Sunday June 28,2009 Mark 5:21-43

Greetings. Our text for Sunday is in the gospel of Mark. Previous to these verses Jesus was on his way to the Gentile region and a storm came up at night on the Sea of Galilee. They reached the Gentile area where he cast demons out of a man living in a cemetery. The demons enter into a herd of pigs that then drowned themselves in the sea. The people of the area ask Jesus to leave partly because he has destroyed their income by letting their pigs die and partly from fear.

V21 Jesus and the disciples cross the Sea of Galilee again possibly to Capernaum and crowds again find him on the shore.

V22-24 The leader of the local synagogue begs Jesus to come heal his daughter who is dying. It must have taken courage and faith to come to this itinerant teacher when he was the leader of a synagogue. He is desperate and begs Jesus repeatedly to come heal his daughter who is 12 years old. Jesus went with him.

V25 In the crowd that follows Jesus to the house of Jairus to heal his daughter is a woman that has been menstruating for 12 years. This would have made her unclean and an outcast. She couldn’t partake in the community and therefore couldn’t partake in the economy either. She too is desperate.

V26 She had been to every doctor she thought could help and had spent what little money she had but was still no better and in fact getting worse. This was her last resort.

V27-28 She had heard about Jesus and all the healing that he was doing. She thought if only she could touch the fringe of his prayer shawl she would be healed.

V29-32 Immediately she is healed but Jesus immediately feels his power leave him. He knows she has touched his clothes but asks anyway. His disciples know the crowd is pressing in on him so they think it is impossible to figure out who actually touched him. Jesus still looks around to see if she will admit it.

V33 The woman finally has to admit she touched Jesus and fully expected a sharp rebuke for touching him and making him unclean so she is fearful and scared. Who wants to be scolded in public?

V34 Instead of reprimanding her Jesus calls her daughter. That’s an odd thing to do but he knows she had such great faith in him that she wanted only to touch his clothes for healing. By calling her daughter he is including her into his family that he is building around himself. An unclean woman is now a part of the new family of Israel and has been made whole. She is finally included after being excluded for so long.

V35-37 Some people come while he is speaking to the woman to tell the crowd the little girl had died. Jesus is not needed anymore and doesn’t need to come to the house. Jesus instead tells the father to believe in his work and continues on to the house. The father must be distraught at this point as the crowd has been delayed by the woman touching Jesus and time has run out. Jesus tells the crowd to stay put and only takes 3 disciples with him.

V38 When they reach the house there is commotion with people weeping and wailing. In that time professional mourners were hired to weep and wail so the house and yard were full of these people. Flute players were also hired to provide a wailing noise. In addition to the noise, people would rend (rip) their garments to show mourning. This must have been quite a sight with people loudly weeping, wailing, flutes wailing and shred garments to stress the final separation of death.

V39-40 Jesus questions the mourners and states that the girl is not dead. He knows she will live again. They laugh at him as they know she is dead. He must be crazy. He put all the people outside except for the 3 disciples and the girls’ mother and father. They entered the room where the child was.

V41 He touches her. No one except family was allowed to touch a dead body. Whoever touched a dead body would be made unclean. But Jesus took her hand and told her to get up.

V42 Immediately she got up and walked around. The parents and disciples were in awe. This girl had been dead but Jesus had given her life. Can you imagine how that father felt? First panic that his daughter was so ill, then gross disappointment that Jesus had been delayed so his daughter had died and now utter amazement that his dead daughter was alive again.

V43 Jesus orders them to tell no one and to give her something to eat.

In this story Jesus does two of the worst things a Jewish person could do. One was to touch a menstruating woman and the other was to touch a dead body. Those who touched such people were required to undergo expensive and time consuming rituals. The next day they could resume normal life. But they don’t “infect” Jesus with their uncleanness. Instead he heals them. He is not overcome with mourning for a death as he knows the girl will live again. Now it would be easy for us to not mourn after a death if we knew the person would be made alive again and we would be able to physically be with them, but we haven’t experienced this. To us death is final too. But Jesus demonstrates to us, with this experience, that death isn’t final. We do live again. Unfortunately this girl would die again but the resurrection of Jesus showed us what our transformed bodies will be like when we too live again eternally with him and each other. Therefore, even though we mourn, we can also look forward to being reunited with those we love after death.

Peace Kim