Today's Daily Lesson comes from Mark chapter 5 verses 21 through 43:
21 And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him, and he was beside the sea. 22 Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet 23 and implored him earnestly, saying, “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.” 24 And he went with him.
And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. 25 And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, 26 and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. 28 For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” 29 And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30 And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?” 31 And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” 32 And he looked around to see who had done it. 33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. 34 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
35 While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler's house some who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” 36 But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” 37 And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John the brother of James. 38 They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. 39 And when he had entered, he said to them, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.” 40 And they laughed at him. But 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. 41 Taking her by the hand he said to her, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” 42 And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement. 43 And he strictly charged them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.
This, for me, is one of the most powerful stories in all of Scripture, as it speaks so deeply to the power of pain and even terror of social exclusion and the universal need for mercy and compassion.
At the two ends of the story we have a very powerful family in the village, the ruler of the synagogue Jairus, his wife and their 12-year-old daughter. They would certainly be the envy of almost everyone in the village, except for one thing -- the daughter his sick, gravely sick. And in a moment of desperation, the most powerful man comes and does a most desperate and even shameless thing, he falls down at the feet of Jesus.
In the middle of the story is a woman, afflicted with an issue of bleeding which left her a social outcast for twelve years. It is impossible for me to imagine what kind of shame and pain she must have endured those during that long time. She was silenced and excluded and driven to separation. As a friend recently wrote in a monologue for this woman, she was "cursed". She too is desperate. And when this Jesus arrives in her town, she too comes to him, reaches out her hand and touches him. She reaches out to hold on with and to whatever last sense of personal agency she has left. And what she grabs is Jesus' outer garment, or as one translation says, "the fringe of his garment." She reaches out and hangs on to the fringe -- the fringe of his cloak, and the community, and life.
And there in the center is Jesus -- between two very different people from very different stations in life, one male and the other female, one named the other not, one powerful and the other pariah. And they are both there, reaching out to him, longing for his healing, for his compassion. And Jesus ministers unto both.
My great aunt used to say that it's not only the down and out who need mercy, but the up and out need it too. At some point every one of us, the rich and powerful and the poor and powerless, comes to a point of needing mercy and compassion. Some have to come Jairus, powerful in the eyes of so many, yet desperate and humble enough to bow down. Others come as the nameless woman came, exerting the single bit of power she has left, which is the power to not remain paralyzed in shame and victim hood, the power to reach out on behalf of herself. And there at the center we discover this amazing and beautiful truth -- that all who come are healed, that Jesus heals all.
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