Mark 5:21-43
Dear Friends, In Jesus’ time, people had a much different idea of the presence and the power of the demons than our Hollywood version so popular today in movies like “The Exorcist”. In the time of Jesus, people had a basic vision of good and evil. Evil and the demons were fundamentally the same in the view of the people. Evil was the power of the demons. It was the driving force that controlled people in a way that seriously limited their freedom.
Today’s Gospel passage presents Jesus as the victor in these two battles with the wicked demonic powers. Jesus invites his followers to see in his presence a gracious God setting the woman free from the curse of twelve years. In the young daughter, Jesus reveals a message of hope in the ultimate expression of good over evil. The combined story of the two females verifies the power of Jesus over evil expressed in sickness and death. These two dramatic incidents mirror Jesus’ own ultimate victory in the Resurrection. Like the Resurrection, we have a message of the victory of life and love on the journey to our original innocence.
There seemed to be no remedy to both the woman and Jairus, the father. This just set the scene for the revelation of Jesus’ compassion and tenderness. The interactions of the woman and the father with Jesus express human desperation encountering a God of tender mercy and compassion. The woman had come up empty on all fronts. In total abandonment and weakness, she reached out to touch Jesus. She walked away not only healed, but transformed in the depth of her being. She now was saved, now at peace, and most of all, now a very special daughter of God. The father was engulfed in hopelessness and desperation. Jesus revealed the source of all hope in the gift of his daughter’s return to life.
The stories also show Jesus’ power over the demonic effort to crush human freedom. The laws of cleanliness in the practice of the Jews often had unintended consequences. For the bleeding woman, not only did she have the burden of her personal sickness, she was totally isolated socially from the community because of the state of her impurity. She was, for all practical purposes, as isolated as a leper. When she touched Jesus, it was a gross violation of the laws of purity and even more, an incredibly daring gesture for a woman in her times.
Jesus transformed the violations of the woman into an expression of independence and hope. When he touched the dead body of the young daughter, he was also in grave defiance of the purity laws. He turned his actions into a message that those on the margins have a place of honor in God’s kingdom.
The message for us is clear. We need to bring our burdens and anxieties to Jesus. We need to know and trust that Jesus also wants to heal us and to set us free. The two beautiful females in today’s story, along with the despairing father, are models for us. The message is clear and strong. Turn to Jesus!
The Jesus who shines out in the drama of these two stories is an incredible display of kindheartedness and warmth. Facing the suffering and death of the two”daughters”, he crashes through the restraints of the purity laws. He talks to a woman in public and he touches a corpse!
Jesus identifies faith as a basic trust in God. The essential message of today’s gospel passage is, “Your faith has saved you.” (Mk 5:34) Jesus continues to call forth that trusting faith as a benediction for all his followers of yesterday, today and tomorrow. God is a God who fosters hope as He is always calling us through the apparent barriers of death to new life.
After all these centuries, we must continue to seek the power of the Strong One over the evil that still diminishes woman’s role in the Church and in society; still falls short in celebrating the GLTBQ community’s dignity in all of life; still is weak in hearing the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth. We still are in need of the healing touch for families wracked by the addiction of a member and of families being destroyed by pathological divisions of one sort or another. Likewise, we are in need of the hunger for justice that flowed from the heart of the bleeding woman and the grieving father. They took the first step on the road to freedom and justice. We are called to be the same as vessels of Jesus’ love and healing power for our brothers and sisters.
