Can You Believe It?! (June 30, 2024) Mark 5.21-43

In 1829 John Quincy Adams returned to his home state of Massachusetts, a man defeated. He had just been humiliated in the election of 1828 by Andrew Jackson and a new wave of popular sentiment was in the country that the people knew what they wanted and no egghead from Harvard was going to tell them what the country needed, thank you very much. In fact, this had been the attitude all during Adam’s presidency. And so now, he returned to his home to try to figure out how he would spend his retirement. At age 61 he still had plenty of life left in him. But what to do?

A year later the opportunity came in his being approached by a committee to replace an outgoing member of the House of Representatives. Adams accepted the offer and returned to Washington to play perhaps his finest and most notable role. It was as a Representative that Adams began to read petitions against slavery and the movement to abolish it in the United States. He did this not only from his district, but from all over the country causing many to see him as a representative of all the people, not just his own district. However, as can be imagined, the reading of petitions to end the “peculiar institution” tended to raise the ire of…. certain gentlemen from the Southern states whose livelihoods were entwined with it. So there began a movement to ban all discussion of slavery and any reading of petitions mentioning it. Adams continued.

In May of 1836 the movement gained enough support to pass a resolution to ban all discussion of slavery in the House. Adams, leaping to his feet and declaring that this was a blatant violation of the Constitution, asking the question when told to be quiet, “Am I gagged or not?” Hence the term the Gag Rule. Adams could have admitted defeat and moved on to other areas of note in the House. But he decided to fight. Through the years that followed he continued to bring up slavery in more and more creative ways that befuddled and enraged his opponents to the point that they very nearly expelled him. But on December 3, 1844, Adams gained the satisfaction of a job well done when there were finally enough votes to end the “Gag Rule” and free and open debate could again be had on the floor of the House of Representatives. Adams never stopped believing that he was right, that the “Gag Rule” was unconstitutional (a clear violation of the first amendment) and that it would be overturned. It took 8.5 years to do it, but his belief was so strong that he never faltered. You could almost hear his opponents and supporters both saying, “Can you believe it?! The old man (Adams was 77 at the time) finally beat ‘em!”

Today, we find ourselves in another of Mark’s sandwich passages in which he begins a story, then tells another, finally finishing the first story after the second. This passage is a well-known story and one that can often be dismissed as old hat. But there is a lot going on and some important things can be missed when one does not slowdown and see what is happening.

Jesus is coming across the Lake of Galilee again. Last week I said that he crossed from the east side to the west side. I was wrong. He crossed from the west side (the “Jewish” side) to the east side (the “Gentile” side). There he is met by a man who is possessed by many demons, so many that the go by the name Legion. Bu Legion is no match for Jesus, and they know it. They request that if they are going to be taken out of the man they are possessing, then they want to be put into a large herd of pigs. Jesus is agreeable to this request, and they go into the pigs, two thousand of them, and they drive them into the lake where they are drowned. The herders of the pigs are understandably upset and amazed at this spectacle and go and tell those in the village about what has happened. The people come out and see the possessed man in his right mind and are, in a word, freaked out by what they see. They go so far as to tell Jesus to get out of town and go back to where he came from. The man is told to go and tell others what happened to him and he does, probably saying “Can you believe it?!”

So, back to Jesus crossing the lake once more. Back to the side where he is known and has a reputation for healing and for making the religious leaders incensed by his behavior. Anticipating his return is a large crowd. Perhaps they were waiting there for a few days, but they are waiting. And when Jesus comes ashore, they surround him, calling for healing or something else that they believe that Jesus can give to them.

Into this crowd, pushing his way through, is a man who was a leader in the local synagogue. Now in some translations he is known as the president of the synagogue. What is more likely is that he is a member of the board that oversees the synagogue. We would probably call him an elder, one who is a part of the body who make the decisions for the local meeting place. He is probably wealthy and most assuredly known in the community as a leader. His name is even given here, a rarity for Mark, Jairus. But here he is, a leader and a pillar of the community. He probably even has someone going before him to push his way through the crowd. And when he gets to Jesus, he does something that no leader would do: he throws himself at Jesus’ feet and begs him to come and save or rescue his daughter (the words heal or made well are better translated as save, deliver, rescue) who is, as the REB puts it, at death’s door.

We are not told what Jesus said or thought, only that he goes with Jairus. This is where the first part of the sandwich ends.

We pick up the middle of the sandwich with a woman who is afflicted with a flow of blood. This would most likely be a vaginal flow and would have made her unable to marry and have children. It would also have made her something of an outcast in the community. She would not be able to go to Temple and probably would be relegated to the back of the synagogue for the fear of her polluting and making anyone who touched her unclean. She suffered for 12 long years and nothing that the doctors did for her made her any better. In fact, she became worse for the treatments they did. All her money was spent, and it is implied that she is destitute. It is interesting that she does not have name, but the man Jairus does. Women were ranked in this society little above children and slaves. They had no power and no status unless it came from their husband or father. In other words, they were to be seen and not heard, they were to be bearers of children (preferably sons) and they were not to cause a ruckus. But this woman is about to make a ruckus.

She heard about Jesus. She heard about his healing and his deeds of power. And she is thinking, “perhaps if I just touch his cloak, his outer garment, then I will be healed.” Now, this is a superstitious notion that was prevalent in ancient times. Healers were thought to have powers that extended to even their clothing. But this woman is desperate and has nothing to lose. So, she finds her way into the crowd and makes her way to Jesus, hoping that no one will notice her and call out that she is unclean and making others so.

As she goes, she gets lower and lower in the crowd. Now, it is interesting that no one notices this. But by the time she is up to Jesus, she is reaching out to touch the hem of his cloak, the outer garment that men wore in those days. It would be the equivalent of touching the hem of my robe. And as she does so, she feels that she is healed. She knows that the affliction, the fountain of blood as the text calls is, is dried up and she is made whole.

Jesus pauses in his following of Jairus. He feels something. Feels like…. power leaving. Someone has touched him and caused power to be drawn from him. “Who touched me?” The disciples response is “Really? Do you not see all the people around you? You are seriously asking “Who touched you?” Have you even been in a big crowd where there, are as they say, wall to wall people? You never know who is touching you. This is what Jesus would be experiencing. And one wonders what Jairus was thinking. Perhaps, “Why are we stopping? I thought I made it clear, This. Is. Urgent. What is he doing?” But Jesus is looking intently at the crowd, turning round and round to see who has touched him.

Suddenly a woman breaks out of the crowd and says “It was me. I was suffering from bleeding for 12 long years and just wanted to be made whole. And when I touched your garment, because I believed it could do something, I was healed. Please, please forgive me for the trouble I have caused.” Jesus looks at her and then probably smiles. He touches her (something that she was not used to due to her condition) and says "Daughter, your faith has made you well (saved you); go in peace (shalom, be made whole), and be healed of your condition." He is not upset that she has made him unclean. He is telling her that because of her faith in him, she has been made whole, she is now a new person and one who will be accepted in the community. You can hear her say “Can you believe it?! I am saved, rescue from my affliction!”

And now we come back to Jairus. He has been cooling his heels during this whole exchange and is probably bouncing with impatience. They need to get to his home now. Things are dire. Did he not explain that to Jesus?

Then he sees servants from his house and his heart sinks. They likely come with bowed heads and tell him that, yes, his daughter has died, and he needs to come home. Do not trouble the teacher anymore, there is nothing that he can do now. Surely this is the one thing that the healer cannot heal.

But Jesus, rising from speaking to the woman, overhears the conversation and says, “Do not fear, only believe.”[1]He takes Peter, James and John and continues to Jairus’ house. There they find professional mourners doing what they do best and, as Eugene Peterson puts it, people bringing casseroles to the grieving family.

Jesus tells the mourners to stop what they are doing as the girl is not dead, only sleeping. Those mourners and others ridicule Jesus for saying this. They know when someone is dead, and this little girl is dead. But Jesus throws them out of the house (pretty bold for someone whose house this is not) and brings the disciples and the mother and father inside. Now imagine the scene for a moment: There is a 12-year-old girl lying there (have you ever noticed that she is the same number of years as the time of the woman’s affliction?). Her life was still ahead of her. Her father and mother are weeping, but still believing that the teacher is going to do something. The disciples, standing off to the side looking and feeling the uncomfortableness that comes when one does not know what to say. And then there is Jesus. He is standing there taking it all in. Then he walks over to the girl and takes her hand. In doing so, he makes himself unclean again for touching a dead body. But that is not what is on his mind at this moment. He speaks the words ‘Talitha cum’ which is most often translated “Little girl, get up!” but is more literally and affectionately translated as “little lamb, arise.” And to everyone’s amazement she gets up and begins to walk around the room. Jesus tells them all to not tell anyone about this (though a dead girl walking about would be hard to hide) and to give her something to eat. And again, one hears those in the room saying “Can you believe it?! She’s alive!”

Now these two stories of faith and believing have happy endings. I would like to tell you that all such stories have the same ending. But I would be lying if I did. For we all know stories for which healing is prayed and does not occur. Or for the lifting of some crushing blow. Or anything that we might want to happen but does not occur. Does that mean that we do not believe? No, of course not. It means that as Isaiah says, God’s ways are higher than ours. But that does not mean that we have to be fatalistic about it.

When we believe that God will do something, we have to take it at God’s level and not ours. Someone who prayed for the lifting of Parkinson’s disease told their pastor that, after 20 years, he had been healed, not from the disease as was clearly evident, but rather from the fear of the disease. Believing is that God will do what God has said. What is done may not be what we want or expect, but if we believe that God is at work, then we have to trust that the work will be done. Jesus said to the woman that her faith made her well and to the parents “Do not fear, only believe”. And if you listen you can hear that God still says it today. Can you believe it? Amen.

[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print.