Today's Daily Lesson comes from Mark chapter 5 verses 21 through 43:
21 When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered round him; and he was by the lake. 22Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet 23and 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.’ 24So he went with him.
And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. 25Now there was a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years.26She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. 27She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.’ 29Immediately her haemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’31And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?” ’ 32He looked all round to see who had done it. 33But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. 34He 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, some people came from the leader’s house to say, ‘Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?’36But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, ‘Do not fear, only believe.’ 37He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. 38When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. 39When he had entered, he said to them, ‘Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.’40And 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. 41He took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Talitha cum’, which means, ‘Little girl, get up!’ 42And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. 43He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.
This is a well known and extraordinary story that tells of two healings of two females -- a woman and a child -- who have passed one another by in the streets of Capernaum over these past twelve years and whose paths now converge on the little road that leads from the Sea of Galilee to the house of the the synagogue leader.
The woman has been unwell and unclean over these last twelve years and has spent all she had on futile medical care. The cost of medical care has taken everything except her dignity. The little girl, 12 years of age and the daughter of the synagogue leader, has surely seen the woman on the streets of the little town and noticed or been explicitly told how the woman is not to enter the synagogue because her uncleanness is not appropriate in a holy place. And now, the little girl is unclean with sickness, a sickness unto death.
Often, this story is preached in such a way as to make a large point about Jesus stopping to heal the poor outsider on the streets while on his way to the home more powerful insider. There is indeed something to be said there. The little girl is the synagogue leader's daughter, a man whose name everyone must have known, "Jairus". But Jesus calls the unclean woman, the woman whose name no one knows or knew, his "daughter". We might think how significant that is to know that Jesus calls the poor and the powerless and the nameless and the medically sick and the ritually unclean his own children.
But there is something else too -- another daughter, the daughter of the leader of the synagogue where, if we're studying our Bible we know, just a few pages before the first great conflict between Jesus and the religious authorities first erupted and where Jesus first became a marked man. As leader of the synagogue, the little girl's father may well have been apart of the faction of religious leaders who had it out for Jesus. And yet, when his daughter turned up ill, Jesus came with compassion, with compassion for all.
A few months back, a friend of mine saw a photograph of a politician with whom he vigorously disagrees sitting tenderly with his young child. He wrote on Facebook how that picture reframed some things for him. Until then, he had only seen that politician as a part of the opposing side, an opponent, perhaps even an enemy. But suddenly, with that picture, he saw him as a father, a human being, a person with the capacity to love and be loved, feel, and hurt, and have his heart broken. And suddenly, then, my friend had compassion.
Jesus had compassion for all. He had compassion on the nameless woman whose presence was not allowed in the synagogue because of the condition of her health and also the leader of the synagogue which pushed her and also Jesus out.
This is a compassion beyond our ordinary human tendency. It is a compassion that comes solely from the all-compassionate heart of God. And it's why we sing a hymn with lines like, "There's a wideness in His mercy."
May we with ears listen today.
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