June 27, 2021 – Mark 5:21-43
Mark 5:21-43
Jesus Saves in Many Ways from Many Things
Lectionary 13B – June 27, 2021
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
If you want to know what “salvation” looks like,
all you need to do is have a look at the stories in the Gospel reading today.
In one, a synagogue leader named Jairus begs Jesus to come to his ill 12 year old daughter
and lay his hands on her so that “she will be saved and thrive” (my literal translation).
On his way to Jairus’ place, he is interrupted.
A crowd presses in on him and in that crowd is a woman who
has been hemorrhaging for 12 years and who had suffered much.
Without his knowledge, she reaches out to touch his cloak,
sure that if she just touches him, she will be “saved” (again, my literal translation).
Sure enough, she is healed as soon as she touches even his garment.
When he wonders who touched him, the woman confesses it was her.
And rather than reprimand her, he simply acknowledges that
her trust in him has indeed “saved” her (again, my literal translation).
By the time he continues on toward Jairus’ house,
word is brought that the daughter has died.
Jesus simply tells Jairus not to be afraid but to trust him.
Jesus comes to the child, affirms she is only sleeping and not dead, takes her by the hand and
tells her to “be resurrected” (yes: another literal translation) – and she is.
She walks around and Jesus tells the people in the house to get her something to eat.
These stories are similar in some ways.
Both involve women.
Both involve Jesus “saving.”
Both make reference to the number 12: a 12 year illness and a 12 year old girl.
Both, of course, involve doing what Jesus has come to do:
Restoring people to life and to community,
so that they can thrive and become the people God intended them to be.
But the stories are also quite different.
I think Mark wants to show both the range of people Jesus can heal as well as
the range of ways in which Jesus can save and restore people to life and community.
In the case of the woman, she comes to him alone, with no one to intercede for her.
Even without his knowledge but only her trust in him, she is made well!
Jesus saving power is available, apparently, in many ways.
In contrast, in the case of the young girl,
a concerned father comes to intercede on the girl’s behalf and invites Jesus to his home,
where Jesus takes the girl by the hand and speaks to her.
My takeaway is that there is no “formula” through which Jesus must operate.
There are no “magic steps” through which people must proceed.
Jesus is powerful, Jesus is life, and that life can be accessed in many ways.
Directly, or through someone interceding for you.
By you coming to Jesus – or Jesus coming to you.
And even what Jesus heals from is interesting and diverse here.
Presumably the woman had been having an unstoppable menstrual flow for 12 years –
difficult enough in itself but it may also have socially isolated her in her culture.
And it would have prevented her from one of the only ways for her to gain status in her society:
by bearing children.
It also impoverished her, as physicians took money for treating her
without actually doing anything for her;
note that Jesus never takes a dime for any healing, ever.
In the end, Jesus heals her from her affliction and restores her to “wholeness” it says:
to physical health, sure, but also to the possibility of bearing children,
as well as to community.
Jesus heals her and saves her from a lot.
In the case of the girl, he heals her from, well, death!
Jesus is powerful!
Jesus is full of life, full to overflowing with life, and saves even from death.
He restores her to health, to her family,
to walking around and doing the things she was made to do as a 12 year old girl.
There is a very great range of things that Jesus saves us from.
And there is no cookie cutter way Jesus is bound to do it.
This seems to be Mark’s point in these stories.
This is wonderful news: there is, apparently, nothing Jesus can’t save us from.
Even, I often say, when no physical cure is possible, there is still always, I believe,
the possibility of healing, of real, genuine life.
I take a great deal of comfort in that.
Just as I take a great deal of comfort in Mark’s other point: there is no “one way” in which
we have access to the healing and saving that comes through Jesus.
Sometimes, like the woman, our coming to Jesus is a desperate act we undertake all on our own
–without even giving him a heads up!
And that’s okay: Jesus is pretty gracious.
And sometimes, like the young girl, we have people who come to Jesus
on our behalf and appeal to him for our well being.
And that’s okay, too: because, well, Jesus is pretty gracious.
What I’m saying is that there is no one correct way to access the life – the thriving –
that Jesus intends for us.
We stumble along,
We ask questions.
We get involved in church.
We take communion.
Sometimes we cry desperately in the night, alone,
for Jesus to do something about the situation we find ourselves in.
And sometimes there are lovely people praying for us, asking on our behalf,
petitioning Jesus for us.
And what I’m also saying is that
there is no situation that is beyond Jesus’ ability to bring new life.
Wherever there is death of any kind, I believe there is the possibility for Jesus to bring life.
It may not be what we have in mind,
but I do believe Jesus can always bring something good out of something bad.
That, after all, is what resurrection means.
That, after all, is what it means to be saved.
Amen
Pastor Michael Kurt
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