Mark 5:21-43

We hosted an “Alternative Christmas Fair” at my last church for a number of years. The name at first was a source of confusion for people. I remember getting calls asking me if “straight” people were welcome to the fair as well. Of course, everyone was welcome.

What we meant by “alternative” was that at this fair the intention wasn’t so much to benefit the recipient of the gift; rather, it was to benefit a person in need in the recipient’s honor. In other words, we sold “tribute” gifts. One of the more popular ones was called, “Hugging Grannies.” For about $25 you could purchase granny time for infants in overcrowded orphanages in China, and you would give that granny time as a gift in honor of a loved one. The slogan at the time went, “Because Dad doesn’t need another tie.” These grannies would feed, hold, and nurture infants who otherwise would get hardly any human contact at all.

I was reminded of this as I read a commentary on Today’s gospel story. To illustrate the power of touch and intimacy the author points to the Romanian orphanages that were opened to the world’s eyes at the fall of Ceausescu’s communist régime in the 1980’s.   He writes, “The dictator had mandated bizarre social policies that had resulted in thousands of unwanted children. Many of them ended up in vast, underfunded state-run orphanages where they were completely isolated, often receiving no love, in fact no human touch at all. Tragically, although the children grew into physical human creatures, they did not become human persons. They could not speak. They could not relate to others. They could not give or receive affection.”[1]

I use a book called The Five Love Languages with couples who are preparing to marry. It discusses five different ways that people express and receive love. “Physical touch” is one of them, and its one that couples often make light of or overlook because others, like “quality time,” or “words of affirmation,” seem more important.

But, touch, good touch, is essential to us for the expression of love. It makes physical the intention of care that we are trying to express. It shows and imparts intimacy, and connection, and a desire to be with and for another. Good touch honors another person as a “person” who really matters. I think that’s why the “laying on of hands” is so often a part of healing prayer.   It’s really a powerful thing.

We see that in today’s gospel story. It is with touch that both Jairus’ daughter and the hemorrhaging woman are healed. Jesus holds the daughter of Jairus by her hand and says, “Little girl, get up!” and though life had left her she arises, well and alive. “Though,” Jesus says, “You might want to give her something to eat.” I love that part; it brings the miracle back down to earth. This is a human person we are talking about, and to be well she’ll also need the touch of food.

And then there is the hemorrhaging woman. She is impoverished and disgraced and desperate.   She is ritually unclean and, given all of that, her personhood – her sense of being someone who still matters in this world – must be shot. She makes her way through the crowd saying to herself, “If I but touch his clothes I’ll be well.” I won’t bother a soul. I wont interrupt him as he tends to the far more important Jairus’ needs.

But, Jesus stops. Power has gone from him and he wants to know to whom it went. And, here’s where I think the passage gets interesting. It gets interesting because it opens up to some questions.  Is Jesus angry because someone “stole” power from him? Someone snuck up and took it? That’s almost how it reads, but if you think about it that doesn’t really make much sense.  He’s God incarnate, the image of the eternal creator; it seems unlikely that someone might sneak some power out of him. Rather, I’m sure he is happy to give it. He stops, however, because the physical healing isn’t enough. He has more to offer. The touch isn’t really “good touch” until it is met with Christ’s intention to see her, to really see “her,” to tell her she is well, to tell her she matters, to give her peace.   She seeks his touch, feeling unworthy of the love, but Jesus will settle for nothing less than the whole package.

And, then there’s her fear. She comes “trembling” to Jesus to admit that it was her. Is she afraid that she’s about to be reprimanded, somehow punished or judged harshly by the Jesus who just healed her? Maybe, but the fact that she just felt herself healed might have indicated otherwise. Harvard Chaplain, Mark Edington, writes, “She comes before Jesus ‘in fear and trembling’ – not the fear of the faithless, storm-tossed disciples, but the fear of one who knows that she is coming into relationship with God.”[2]

The fear of one who now knows she is coming into relationship with God. I think that’s a pretty valuable and insightful suggestion. When asked if they believe in God most Americans will say yes. Sure they do. But, that doesn’t meant that this God is anything more to them than an abstract concept or a theory that has any bearing on how they see the world or themselves in it.

But then there’s really believing in God – having the reality of God’s love and presence dawn upon your heart and mind. There’s that stunning recognition that your life is blessed, and graced, and claimed, and held, and surrounded, by a force that is greater, and wilder, and more wonderful than you can imagine. It’s actually a pretty rattling discovery.

I remember seeing it so fresh on the face of a woman in church. She found herself, in the light of this new sense of God the almighty pouring untamed grace upon her, completely out of sorts. It was like she was falling in love and she didn’t know what to do about it. She felt surprised and vulnerable, uncertain and unknowing, and yet profoundly touched, attended to, and known. She discovered the very fearful discovery that her life was no longer her own, AND that she no longer wanted it to be simply her own. She wanted it to be God’s, whatever that would end up meaning.

“The fear of one who knows that she is coming into relationship with God.” The trembling is a sign that we “get it.” It is a sign that we are receiving what Jesus stops in his tracks to give us.

[1] Michael Lindvall, FOTW, Year B, Volume 3, page 192.

[2] FOTW, Year B, Volume 3, page 192.