Little girl, I say to you, arise!

Mark 5: 21-43

 When Jesus had crossed again [in the boat] to the other side, a large crowd gathered around him, and he stayed close to the sea. One of the synagogue officials, named Jairus, came forward. Seeing him he fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him, saying, “My daughter is at the point of death. Please, come lay your hands on her that she may get well and live.” He went off with him, and a large crowd followed him and pressed upon him. There was a woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years. She had suffered greatly at the hands of many doctors and had spent all that she had. Yet she was not helped but only grew worse. She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak. She said, “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.” Immediately her flow of blood dried up. She felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.

Jesus, aware at once that power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who has touched my clothes?”  But his disciples said to him, “You see how the crowd is pressing upon you, and yet you ask, “Who touched me?” And he looked around to see who had done it. The woman, realizing what had happened to her, approached in fear and trembling.  She fell down before Jesus and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction.”

While he was still speaking, people from the synagogue official’s house arrived and said, “Your daughter has died; why trouble the teacher any longer?” Disregarding the message that was reported, Jesus said to the synagogue official, “Do not be afraid; just have faith.” He did not allow anyone to accompany him inside except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they arrived at the house of the synagogue official, he caught sight of a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.

So, he went in and said to them, “Why this commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but asleep.” And they ridiculed him. Then he put them all out. He took along the child’s father and mother and those who were with him and entered the room where the child was. He took the child by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise!” The girl, a child of twelve, arose immediately and walked around. [At that] they were utterly astounded. He gave strict orders that no one should know this and said that she should be given something to eat.

Discussion Questions: 

1. The woman in this story was initially afraid to ask Jesus for what she needed. Have you ever felt this way in prayer? Why or why not?
2. Do you tend to keep your pain to yourself rather than share it? How is this contrary to what Jesus is about…experiencing God’s healing touch through others?
3.  Is divine love only about restoring physical health? How do you experience God’s love as healing for you beyond problem solving, fears, or a physical recovery from illness? Explain.
4. Do you believe Christians have an obligation to attend to those in need? If yes, how do you live this belief?
5. How do miracle stories effect your faith? Do they free you by increasing your trust in Christ, or do they cause you to become more dependent on needing miracles?

 Biblical Context

Mark 5:21-43
Mary M. McGlone CSJ

Mark builds today’s Gospel like a miracle archway: The two columns are the father’s request and healing of the daughter of a synagogue official. The pinnacle is the healing of the woman with a hemorrhage. If the story were an arched gate, the entire construction would be adorned with symbols of hands and touching, an idea that recurs seven times from the official’s original request that Jesus lay hands on his daughter to the moment when Jesus touches her, and she rises.

In between the father’s request and the girl’s arising, Mark describes both meaningless and healing touch. Meaningless touch is what happens when a group becomes a crowd and tries to move. Their attention is focused on their goal and who bumps into whom is of no account. That’s how the disciples saw this walk with Jesus; they were on the way to the official’s house and their intention was to remain near and see what would happen. Jostling was as inconsequential as the breeze as long as they could maintain a good viewing position. But the crux of the story focused on the woman they didn’t even notice, the one who had suffered for 12 years — symbolically forever. Mark tells us that physicians had been ineffective to accomplish anything except to have her spend all she had in vain.

Mark subtly leads us through the steps of her journey of faith. First, she heard about Jesus. What she heard sparked her hope and kindled her faith. Like someone who approaches God based on God’s merciful reputation rather than personal knowledge, she snuck up behind Jesus, believing that simply touching his cloak would save her.

She was right. Just coming in contact with him healed her infirmity. But for Jesus that was not enough. Jesus was not teaching theology or representing a far-off but benevolent miracle-working deity; Jesus was bringing people into God’s kingdom, the real presence of his loving Father for whom all things were possible. With a tactile sensitivity that most adults have grown out of, Jesus perceived that someone in the crowd had touched him as who he was, not just as another body in the crowd. So, he turned to look the one who had recognized him for who he was.

Mark does not say that Jesus made his question public, but rather that the woman, comprehending what had happened to her and seeing Jesus looking around, presented herself before him, in effect, allowing him to enter into personal relationship with her. He reciprocated by calling her “daughter,” assuring her that her faith had saved her and that she could go in peace, healed of her affliction.

This Sunday’s readings work together to remind us that God created the universe for immense good and that we have the power to collaborate with the divine plan or to allow the demons of greed and unbelief to shrink the atmosphere to the dimensions of our worst fears. The bold woman Jesus called “daughter,” reminds us that if we will risk reaching out in hope, the results can be beyond our imagining. 

Can God be Trusted?

Reflection
Mark 5:21-43
Fr. James Smith

We are happy for the little girl whom Jesus raised back to life. But just underneath that feeling, is another feeling of wonderment: Why can’t we coax God into curing all our cancers — or at least our colds?

The existence of evil has always been the most convincing argument against God. The classical accusation is that either God cannot or will not conquer evil. Which implies either that God is not all-powerful, or God does not care.

We know that can’t be true. But we confess that it is difficult to explain God’s activity in our world. Of course, if we knew how God acts, God wouldn’t be God. Still, it’s human nature to wonder. Maybe the real God is somewhere between a genie who heals on command and a heartless robot. Let’s expand each of those ideas.

First, the world. According to the most recent theory, the present universe exploded from an original subatomic speck. And it is still expanding by leaps and gaps and mutations. If humans can intrude on the process of splitting atoms, surely God can find a space to enliven a few dead human cells. But to what end? Raising every person from death would merely double the pain of death as well as the population.

Next come people. Free people relate to a free God in a variety of ways. And there is no way of knowing what is going on between them from the outside. A person who presumes to move a mountain may be either naive or supremely trusting. A person who declines to pray for anything may be skeptical or exquisitely detached.

That brings us to the marvelous God who holds this wondrous mess together. Because God truly loves each individual personally, some people believe that God plans everything that happens to us as the best thing for us. Then it is hard to prove just how avalanches, heartbreaks, and strokes are good for us.

I prefer to think that God makes or lets everything happen as the best for his total creation. And I suspect that God makes judgments about the same way that we do: what is fair; who needs this; who deserves that; who would be helped and who would be destroyed if this or that happened.

At the least, I do not imagine God as letting the universe go its perverse way or holding up his hands hopelessly. I imagine God as a juggler holding 16 zillion things in balance, or as a stage manager constantly rearranging things to allow for temperamental people and broken props. That may be as well as a perfect God can do in an imperfect world. But in private matters, in affairs of the heart, in those areas of life that don’t depend on external interference — that is where God is at his best. Maybe God is totally free to make miracles happen only where he can water your lawn without raining on someone else’s parade, where he can make you rich without impoverishing your neighbor.

In a finite world with a limited amount of water and money, maybe God is absolutely free only in the realm of free spirits. In that intimate embrace, God can turn sadness into joy, guilt to innocence, hate to love, despair to hope. Just as Saint Paul promised, God really does make all things work for the good of those who love God.
That is as much as we are guaranteed, and that is all we really need. The rest is icing. And iffy.