Thinking about our gospel reading this week, I was struck by the incredible joy that the two healings would have brought.
A woman bleeding for 12 years and a 12 year old girl raised from the dead.
The woman who had been bleeding for 12 years, would have spent twelve years separated from her community. Her presence would have made the community, well, any who encountered her, unclean. She had been desperate to be healed. The text tells us that “She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse.” Then she hears about this Jesus who is performing healing miracles. She struggles to get through the crowd that surrounds him. She has faith that even touching his cloak would make her well.
She touches his cloak and immediately is healed. Her bleeding stops. Jesus notices that something has occurred, and tells her that “your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” She can rejoin her community, she no longer need to worry about what is happening to her body that no one had seem capable of healing. That is all in the past now. Now she can be healed from the loneliness and the mental and emotional pain these twelve years have caused.
Our other story, begins early. A leader in the synagogue comes to Jesus and tells him that his daughter is sick and asks Jesus to come and heal her. Jesus was on his way to her bedside when the woman with the hemorrhage interrupts the scene.
After she is healed, Jairus learns that his daughter has died in the moments Jesus spent healing this other woman.
Can you imagine the anger, the heartbreak Jairus is going through. If she hadn’t touched his robe, If Jesus hadn’t stopped to ask about it and bless her, maybe Jesus would have made it to her bedside in time. But, now his daughter is dead. Jesus hears this news and tells them, Do not fear only believe. They get to the house and it is filled with mourners already, Jesus sends them out of the house, leaving only the parents, three of the disciples, and Jesus in the room. He holds the girls hand, and says little girl, get up. Like he is just waking her up from a short nap. Or trying to wake her up for school (the first attempt, not the get out of bed now the bus is at the end of the drive time or the, we needed to leave 5 minutes ago time).
She gets up, and starts to walk around. From bedridden, to dead, to walking around in the space of minutes. Jesus tells them to give her something to eat, and that’s it.
I can not begin to imagine the joy that these people and their families felt at the sudden healing. Hope was or was nearly lost, and suddenly heal and your loved one is restored to you.
At the same time, I wonder what the other families and people around town thought. Certainly other little children died that day. Other people went without healing and would die from their illnesses. Why Jairus’ little girl and not mine? Why was that woman healed and not me or my mother, or my wife?
Estimates are that 120 people die globally each minute. That’s 2 every second. In the approximately hour that we worship here today, 7,200 people will die. Which ends up at nearly 180,000 people will die globally today, June 27th, 2021.
Miracles do still happen, but miracles are not the norm. They are times in which the kingdom and power of God breaks through and reveals itself. They are glorious, and incredible things. Why the hemorrhaging woman? Why Jairus’ daughter? Because those were the people God chose to reveal God’s self through. God remains the source of all life, healing, and redemption, even when we are ill and no miracle comes. God remains the source of healing when medical workers spend hours and days and weeks using their expertise and medicine to heal the sick, develop vaccines, do surgeries, and even when that all fails and death comes.
Both healing stories leave us at the height of the emotion and joy. A woman healed; a daughter resuscitated. What happens though in the hours, days, weeks, or years? Does Jairus’ daughter live to marry, have children and grandchildren? Does her first pregnancy end her life? Did a different illness or accident take her life before she married or even saw her next year of life?
These healings are incredible. They are life altering and continue to this day to have impact as we read and hear them. They remind us that in the kingdom of God
God himself will be with [mortals];
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.” Revelation 21:3d-4
Jesus promises healing and an end to weeping. We can have faith in God’s trustworthiness knowing that great is God’s faithfulness and steadfast love. The healing might not take the form we had hoped, but God continues to care and sustain you, from now until eternity.
God is the healer of your every ill, and light of each of your tomorrows. God will give you peace beyond your fears, and hope beyond all your sorrows.