Readings: Wisdom of Solomon 1: 13 – 15, 2:23-24; 2 Corinthians 8: 7 – end; Mark 5: 21 – end.
“God did not make death, and he does not delight in the death of the living. For he created all things so that they might exist; the generative forces of the world are wholesome, and there is no destructive poison in them, and the dominion of Hades is not on earth.” “God created us for incorruption, and made us in the image of his own eternity.”
These are striking phrases from our reading from the Wisdom of Solomon. In a world where we constantly hear about death and often, as in the last few days, violent death, and where death seems final, these words claim that God created us for life and did not intend us to die at all. So they put death into a rather different perspective.
I’ve been to two funerals in the last two weeks – both of people who I’d known for a long time. One died in ripe old age, the other at a rather younger age than he or we might have hoped. The circumstances of their lives were very different, and one was a man and one was a woman. But both were people of strong faith. In both funerals there was an element of celebration as well as sadness. But my overwhelming impression was the sense of their continuing life. Their bodies might be returning to the dust from which we’re made, but they themselves were not extinguished. They had already passed from death to life.
This morning’s Gospel is also life-affirming. Jesus demonstrates His authority over incurable illness and even death itself. We’re to understand these two healings in the light of the Resurrection. And the passage also invites the question ‘What does faith in Christ mean, and how does it bring wholeness?’ In both healings the effectiveness of Christ’s power is linked to the faith of the person concerned. (In the case of Jairus it’s faith on behalf of someone else.) Both Jairus and the woman with the flow of blood are desperate, but their desperation is not despised.
The woman, who has a long term apparently incurable condition, shows a development of faith. She’s at the end of her resources; she knows she is ritually unclean; she hopes that just touching Jesus will be enough to heal her, and she dares to do this although it will defile Him. So she manages to get close enough to Jesus in the crowd to touch His cloak. You could call this kind of faith ‘superstitious’. It’s the kind of faith which perhaps, for example, makes people want to touch the relic of a saint.
And it works! Both the woman and Jesus know instantly that something has happened. But Jesus doesn’t let it rest there. He insists on meeting her. Despite her uncleanness and the embarrassment of her condition she’s not beneath His notice. Indeed her healing is not complete without a conversation with Him. When she kneels before Jesus and tells him her story, he declares ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace’ (v34). The Greek word here for ‘made you well’ is different from the one used earlier by the woman herself (v28). It has theological overtones and is more usually translated as ‘saved’. It is only after her meeting with Jesus that the woman is fully restored to society and therefore able to go in peace. She was focussed on the physical healing, and thought that it might be accomplished secretly. Jesus demands more of her – it must have taken courage to come out of the crowd and admit what she had done – but far from being defiled by contact with her Jesus’ holiness makes her clean in every possible way. All her needs are met. Her life has been given back to her.
Jairus is also desperate. It must have taken desperation as well as faith for a synagogue leader to fall at Jesus’ feet (v 22). His encounter with Jesus comes before the healing. Then his faith is tested as he’s made to wait while Jesus deals with the woman and further tested when the news comes that his daughter has died. Jesus tells him ‘Do not fear, only believe.’ As I said earlier, we’re intended to understand these stories in the light of the Resurrection. When confronted with Jesus’ authority death itself is only a kind of sleep, and the little girl gets up as naturally as if she had only been sleeping. Jairus’ faith, like that of the woman, was sufficient, and the scoffers must have been confounded. Again, far from being defiled by contact with the dead child, Jesus cleanses her as he restores her to life.
So in these stories Jesus is portrayed as one who gives more than physical healing. His presence cleanses; He gives life itself. He responds to faith, not just by performing miracles, but by engaging with those who show faith and calling out a deeper, more truthful faith from them. This is because Jesus is not just a faith-healer or a magician, but the living God who has always been seeking relationship with His people. He does this constantly, developing our faith as we allow Him to. Death is real, but it is as if for Jesus death is indeed a kind of sleep. Just like the little girl, He will call us out of it and our relationship with Him will continue for ever.
We have hope! As Jurgen Moltmann puts it: “The Christian hope is directed towards a novum ultimum, towards a new creation of all things by the God of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It thereby opens a future outlook that embraces all things, including also death,”
Every day Jesus says to us, as well as to Jairus ‘Do not fear, only believe’. At the funeral of a loved one, or at our own death, we are invited to respond to the words ‘Talitha cum’ ‘Little girl, get up!’ not with a historical question about a past event, but with a thrill of anticipation – and perhaps with childlike trust too.
Amen