Episode 20: 1/26/09

Readings:

Psalm 52
Isaiah 48:1-11
Galatians 1:1-17
Mark 5:21-43

Sermon:

In today’s Gospel, we see two instances of miraculous healings, the woman with the issue of blood, and the young daughter of Jairus. The little girl was raised from the dead, the old woman from a life that was worse than death.

The story of Jairus’s daughter is one that will touch the heart of every parent. We are not told what her illness was, but it was obviously serious enough that her father knew his only help lay with Jesus. He begged Our Lord to visit his house and just lay His hand on the sick girl so she could be healed. Jesus readily agreed, but on the way back to the house, friends came out to Jairus with the news that the girl was dead, and he need not bother Jesus any longer.

We can imagine the despair that gripped Jairus as he heard those words --- all his hopes were dashed, his faith proven to be in vain. But Jesus ignored the mocking of the crowd and encouraged Jairus to hold fast to his belief that his daughter would be restored to him, and she was. Jesus called her back, from death or sleep, back to life with her family and friends.

The story of the old woman provides an interesting contrast to that of the young girl. We see her after many years of suffering, spending all her money on medical treatments that failed to bring her relief, growing weaker by the day. Because of the nature of her ailment, she would have also been considered unclean, unable to find comfort in worshipping with her community. Sick, poor, and outcast, she clung desperately to one last hope --- that if she could only touch the edge of Jesus’s cloak, she would be healed. Maybe she had heard of other miraculous cures, maybe she recognized that she had no other options. For whatever reason, she maneuvered her way through the crowd until she was able to touch Him and feel the healing relief flow through her body.

But then, at the moment of healing, at the answer of her prayer, came the realization of the truly miraculous encounter she had just experienced. The woman, fearing that she had presumed too much in touching Jesus, and that He was angry with her, fell to the ground, pleading for mercy. Instead, Our Lord lifted her up and comforted her, saying “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering." (Mark 5:34) Perhaps this was also meant to encourage Jairus, who was still awaiting the fulfillment of his fervent prayer for help.

So here we see in one small passage of Scripture, two lives restored, one a young girl brought back from death to enjoy renewed life with her family and loved ones, the other an old woman restored to health and her rightful place within her community. But the miracle didn’t stop there: all those present on that day were witnesses to the power of God to bring life out of death, health out of sickness, to take broken lives and make them whole again.

In 1703, Puritan minister Cotton Mather addressed a joyous congregation as they gave thanks for the return of their husbands and sons, sailors who had been captured years before by the Barbary Pirates and held as slaves. From the moment of their capture, these men were as good as dead. Few could expect to survive the starvation and brutal treatment they would face at the hands of their captors, and those who did could only look forward to “a bitter servitude, that was enough to have made them even weary of their lives.” Their families were confronted with the knowledge that their loved ones almost certainly would not be returning to them: as Mather remarked on the miraculous nature of their release, “In former years, the lions den, in that part of Barbary where you have been cast, had this unhappy character upon it: few or none returned.”

But like Jairus, like the bleeding woman, the families of these captives refused to give up hope, clinging to a desperate belief that God could rescue their loved ones when all the help of man had failed. And at last, after years of suffering, their fervent prayers were answered and they stood in wonder as they saw the former captives restored to life.

But what of the men themselves, how were they now to live their newly-born lives? Mather tells them first to remember that only the power of God was able to save them: “We do in the first place, pray to the God of all grace that you may have the grace to be very sensible of the matchless favors that God hath bestowed upon you . . . That we now see the return of so many who have been a prey to those terrible ones, truly, ‘tis a new, a strange and a great sight. We may say upon it This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes!”

Next, he says, it is not enough to give thanks with their lips only, it must be matched by their manner of living: “But what signifies a Thanksgiving without Thanksliving? . . . It is the most reasonable, and most advisable thing imaginable that you should seriously consider with yourselves, and ask divines and other Christians to assist you in considering What lessons you should learn by the changes that have passed over you? And apply your cares to learn those lessons and live as you have been blessed.” This includes encouraging those who are suffering or in doubt with the story of their remarkable deliverance.

And lastly, he advises, never forget the power of prayer: “Finally brethren, you see by your own happy experience what prayer can do: Oh! Let it make you in love with prayer. If this one point may be gained, all will be gained: prayer, fervent prayer, constant prayer, daily prayer: Oh, pray without ceasing, and with every sort of prayer; and very particularly for a good effect of all the divine dispensations towards you. Resolve with Him, Psalm 116:2, Because the Lord hath inclined His ear unto me, therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live.”

We are not told what happened to Jairus’s daughter or the old woman after their miraculous encounter with Jesus. But it is reasonable to believe that they were changed forever by that healing touch that brought them back to life. And while most of us, thankfully, will never experience captivity at the hands of pirates, we are all subject to a much worse slavery, slavery to sin and death until we experience Our Lord’s healing touch upon our spirits, breaking our chains, bringing us back from the grave, restoring us to the lives we were meant to live. And when we do, let us show our thanks for our remarkable deliverance by the manner of our lives, so that everyone who sees us will know that a miracle has taken place.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.