B, Pentecost 5 Proper 8 – Mark 5:21-43 Steadfast Touch

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At the Capernaum Synagogue Jesus heals a person from an unclean spirit. He heals Simon's mother in law. A leper is cleansed and a paralytic is healed after being let down through the roof on a mat. On the Sabbath a withered hand is restores back to health. On Lake Galilee Jesus calms a storm and on arriving in the country of the Gerasenes, he sends a legion of demons into a heard of pigs.

In his interaction with both clean and unclean, amongst the Galilean Jews and the Gentiles of the Decapolis, the word about Jesus is definitely out. Now back across the lake on Galilean soil at Capernaum, Jairus, seeks out Jesus. He is the local leader of the synagogue, where Jesus had exposed and delivered the man from an unclean spirit. Jairus knows what Jesus can do, and now that death is knocking on the door of his twelve year old daughter, Jairus' desperation brings him to Jesus.

But not only is Jairus there. Jesus and the disciples are swamped by the waves of people swelling around ready to witness the wonder of what Jesus can do. But what is it he is doing? He is healing the sick, casting out demons, straightening broken bodies back to health, and making the unclean ritually clean. Yes! He is doing this, but he's also doing a whole lot more.

As they push their way through the mob to Jairus' house, a woman takes her opportunity hidden amongst the mob. She like Jairus, knows of Jesus, she's heard how he heals, and now she believes that reaching out for just one touch of him will heal her while hidden in the crowd; will heal her hidden illness that makes her hide in shame.

You see everything this woman touches becomes ritually unclean. Little does the crowd know of her ailment, she is not physically maimed, she has no visual disorder that keeps her at a distance. But she knows the law has separated her from others and from God's holy presence by her twelve year old illness! And yet here she is amongst the crowd rubbing shoulders with them. If only they knew she had been secretly bleeding in her uterus, they would have cast her out like a leper for making all she touched unclean with her uncleanness. (For laws on bodily discharges and ritual uncleanness see Leviticus 15.)

Yet in her suffering, in her desperation, in her spiritual and mental anguish, in her shame, and in her guilt, she presses towards the centre of the crowd and when the time was right, with an outstretched hand, all the suffering and bleeding, all the hiddenness of twelve years of shame reaches out in hope to be healed.

And with that touch she instantly knew something had happened. It had worked! Jesus had done what no other could do. In secret she was healed; her sickness was gone for good! But where had it gone, what had happened, who could tell her what had occurred? She could not draw attention to herself, lest others realise she had also defiled them while pressing through the throng. Her touching of others was as good as a touch of death for them, a sentence of hopelessness for them, which she knew all too well.

But Jesus stops! Calm in the storm once again, so it seems! He asks, "Who touched my garments?" And his disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, 'Who touched me?'" (Mark 5:30b-31 ESV) However, what she had kept hidden from everyone else was not hidden from the Son of God. At the moment she touched him, she knew she had been healed and so too did Jesus. He felt power drain from him; this was the power that healed her after twelve years of menstrual bleeding.

However, the physical healing was only part of the problem. When Jesus queries the crowd as to who it was who touched him, twelve years of shame, and suffering, and guilt and hiddenness was suddenly brought out into the open and she came in fear and trembling face to face with her Saviour.

Do you realise how momentous this event is? Twelve years of shame, not being able to save face because she bled, and now she stands face to face with he who had every right to humiliate her and cast her out but who rather gives her honour and blessing so she might be held steadfast in the sight of God, and be remembered by us today as one who was made rich even though she was so poor in spirit, socially and spiritually.

You see it doesn't matter that we are talking about a topic that even today is still a cause of embarrassment. Every woman would be mortified to have her private hygiene spoken of in public, yet here we speak of one who was healed after a twelve year period. But this is not what we remember her for. This is not what she exemplifies, for women or for men, or for all who bear all sorts of shame today. Rather she is one in whom we can all see what becomes of shame when reaching out and touching Jesus, seeking his touch.

All the guilt, all the shame, all that stuff we lump around with us every day of our lives. The things we keep hidden deep down in the darkness of our hiddenness. All the things that cause you and me so much pain, suffering and embarrassment, guilt and shame! Stuff we seek to bury, stuff the sinful self holds in secret so well, but which the devil uses to keep us hidden, uses to harangue us, and continues to cause us to despair and lose face.

But no! This is not how we remember this lady. Rather she is the one who touched in faith, the corner of Jesus cloak and was healed of the hell she endured for twelve years.

And it's no accident the girl to which Jesus is going to see is the same age as that of the woman's haemorrhage. Jairus' daughter was twelve. Here was a girl who should have been in the fullness of her life, on the ebb of being a child bearing woman, but rather as Jesus travels to Jairus' house she dies.

It is her blood too. The problem is it has stopped flowing, not from her body, but within her veins. Like the woman who touched Jesus, the girl's lifeblood was not doing what it was meant to be doing and now she had died, the ritual law meant this place of death was unclean too. (For laws on coming in contact with the death and ritual uncleanness see Numbers 19.)

On overhearing the news of the girl's death Jesus says to Jairus, "Do not fear, only believe." (Mark 5:36 ESV) He was calling him to continue on in faith. This is the same faith which first led him to Jesus where he implored him earnestly, saying, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live." (Mark 5:23 ESV)

Now Jesus calls him to continue looking to him rather then turn in despair and grief in honour of death. Jesus was now earnestly imploring Jairus to trust him over death, to reach out in hope like the woman who had touched Jesus and was healed, to reach out in faith and let Jesus touch not just his daughter but all who witnessed the healing of this twelve year old girl.

Like the woman who was healed we might ask, "What happened to this girl; the cause of her lifeblood to stop flowing, was now where? There was physical healing but Jesus was doing so much more. The true miracle of these healings was not just the life restored through the transmission of the touch but rather eternal death is defeated by Jesus' almighty powerful touch.

His touch is one of empowerment. In fact when we touch there is always a transmission of power. In all their innocence children rely on touch to receive the power of assurance from those who care for them. Unfortunately though, because of sin the touch of empowerment can be turned into something inappropriate when touch is used in power over others to control or suppress. This began with the first touch of the fruit on the tree of knowledge of good and evil and continued to be propagated when Cain gave Abel a deadly touch up in the field.

But Jesus' touch reverses all this and puts right those whom he touches and those who trust him enough to forsake all to reach out and touch him. Your suffering exists! But not because you don't have enough faith! But rather so you might exercise Christ's steadfast touch of love given at the cross. You have come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. (Hebrews 12:24 ESV)

You see the transmission of touch goes both ways. Regardless of whether Jesus does the touching or we who have been touched by his word reach out and touch him, he transmits to you and me the power of his love. But that's not all, the faith that made the woman well, the call for Jairus to continue on in faith, and God's call for you to carry on in faithfulness till death is one that allows Jesus to stand fast in you, so in exchange your guilt and shame might stand fast in the blood of Christ on the cross.

When Jesus said to the woman, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease." (Mark 5:34 ESV) And when taking the girl by the hand he said to her, "Talitha cumi," which means, "Little girl, I say to you, arise." (Mark 5:41 ESV) He was taking their sin, the shame of sins committed against them, and their guilt and blame on himself and have his blood spilt on the cross in payment for sin.

Touch Jesus! Be touched by Jesus! Let him touch your life with his power of forgiveness and peace enabling you to stand fast in him. You can do it because he stood fast on the cross to bear all your sin.

May you continue to live in the steadfast love of Jesus, so he can continue to grace you with a steadfast spirit! Do not fear, only believe. With you he's done a whole lot more than just restoring your flow of blood. You are being touched by the steadfast eternal healing blood of Jesus' death and resurrection. Amen.