Healing and new life
Ordinary Sunday 13: 28th June, 2009
Fr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's, Eastern Hill
As presented in Mark's gospel in this morning's lesson, there are two healing stories dovetailed into one: the healing of Jairus' daughter (who towards the end of the story was thought to have died) and the healing of the woman who for 12 years had had an issue of blood.
Jesus was on his way to see the sick girl when the woman stopped him. The delay must have been desperately frustrating for those on the first errand. With a crowd pressing all around he was still aware of the particularity of the physical contact with that sick woman — aware of the particular need. She had felt that all she had to do was touch Jesus' clothes and it would make a difference to her condition. Jairus had believed that Jesus could intervene in a decisive way, even though his daughter was so ill. But the need was urgent. The faith and trust of both the woman and Jairus is clearly noted and encouraged. In each case a healing took place. And large and pressing crowds were there to see it. The woman went in peace, free from her complaint and the young girl got up and walked about and was given something to eat.
This is a beautiful narrative — there is a beauty in the simple faith of that woman; there is a dignity in the silent hope against hope that Jairus had in the face of those practical observers, who knew death to be death and that was that. In those bustling crowds there must have been so many people with chronic illness or who had someone whom they loved in terrible weakness. But here, out of all of that, are just two examples of transforming care and g -ift — addressing both quality of life and indeed life itself. This narrative unfolds in a way that invites a consideration once again of questions of hope and meaning and a depth of awareness, beyond and through the everyday fact and realities of chronic illness or fraility or death itself. And we do this in a world, just like the world of the gospel, where healing is the exception rather than the rule.
As I noted in the pewsheet, I am considering again these healing stories as I am making arrangements to attend the funeral of an old dear friend and mentor who died swiftly and peacefully from a disease that is incurable — at least for medical science as we now have it. Bishop Robert Beal was my bishop when I was Archdeacon of Albury, for the ten years before I came to St Peter's. His requiem this week will be a celebration, well done good and faithful servant, even if with some tears of loss.
There is such a range of responses to grave illness. Sometimes it can be very cruel and verge on blaming the victim. I can remember hearing stories of earnest people of faith declaring that someone very important in the Church in this diocese would not have died from a massive heart attack, had there been more prayer. That sounds like making God into some kind of puppet that will respond only and according to the amount of prayers or the number of pious acts. If it were that easy we would all be hard at work or at least paying others to be so, constantly praying for our own sins and shortcomings, or to bring us health. That in a nutshell was what was tried in some quarters 5 or 6 centuries ago. It was found not to work.
Gift and grace are the language that the Scriptures use of salvation and eternal life. But that does not mean that the fraility and seeming randomness of the pains and difficulties of being a human person are not hard to take. For the last few days, all the media has been full of stories abou -t the sad death of Michael Jackson. Earlier this week as no doubt many of us did, I watched the horrible video death of a beautiful young woman shot down in a Tehran street. It was sickening and deeply shocking. We are forced to be dealing with injustice and systems that are plain wicked, where the God that is great is effortlessly mocked and life is cheap — Or so it seems. A reaction of anger or a sense of helplessness is surely not surprising.
It is hard then to place all this in the context of the many gospel texts dealing with healing, even though of course we know and accept that all pain and disease and death was not miraculously eliminated from first century Palestine when Jesus walked that land. In the context of a world that has fallen from the beauty of the original created order and relationship, where so much is out of joint and falling short of the promise, there yet remains the hope for something better. And meanwhile it is at times a struggle for our faith, in coming to terms with our human condition and circumstance. We can only see from where we are right now. The bigger perspective is much more difficult. We are tempted to cry that if God is God, why this healing and recovery and not another? That patient acceptance that some people of faith are given is gift indeed.
The thing is that day by day and in our own lives we are forced to confront mortality. We will all die. Those we love may die before us. The fact of God, a faith in the risen Lord, does not take this away. Then neither does the reality of these aspects of human existence make void the fact of God or render pointless the resurrection faith. But that fact, that faith, does enable us to live and yes to die in the context and the ultimate loving care of a God who is beyond and through these passing things. So in the gospel today we have an example of chronic and dreadful disease that is healed, a child that is raised. But beyond that is a promise of healing and new life, beyond anything this world can bring on, potentially for all. These two stories today are but examples and illustrations of that greater reality. That is the message.
The Lord be with you.
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