Today is another one of those “sandwich” stories Mark is so fond of. This is a technique Mark used frequently – breaking up one story by inserting another story within it.
It’s a great literary trick. It can serve to increase the suspense in the story, leaving the reader hanging, biting their nails, wondering what will happen. In this case, we are holding our breath wondering if Jesus will get to Jairus’ house on time to save his daughter. This is very serious, we already know. Jairus fell on his knees before Jesus and begged him to come save his little daughter, who is at the point of death. This is a 911 moment.
So Jesus went with him. The crowds are still ever-present, pressing in on him. Nonetheless, he makes his way through – no doubt, Jairus’ people and Jesus’ disciples are probably facilitating this, forming a barrier between Jesus and the crowds of people. But then Mark shifts our attention to a woman who was there, in the crowd.
What on earth do we care about his woman, you might ask? Jesus is right now on an urgent mission to save a little girl’s life, but Mark is going to take a pause here to tell us about this woman.
She is hemorrhaging. So perhaps this is also urgent. But, no, she has been living with this hemorrhage for 12 years. She has repeatedly sought out medical care from many physicians, but to no avail. She has suffered with it for all these years, but now she sees a chance of being healed. If she can only touch the hem of Jesus’ clothes, she believes, she will be made well. And so she does. And so she is made well.
That could be the end of it except that it wasn’t. Jesus suddenly stopped walking and said, someone touched my clothes. And everyone in his entourage thought he was insane because obviously there were many people touching his clothes as he made his way through the dense crowd. Why was this important enough to stop?
He looked around to find the one who touched him but didn’t need to look far. The woman stepped forward and identified herself. She explained her need and her desire, and he listened. Meanwhile, the entourage was surely getting antsy, impatiently waiting for this trivial conversation to be over so they could continue on their way to a very important healing. But Jesus listened to the woman, and then said to her, “Your faith has made you well.”
Before he even begins walking again toward Jairus’ house, the group is met by some messengers who say, “it’s too late. The little girl has died.” Yet, Jesus insists on going. Jesus insists that hope is not lost. And it is not lost, because when he arrived at the house, he took the hand of the dead child and said, “Little girl, get up.”
It didn’t matter, in this case, that there was a slight delay in his arrival, because the power of the almighty God is in him.
Both of these stories tell us something about Jesus’ power to heal. Both of these stories make clear that his healing gifts are in an entirely different realm from what we normally expect. If he were a doctor, we would want him to rush to the child’s bedside, to arrive there before she died, while healing was still possible. If he were a doctor, we would have told the woman with the hemorrhage to make an appointment because he was quite busy at the moment.
But Jesus was not a doctor. He was, and is, a savior. The word that Mark uses here when he speaks of healing is sozo, a word that is usually translated as saved. This is the nature of Jesus’ healing – it will make us whole; it will save us. This is a very important part of the gospel news: Jesus offers us the healing power of God.
And even though these two stories are about healing of physical ailments, the healing of Jesus may take many forms. It is often about something quite different from curing a disease.
There is another aspect of this passage that sheds light on just how that healing can happen. It happens in the interruptions.
You know, every Sunday I ask you all to silence your cell phones before worship begins. It just seems like a courtesy to everyone who is worshiping. It’s the same way when you go to a concert or to a movie. You are always reminded to please silence your phones, so the experience we have come here for will not be interrupted by a ring tone. People get upset about things like that. People get upset about interruptions.
Yet, getting upset about such a thing is not necessary. It is actually a choice.
I once heard a funny story about Queen Elizabeth, who probably did not have a cell phone. She was in a formal meeting, which was suddenly interrupted by the sound of a cell phone. There was a woman at the table who had neglected to silence her phone and much to her acute embarrassment, it started ringing. The conversation stopped. All eyes were suddenly on her. At that moment, the queen said to her, “You’d better answer that. It could be someone important.”
Who could be calling that is more important than the queen? Eight times out of ten, my cell phone calls are coming from robots. And the rest of the time they are likely to be about as substantive as, “Hey, what are you doing?” Or “what time do you think you’ll be home?”
But I love what the queen said. “It might be someone important.” Not that it might be some-thing important. She said someone.
And, not necessarily someone more important than me. Just, someone important.
I might be over analyzing her words, but this says something to me about how we approach life. Sometimes, interruptions are a message for busy people.
Busy people like Henri Nouwen.
Nouwen was a gifted priest and theologian, who spent many years teaching in prestigious universities – Notre Dame, Yale, Harvard. Then one day he interrupted his academic career and moved to a place called L’Arche Daybreak, a community for the intellectually and developmentally disabled. He gave up a life of importance for a life of serving those who are among the least of these brothers and sisters of Christ. He was seeking to follow Jesus, and this was the form his discipleship took. He remained there for the rest of his life.
So much of what we can learn about discipleship from Mark’s gospel is learned by watching and listening to Jesus. When we see how Jesus responds to interruptions, this is an opportunity for us to learn.
And when we watch him here, we see that he does not prioritize one person’s need over another. He doesn’t get anxious about time, his workload, demanding people, or his deliverables. Whatever the moment is, Jesus is in the moment. Perhaps this is a lesson for us.
I don’t know about you, but I have much room for improvement on this matter. I have a tendency to get tunnel vision, becoming so focused on what is right in front of me, that I shut out everything that is around me. And I am not only talking about the important stuff. I can become so preoccupied with trivial things that I fail to hear or see the important things. But somehow, Jesus, in being completely present in the world, is able to hear and see and respond.
Everyone around him that day had the same priority: to get Jesus to Jairus’ house. Then a woman who needed healing reached out her hand and Jesus stopped to give her all his attention. Because this woman, too, is a beloved child of God. This woman, too, has a desperate need to be made well. This woman, too, is worthy of his time.
In his first years of teaching, Henri Nouwen was befriended by an older professor, one with many more years of experience than him. One day as they walked around campus, the older man said to him, “You know, my whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.”
And Nouwen wondered: What if our interruptions are in fact our opportunities?
Consider this: There is no one with a more important to-do list than Jesus. But when he speaks to you, you would never imagine that he has anything more important to do than be with you.
Perhaps we can learn a thing about discipleship. If we would see Jesus’ sensitivity toward desperately needy people as a call to be patient and kind, to offer them what healing we can. After all, if we can see these interruptions as our work, we have the possibility of becoming healed and whole ourselves.
