Every morning all humans do the same thing. We get up, take a shower, brush our teeth, and then decide what we are going to wear.
Generally in western culture it remains true that “Clothes make the man,” or in the name of a popular website, “Clothes make the girl.” Got a teenager? Then you know what I’m talking about. Then you know oh-so-purse-painfully how important it is to have the “right look.” To wear the “right duds” so you can be the “right dudes.” Even if you are not a “fashionista,” it is almost impossible not to be influenced by what the current culture says is “cool” (or “hot”). Who doesn’t want to “look good” and so “feel good” about themselves?
Every week the tabloids are filled with planted or paparazzi celebrity photos — either looking their best or revealing their worst. But whatever shape they are in, what those celebrities are sporting influences the fashion choices of thousands. Designers count on it. In fact they literally “bank” on it. If someone fabulous and famous wears something, it will sell. The “knock ‘em dead” designs on red carpet runways are immediately copied into much cheaper “knock-offs” so that those with a bit of disposable income can outfit themselves like royalty. Even countries without “royal families” have their “royalty.”
But while all of us — whether teenager or ladder climbing corporate bureaucrat — think that our clothes lend use power and prestige, the opposite was the case for Jesus in Galilee in the first century. Jesus’ clothing was not what set him apart. What distinguished Jesus was so essential to his being that it permeated even his clothing.
The hemorrhaging woman believed in Jesus’ divine power so much that she was convinced all she needed to do was touch his clothing in order to be healed. Mark’s text doesn’t offer details about what part of his clothing she touched. It might have been the swinging and swaying tassels affixed to the traditional garment worn by observant Jews (Numbers 15:38-39; Deuteronomy 22:12). Or it might have been the edge of the “seamless robe” that was Jesus’ sole final possession — disposed of as he hung on the cross. That robe — a prized enough possession to encourage the Roman soldiers overseeing his execution to cast lots for the chance to win it — was unique in its top-to-bottom seamless weaving (John 19:23-24).
Whatever it was this sick-to-death outcast woman touched, she was transformed. She felt it immediately. Jesus felt it immediately. The woman felt healed in her body. Jesus felt healing power go out from his body. Despite the urgent, life-saving mission Jesus was on for the sake of Jairus’ daughter, he stops and demands to know who had touched him? Who had been healed?
Did you get it? We need to pause here a moment. Jesus insists that healing is not a mechanical exercise. Healing requires a relational encounter. Healing requires a confession of WHO had required and received healing because of their faith. Jesus’ healing, restorative power is available to any and all. But a real relationship between healer and healed is required.
An old saying speaks of small children being tied to their mother’s “apron strings.” Not a lot of us wear aprons anymore. But whether it’s a baby back-pack, a super-stroller, or a tracking device in our teenagers car or cell phone — we all want our kids to know they are safely connected to us, no matter what.
As she was losing her grip at the “end of her rope,” the hemorrhaging woman had no hesitation about grasping onto Jesus’ garment. She saw and recognized the hem of his garment as the last possible lifeline for her existence. Like a child clinging to a mother’s hem, or a father’s coattail, she knew she had only to hold fast and hold firm in her faith in order to be healed.
No one appreciates being small and dependent. We spend our whole lives, fighting to be independent, never realizing that there are others who have cared for and protected us. As small children when we hold fast to a parent’s hand we are truly free. We do not have to worry about being lost, or hurt, or scared. We know there is someone we are physically connected to who is fully willing and able to take care of us, who would even sacrifice themselves for us to keep us safe.
That is the relationship the sick woman in today’s gospel reaches out for with Jesus. By holding onto Jesus she knew she could let go of everything else.
Let go her illness.
Let go her impurity.
Let go her inferior status.
Let go her childlessness.
Let go her outcast identity.
Just by holding onto Jesus, she could lose all that baggage.
Just by holding onto Jesus, the weight of a lifetime could be lifted off her shoulders.
If we hold on to Jesus, wholly and firmly, we can let go of everything else.
If we hold onto Jesus, we will be freed up from despair and fear of death.
If we hold onto Jesus, Jesus will free us up from the tyranny of success and “super-dom,” whether it’s the pressure to be super-mom or superman.
If we hold onto Jesus, Jesus will free us from the drain of guilt and the burdens of glory.
If we hold onto Jesus, Jesus will open us up to a power that is so greater than our own that it can transform our life into a new form of wholeness, a truly “healed” existence.
When the woman with the hemorrhage came to Jesus, she was clothed in shame and rejection and hopelessness. When Jairus came to Jesus, he was clothed in grief and desperation. When Jesus touched them their lives were transformed and their clothing changed.
A woman’s life as an outcast was restored as the life of a normal woman. Her clothing changed.
A father’s life as a mourner became the restored life of a joyful parent. His clothing changed.
Are you ready for a clothes change this morning?
How willing are you to slip your hand into Jesus’ hand today?
Are you ready to put your hold onto Jesus? Are you ready to reach out to him and hold on to him for dear life?
It is the only way to feel the power of Jesus that holds onto us that holds onto us and heals us.
Be healed by being held this morning.
Be healed. Be held.
COMMENTARY
As Mark’s “miracles” section continues, he intensifies the drama and power of these events by once again “intercalating” or “sandwiching” two seemingly separate stories together. The raising from death of synagogue leader Jairus’ young daughter and the healing of the un-named, wholly miserable hemorrhaging woman would seem at first glance to have virtually nothing in common — except, of course, their miraculous outcomes. Yet Mark masterfully molds these two events into a single narrative that exemplifies the unquenchable power of faith based upon the power and person of Jesus.
Jesus and his disciples take another voyage, crossing back to the “Jewish side” of the Sea of Galilee. Immediately the crowds he had sailed away from in 4:35 reassemble and crush about him. Out of this huge assembly a single, significant individual steps forward and then falls at Jesus’ feet. While this man is identified as Jairus, “one of the leaders of the synagogue,” his posture before Jesus is one of beseeching and pleading. His leading status in the community is of no concern to him. Instead, his whole being is literally “bent” upon doing whatever it takes to find deliverance for his daughter from death.
Jairus reports his daughter’s status as critical. She is “eschatos echei,” or at “death’s door.” Jairus’ whole demeanor denies any of the authority his position might wield and instead focuses all of his energy upon his urgent, life-or-death request to Jesus. He beseeches Jesus to allow his daughter to “sothe” — a Greek term that may be translated either as “be healed” or as “be saved.” Jairus desperately wants his child “saved” from death and “healed” for a new chance at life.
Jesus’ response is recorded simply as, “so he went with him.” Despite the pressing crowd, Jesus instantly responded to this crisis situation and set off in the direction in which Jairus leads him. But there is one person in the pressing crowd who chooses to press forward her own desperate need. Mark’s text describes the suffering of the woman with a twelve-year history of hemorrhages in surprising detail and with depressingly active verbs. She had suffered for twelve years. She had “endured” merciless care under a plethora of physicians. She had expended all her financial resources. And she had only gotten worse. Her condition was critical and declining towards death.
The bleeding suffered by this woman for twelve years put her in a permanently “unclean” status, according to all the purity statues in Leviticus 15:19-27. She was banned from physical contact with those who were ritually pure (men and women). She was banned from the temple or any form of public gathering. Her condition would have also made her infertile, and childlessness was a curse unto itself — as well as being legal grounds for divorce. This woman is still walking around but she is as the living dead — cut off from every element of human contact. Her own resources are now exhausted, and she is at the end of her rope.
We do not know whether she has heard of Jesus as a healer or what stories she has heard of his gifts and grace. We only know that she trusted in his power to hear, and her determination is astounding. Not only did her current state forbid her from physical contact with others; she was also a woman, and so not to address a man in public. Nevertheless her faith in Jesus’ power impels her to work her way through the crowd and to reach out and “touch his clothes.”
Touching a divine or royal figure had always been associated with the possible transference of power. The touch of one with special or healing powers, whether through the touch of a garment or their laying on of hands, is a long established experience of the transference of that power.
Mark’s text doesn’t precisely describe what it is the women touches. Some have suggested that it was one of the four tassels of Jesus’ “tzitzit” — the traditional garment worn by all observant Jews that featured a tasseled fringe that swung beside the body as a sign of obedience and piety. Others suggest that the woman touched his outer garment, the “seamless robe” that is described in the crucifixion scene as the gambling prize of the Roman soldiers. Whatever she reached for, the result was immediate and complete. The connection between her need and Jesus’ healing power was so consummate that despite her anonymity and the multitude of the pressing crowd, both the woman and Jesus instantly knew what had happened. Jesus knew he had performed a healing and that a strong faith had made it so.
When Jesus demands to know who touched him, the healed and overwhelmed woman ‘fesses up. Jesus had been touched not only by a woman, but an unclean, impure person as well. Yet his response is not one of outrage but one of welcome, praise, and blessing. He looks at this wretched, rejected woman and calls her “daughter.” He praises her faithfulness. And he promises her peace and health for the rest of her life. Without a literary moment of celebration, Mark’s text returns back to the crisis of Jairus’ daughter. While Jesus is face to face with the healed woman, others come from Jairus’ home imploring the father not to “bother” Jesus anymore because, “Your daughter is dead.” The swift appearance of these friends or relatives, coupled with the already present and well under-way professional mourners at Jairus’ house, are suggestive of an overlooked but real possibility — that Jairus’ daughter had died even before the devastated father had thrown himself at Jesus’ feet begging for him to “save” her.
Jesus rebuffs the dour directives of these messengers. Instead he turns to Jairus and urges him to continue on his apparent fool’s quest: “Do not fear, only believe.” Just as the hemorrhaging woman had “believed” in a cure from Jesus, despite the failure of years of doctors and piles of money, so Jesus encourages Jairus to “believe” in the possibility of his daughter being delivered from death, despite all the “wisdom” of those who tell him otherwise.
The healing of Jairus’ daughter becomes a semi-private, sort of messianic secret affair — though obviously not a very well kept one. The professional mourners, the witnesses to death, are all banished. Only those with hope and faith are on the forefront of this miracle. It is with both a word and a touch that Jesus transforms a tragedy into a miraculous moment. He takes her hand, but he also utters a verbal mandate. “Talitha cum” is Aramaic for the endearment, “Little lamb, arise.” This is not some magical mantra Jesus utters. Rather these are the words any parent might use to gently rouse a sleeping child. The girl immediately responds and Jesus’ first directive emphasizes her basic humanity and actual physical reality — “give her something to eat.”
Both Jairus and the hemorrhaging woman are desperate beyond all means. Both are facing certain death. Despite their vast personal differences they find themselves with but one option — embracing faith in the power of Jesus and putting all their trust in him.