This story we’re looking at this week has so many interesting details. Let’s just walk through it and I’ll make some comments as we go...
Mark 5:21-43 (NRSV). When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea.
Comment. Before this episode, Jesus had sailed to the other side of the lake/sea, where the wind stirred things up which Jesus calmed down. On the other side of the shore, he healed a Gentile guy struggling with demonic possession. That healing, like the wind-calming, freaked out the onlookers, who then asked him to leave the region, which is why Jesus was returning to the Jewish side of the lake.
Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, “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.” So he went with him.
Comment. Jairus was undoubtedly a big deal in the community, highly respected, and probably wealthier than most. He was likely accustomed to having people come and beg him for help. Imagine how desperate he must have been to become so humble as to fall at Jesus’ feet!
And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse.
Comment. This kind of chronic condition was bad enough to endure on its own, but it had other ramifications. At a time in history when women were valued primarily by their fertility, this dream likely died for this woman as the months turned into years. Her condition also meant ostracization, since strict adherence to Jewish law required her to keep her distance as an “unclean” person. Everything and everyone she touched became unclean – a game of tag that had real consequences, as being unclean forced you out of community. She apparently had money enough to consult physicians, but to no avail. How many people have been wiped out by health care costs? As we remember the repeal of Roe v. Wade, we are now aware of who that hurt the most: women of color and lower income. This story resonates on many levels.
She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”
Comment. Consider the scene for a moment. Jesus had renown for being a powerful healer, so much so that throngs of people wanted to be near him. For this woman to get to Jesus, she had to brush up against and through many others in order to touch his robe. How many people did she make unclean through her act of faith? What does that communicate about her level of courage given the risk? If her hopes were dashed, how many people would be deeply angry with her for her significant social disregard? Further, she made Jesus unclean at the same time – she risked offending the one from whom she sought healing!
Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’ ” He looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
Comment. The text itself speaks to the fact that the woman experienced healing in her body – she knew her hopes were fulfilled. The text also notes how ridiculous Jesus’ question must have appeared to the disciples given the pressing crowd. The woman was then faced with another opportunity for bravery. She got busted. Would she slink away, hoping to get away with stealing some healing? People would figure it out. Then what? Better to own up, even if it results in the ire of Jesus (and the crowd). She was hoping for discretion start to finish. Ugh. Did she know about Jairus’ request? Can you imagine his frustration and anger over such a delay knowing his daughter’s life was in the balance? Talk about a charged moment! Jesus treated her with grace and dignity as we would expect. Further, he didn’t take credit for the healing, but rather acknowledged her faith as the genesis of the miracle. He sent her away with a benediction to go in peace and be healed of her disease. I find that a bit interesting. Why tell someone who has just been healed to be healed as she goes? Could it be that healing is more than meets the eye? I wonder how many other aspects of her life would now change, would need healing, now that her hemorrhages were over?
While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?”
Comment. What range of emotions were going through Jairus’ mind at that moment? The woman’s healing probably didn’t prevent Jesus from healing the girl since the heralds had to have been walking awhile to find Jairus, but it still may have stung a bit, right?
But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.
Comment. Limiting the audience as he did tied this event to similar healings by Elijah and Elisha, and also displayed these disciples’ significance as they also witnessed the transfiguration at a later point. When Jesus took the dead child be the hand, he became unclean all over again, according to the law. Prior to this scene, Jesus had previously touched a leper and also a Gentile – two egregious fouls violating Jewish law and social sentiment. Jesus made the decision to honor the higher/highest rule of loving others even if it put him at risk. The result was the healing of a woman who had been bleeding alone for 12 years and bringing back to life a 12-year-old girl who was too young to die, who perhaps wasn’t old enough to become pregnant yet. Two lives saved in different ways. Traditions boldly broken. Passionate faith expressed by those who sought healing and those who offered to facilitate it.
The Sozo in the Tzitzit on the Kanaph.. If you attended the services in person for this teaching, you were given a tassel as an object lesson that has particular relevance to this story. From The Bible Nerds:
The ancient Hebrews were commanded by God to place special tassels on the corners of their garments. These tassels – called tzitzit – were a symbol of their commitment to obey the commandments of God, found in the Torah.
The tzitzit consists of a specific set of knots and threads. Each one of these is symbolic:
· 5 Knots – The first 5 books of the Bible (Torah)
· 4 Spaces – The Name of God (YHWH)
The value of the word “tzitzit” is 600. If you combine that value (600) with the 5 knots, made from the 8 threads of the tzitzit, you come to the number 613. This is the most important number in the entire Hebrew world. There are 613 commandments in the Torah. So, the purpose of the tzitzit is to remind Israel that they are to honor the commandments of God, and the very numerical value of the word “tzitzit” equals 613 – the number of commandments they are to obey.
It’s also very important to understand where the tzitzit are attached. The Hebrew word for corner is “kanaph”. This word is used in various other ways throughout Scripture, as we will soon see.
Cutting Corners (1 Samuel 24:1-15). David was anointed future king of Israel, after Saul ignored God’s specific commandment regarding the Amalekites. After that, Saul became more and more angry and paranoid. This resulted in his seeking to kill the one man who most clearly understood the unique anointing of God that the king had – David.
While Saul was pursuing David, he entered a cave in the oasis of Ein Gedi. Unbeknownst to him, David and his followers were also hiding in the cave. David’s men tried to encourage him to kill Saul, and be done with the whole problem. But David understood that this would be using his own power and strength to deal with his trials, rather than allowing God to take care of it. Instead, he snuck up to Saul and cut off the corner of his robe, removing the tzitzit from Saul. In doing this, he was declaring for all to see that Saul was not honoring the commandments of God.
The Coming Son of David – The Prophets. It wasn’t long after Ein Gedi that David ascended to the throne. He ruled in righteousness and honored the commandments of God. And while his son, Solomon, started out well, eventually things deteriorated into pagan worship and the rejection of the commandments. The nation became divided, the Temple of God was destroyed, and judgment came.
During the time of the captivity in Babylon, the prophets of God began to foretell of another “son of David” who would come and restore the kingdom to Israel. He would be the Messiah – the Anointed One – who would rule in true justice and righteousness. He would properly teach the commandments of God to the people, and Israel would finally fulfill its calling to be a light to the nations.
· He will bring the political and spiritual revival of Israel, returning them to the land and restoring Jerusalem. (Isaiah 11:1-2; Jeremiah 23:8; 30:3; Hosea 3:4-5)
· He will establish a government in Israel that will be the center of all world government – both for Jews and Gentiles (Isaiah 2:2-4; 11:10; 42:1)
· He will rebuild the Temple and re-establish its worship (Jeremiah 33:18; Ezekiel 40-50)
· He will restore the religious court system of Israel and establish Torah as the law of the land (Jeremiah 33:15)
In essence, they prophesied that the Messiah would return Israel to obedience to the Torah; to keep the commandments that were symbolized by the wearing of the Tzitzit.
The Sun of Righteousness – Malachi 4:1-2
In the final writings of the period of the prophets, Malachi foretold of the “sun of righteousness” who would arise with “healing in His wings.” This prophecy immediately became associated with the coming Son of David – the Messiah.
As we saw earlier, the Hebrew word for corner is “kanaph”. Hebrew is considered a “poor language” – meaning that it has many fewer words than languages like Greek, Latin, or English. That means that one word must be used to describe several different things. Therefore, in addition to “kanaph” meaning corner, it also means wings.
The Hebrew sages taught that this meant that the coming Messiah would have special healing powers in the tzitzit that were attached to the corner of his robe.
Many Pharisees who wanted to be considered candidates for the role of Messiah, would attach especially long tzitzit to their robes, suggesting that they had these special healing attributes. (Matthew 23:5-7)
The Hem of His Garment – Matthew 9:18-21. One day when Jesus was making His way through the crowds to heal a young girl who was on the verge of death, a woman reached out and grabbed hold of his tzitzit. In doing this, she was doing much more than believing that He could heal her. The woman was declaring to all that she believed Jesus to be the promised Messiah [with healing in his wings].
Consider the Irony: The bleeding woman’s reaching out to touch the representation of following the Law was itself an act of not honoring the law. Jesus, whose robe was embellished with the symbols of the Law, disregarded the law as he held the girl’s hand. Jesus was one who was famous for choosing to obey the spirit of the law over the letter. This allowed him to think broadly and live in a spaciousness that treated everyone as deeply loved and valued. The bleeding woman was so full of faith that she violated her faith and thus affirmed it. Jesus was so full of faith that he violated the faith and thus affirmed it.
So, what’s this have to do with us? You tell me. What parts of this story are relevant to your life? What are you desperate enough to pray for audaciously, requiring both humility and great courage? The Greek word Mark uses for “save” is sozo, which can be translated as healing, save, made well, made whole, etc. What sozo are you seeking, and are you open to the sozo that is always available and present for us and to us? Maybe holding the tassel will inspire your prayers, remembering that there is still healing in the wings – healing, saving, making whole in ways you might not expect or know that you need.
On another level, who are today’s bleeding women and dying children that need people of faith to embrace even if it appears to deny faith even as it lives it out? Perhaps holding the tassel will embolden you to be Jesus to the LGBTQ community directly and/or as an ally, to stand for justice and grace for those in our nation who have been denied such a promise. Maybe the most Jesus thing you can do is to deny the letter of social and religious laws as you honor the higher spirit of the Way of God embodied in sozo, leading you to think and act in ways that bring healing, wellbeing, honor, restoration, and dignity to those who have not yet experienced it.
Commentary from SALT (Matthew Myer Boulton)
Sixth Week after Pentecost (Year B): Mark 5:21-43 and Psalm 130
Big Picture:
1) We are almost exactly in the middle of an eight-part portrait of Jesus’ early public ministry, exploring a series of chronologically selected passages from the Gospel of Mark. The outlines of Jesus’ mission are becoming clear: as we saw last week, he’s just calmed a storm at sea, and since then, he’s healed a Gentile man afflicted with an “unclean spirit” (Mark 5:1-20). Both of these events portray the expansive, surprising, barrier-breaking nature of Jesus’ healing, saving work — and this week’s passage continues to develop this theme.
2) Mark frequently composes stories in a “sandwich” form, nesting one episode inside of another. This strategy has at least three primary effects: first, it ratchets up the suspense, as one cliffhanger pauses while we turn to another; second, each story throws light on the other, like a diptych with two images side-by-side; and third, the two stories together create a more-than-the-sum-of-their-parts unity. In fact, Mark’s artistry is such that we should resist thinking in terms of “two episodes”: as we’ll see, there’s really one story here, not two.
3) Mark’s early audiences would have been at least loosely familiar with the purity practices recorded in scripture: menstruating women were allegedly “unclean” (Leviticus 12:1-8; 15:19-30), as were corpses (Numbers 19:11-13), such that anyone and anything they touched also became “unclean.” Jesus overturns these ideas in this story, and bearing them in mind helps highlight the tensions pushing the narrative forward. Did she, an unclean woman, really just touch him, the Holy Teacher? And did he really just touch a stranger’s corpse?
4) Psalm 130 is a classic plea for divine rescue “out of the depths” (Ps 130:1). Its superscription, “A Song of Ascents,” is common to Psalms 120-134 — and it may refer to the “ascent” of pilgrims to the city of Jerusalem, and perhaps to a sanctuary located there. As such, these psalms may have comprised a kind of hymnal of songs sung by pilgrims as they traveled on the way, approaching Jerusalem with every step…
Scripture:
1) Having just underscored the barrier-breaking character of his ministry by healing a Gentile man in Gentile territory, Jesus now crosses back over the Sea of Galilee into Jewish precincts — and now he will dismantle at least two other kinds of barriers: one between “clean” and “unclean,” and the other between life and death.
2) Jairus, a “leader of the synagogue,” falls at Jesus’ feet, pleading that he come to his house and save his daughter, who is “at the point of death" (Mark 5:22-23). Even as he calls “out of the depths” of desperation, Jairus’ plea is a reminder that Jesus’ mixed reception among Jewish leaders sometimes included trust and respect (Ps 130:1).
3) The underlying word Jairus uses here (translated as “be made well” in the NRSV) is the Greek word, sozo, which can also be translated, “save,” “heal,” “preserve,” or “rescue.” The word appears repeatedly in this passage, blurring any sharp distinction between “salvation” and “health,” “saving” and “thriving.”
4) Jesus agrees to go with Jairus to the dying girl, but along the way, the crowds — perhaps emboldened by Jairus’ example — press in around the holy teacher. To get to him, a woman who has been bleeding for twelve years pushes through, in her own way silently calling “out of the depths.” The fact that she’s “endured much under many physicians” suggests she was formerly a woman of some wealth and status — and now has become an outcast, declared “unclean” by holy writ (Leviticus 12:1-8; 15:19-30). Her persistence and audacity is striking: not only does she push through the crowds, she pushes through the words of Leviticus, too, the ancient ideas that not only is she “unclean,” but anything she touches will become “unclean” — including the one whose clothing she seeks to touch!
5) It’s worth pausing here to let this sink in: everything in the story so far suggests that what the woman is doing is wrong, or dishonorable, or both. An “unclean” outcast, she pushes through a crowd, disobeying ancient, scriptural prohibitions. She audaciously touches a holy teacher without his permission, apparently desecrating him in the process. And as it turns out, she thereby delays him on his journey to the home of a local religious leader. And so when Jesus stops, turns, and demands to know, “Who touched me?” — we can imagine a collective gasp from Mark’s early audience. Jesus must be angry! And look, she knows it, too: she’s coming forward “in fear and trembling”… (Mark 5:30-33).
6) And now the story pivots in a stunning, scandalous direction. Jesus is not angry. On the contrary, with the crowds and Jairus looking on, Jesus praises the woman for her audacity, her daring, her persistence, her “faith”: “Daughter, your faith has made you well” (again, the word is sozo) — a remark that is yet another surprise, since the story to this point seems to suggest that Jesus’ “power” is the source of her healing (Mark 5:30). But Jesus strikingly draws attention not to his power, but to hers.
7) And at that very moment, Jairus receives news that tempts him to despair: Your daughter is dead. You’re too late. You’ve taken too long. But Jesus, overhearing the news, says to Jairus: “Do not fear, only believe” (Mark 5:36). Because of what’s just happened, the choreography is clear. It’s as if Jesus says to Jairus: Look — this woman has just shown you what genuine faith looks like: audacious, daring, persistent trust in God. No barrier can constrain God’s graceful mercy. Even the barrier between life and death, in the end, can and will be overcome.
8) And so even this last barrier will be broken. At Jairus’ house, Jesus sends away everyone but the family and the disciples Peter, James, and John — the same trio invited to the mountaintop at the Transfiguration (Mark 9:2), a sign that the events in Jairus’ house have a similarly iconic, revelatory status. Taking the dead girl’s hand in his and calling her to rise (Talitha cum! Little one, get up!), Jesus breaks two barriers at once: the barrier between “clean” and “unclean” (Numbers 19:11-13), and the barrier between life and death. In both senses, the story foreshadows Jesus’ resurrection, as well as the broader promised resurrection to follow.
Takeaways:
1) As Mark arranges them, these two episodes form a single story: a vivid picture of Jesus’ expansive, barrier-breaking, healing, saving, life-giving ministry. Is Jesus more interested in “eternal life” or “life here and now”? This story helps clarify that this is a false choice; sozo carries both connotations at once. Likewise, just as Jesus breaks ethnic and sociopolitical barriers between Jews and Gentiles, he also breaks barriers within religious life that contemptuously demean and separate. For Christians today, the task is most definitely not to criticize Jewish practices (thereby falling into the contempt trap all over again!), but rather to identify and root out Christian practices that implicitly or explicitly create walls between “outsiders” and “insiders.”
2) This story is also a glimpse of how Jesus thinks about scripture. He engages it not with uncritical obeisance, as if every word in Leviticus (or any other book) is to be taken at face value, but rather with wise rabbinical judgment, carefully weighing which passages are most important, which passages help throw light on other passages — and then applying the results at the right time, in the right place, and in the right way (remember, “love your neighbor as yourself” is from Leviticus, too! (Leviticus 19:18))
3) “Faith” is cast here as a form of barrier-breaking courage, daring, and persistence — and the woman is cast as an exemplar, all the more surprising because of the presence of a religious leader, Jairus, who effectively becomes her student. An outcast is thus brought center stage. A consummate insider is encouraged to learn from her. And the very act of reaching out to God in bold tenacity, even and especially “out of the depths,” is spotlighted as a pivotal power possessed by each and every human being: “your faith has made you well [sozo]…”
4) Finally, the fact that sozo has such a wide range of meanings in this story — from salvation to health to resurrection to thriving to restoration to community — should stand as a guardrail against concluding that, in our own lives, the absence of a “cure” means afflicted people are to blame for their “lack of faith.” Healing comes in many different forms, physical, emotional, social, and otherwise, and we can trust that our most daring, faithful efforts will be met with God’s merciful healing touch. For that, after all, is Jesus’ message of encouragement here, the good news of the Gospel in this story: Even “out of the depths,” my children, take heart, reach out, push through, and dare to touch God’s garments — for God is already reaching out to you, and will yet take your hand, both today and in the end, to say, “Talitha cum! Little one, get up!”