And the menstrual woman? Nothing is said in the story about Jesus being claimed unclean for being touched by her. Amazingly, it would have been Jairus who would have had to be the one to judge Jesus so. No mention is made that Jairus did. And yet, Jesus was willing to take on the stigma of uncleanness just so a woman could be healed and free of a 12 year long chronic illness.
Three people, who, falling at Jesus feet, were surprised by healing. Three people, one way or another, who had dishonored Jesus, were honored by him in astounding ways. Three people who seemed to be strapped in hopeless situations, were not only given hope, but freedom and life. Three people who had been ungracious to Jesus, were treated with the amazing grace of God.
Kind of makes you want to fall on your knees before Jesus, doesn’t it?
No comments:
Post a Comment