Mark 5:21-43 contains two stories that invite us to contrast the characters involved, consider the role of faith in both, and note the compassionate response of Jesus to the desperation of both.
Mark 5:21-24, 35-43 is a story of the miracle of the raising of the daughter of Jairus.
This section includes two separate pericopes that are interwoven in a typically Markan manner. This technique, known as "intercalation," is one we find throughout Mark's gospel. Scholars have counted as many as nine of these insertions including 3:19b‑35; 4:1‑20; 5:21‑43; 6:7‑29; 11:12‑19; 14:1‑11; 14:17‑31; 14:53‑72; 15:40‑16:8. Scholars do not fully agree on Mark's motive behind his method. For some scholars, the practice of beginning one story, breaking off from it to introduce a second complete and unrelated story, then returning to the initial story, is an example of poor organizational ability. It shows an inability to integrate various traditions. It may even be a masterful way of intentionally building tension. In this view, Mark subtly and ingeniously highlights the theological themes of Mark. It may well be that the weaving together of these stories demonstrates that we properly read them together because "each episode throws light upon the other."[1]
I am on the side of the subtle and ingenious in this case. Frankly, sometimes the most important things that happen to you in life are the intrusions. You are on your way somewhere, with an agenda, a clear, direct purpose in mind, and you get distracted. Something else comes up that demands your attention, and that "something else" turns out to be more important than the journey on which you originally launched.
Looking at this segment, one sees that the two interwoven healing stories work together on several distinct levels, creating a masterful weaving together of truth. The most forthright interpretations view the inserted story of the woman with the hemorrhage as a dramatic story, but one that also serves to heighten the dramatic tension of the story of Jairus and his gravely ill daughter.
Mark could not have put together two people that are more different if he had tried. Mark refers to Jairus by name, identifies him by status, and he appears as powerful and persuasive. Moreover, Jairus as leader of the synagogue plays a significant role in the life of the Jewish community. Yet a common experience binds these two diverse individuals together: They are both utterly desperate, and they both come to Jesus as their last and only hope. Although Mark introduces Jairus in verse 22 as a significant member of society, Mark pushes aside his personal just as Mark pushes aside his story right off the pages by the determination of the nameless, powerless, bleeding woman.
Another reason to think Mark has brought these healing stories together is that both stories highlight the importance of touch. In the first significant work of human psychology, the “De Anima,” Aristotle pronounced touch the most universal of the senses. Even when we are asleep, we are susceptible to changes in temperature and noise. Our bodies are always “on.” Touch is the most intelligent sense, Aristotle explained, because it is the most sensitive. When we touch someone or something we are exposed to what we touch. We are responsive to others because we are constantly in touch with them. “Touch knows differences.” It is the source of our most basic power to discriminate. The thin-skinned person is sensitive and intelligent; the thick-skinned, coarse, and ignorant. Think of Odysseus and the Cyclops, Jacob and Esau. Aristotle was challenging the dominant prejudice of his time, one he himself embraced in earlier works. The Platonic doctrine of the Academy held that sight was the highest sense because it is the most distant and mediated; hence most theoretical, holding things at bay, mastering meaning from above. Aristotle insisted that flesh was not just some material organ but a complex mediating membrane that accounts for our primary sensings and evaluations. Savoring is wisdom; in Latin, wisdom is “sapientia,” from “sapere,” to taste. These carnal senses make us human by keeping us in touch with things, by responding to people’s pain — as when the disguised Odysseus (whose name can be translated as “bearer of pain,”), returning to Ithaca, is recognized by his nursemaid, Eurycleia, at the touch of his childhood scar. Aristotle did not win this battle of ideas. The Platonists prevailed and the Western universe became a system governed by “the soul’s eye.” Sight came to dominate the hierarchy of the senses and was quickly deemed the appropriate ally of theoretical ideas. Western philosophy thus sprang from a dualism between the intellectual senses, crowned by sight, and the lower “animal” senses, stigmatized by touch. And Western theology — though heralding the Christian message of Incarnation (“word made flesh”) — all too often confirmed the injurious dichotomy with its anti-carnal doctrines. …[2]
21 When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. 22 Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came, and, when he saw him, fell at his feet 23 and begged him repeatedly, "My little daughter is at the point of death. We may think of sickness as a prelude to death, just a whiff of our mortality. When we are healthy, and our bodies are functioning smoothly, we do not think much about finitude and the limits of life. However, one of the reasons why sickness is so productive of great anguish is that sickness reminds us that we are creatures. We are mortal. Our lives have limits. The greatest limit we face is death. As Jairus continues speaking to Jesus, he says, “Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live." Jairus is not just one of the crowd. He is a respected, powerful synagogue leader. This community and synagogue leader undoubtedly used his personal importance to part the crowd before him and stride directly up to Jesus. Yet, once he reaches Jesus, the moment transforms Jairus into nothing more than a desperate father. Jairus is a gorgeous illustration of the age‑old wisdom: stay with the one who brought you to the dance. His faith is up front. As the president of a local synagogue, he goes out on a limb by crediting Jesus with special power or resources. 24 Of course, he went with him. Moreover, a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. … 35 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?" However, even as Jesus successfully completed the healing of the woman, the next moment challenges Jesus with a failure. Messengers arrive from Jairus’ house with the tragic news of his daughter’s death. 36 But overhearing what they said, and in the face of the devastating news, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, "Do not fear, only believe (πίστευε)." Jairus never backtracks. 37 He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. 38 When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. The funeral is not only for the family that is experiencing acute grief; it is for all whom lives this death touches. All of us are either dealing with past grief or else preparing to grieve. The sun may shine for you today. However, life being what it is, you know that tomorrow may bring clouds. The public expression of grief is a powerful reminder of the sting of death. The occasion took place at the man’s house. We see the type of sorrow one would expect when a young person dies. Some people protest that funerals are barbaric holdovers from the past. Some would encourage us to celebrate the life rather than mourn the death, and so on. Celebrate the life, of course, but face up to the death of that life. Weep all the tears you have in you to weep because whatever may happen next, if anything does, this has happened. Something precious and irreplaceable has ended and something in you has ended with it. Funerals put a period after the sentence’s last word. They close a door. They let you get on with your life. 39 When he had entered, he said to them, "Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping." As if to throw seeds of doubt into the crowd, Jesus suggests that the little girl is not dead. She is only sleeping. This red herring type of suggestion will allow the crowd to doubt the miraculous event about to take place —, which is Jesus’ intent. Yet, sleep is the same thing Jesus said when his friend Lazarus died. Death is not any more permanent than sleep is permanent is what he meant apparently. That is not to say he took death lightly. When he heard about Lazarus, he wept, and it is hard to imagine his doing any differently here. However, if death is the closing of one door, he seems to say, it is the opening of another one. 40 Further, they laughed at him. Jairus still does not backtrack. He does not say much, but he does not say "forget it," either. Then he put them all outside. Jesus dismisses the mourners severely. He may do so because he was face to face with the cult of death. Death was something that they all thought a self-evident law of reason and custom to regard as an unassailable face. Jesus denied both in saying that she only sleeps. Jesus took the child's father, mother, and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. 41 He took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha cum," in Aramaic, which means, "Little girl, get up!" We rightly pause to ponder this scene. Old woman, get up. Young man. The one you do not know how you will ever manage to live without. The one with whom you do not know how you ever managed to live. The reality of God confronts the reality of death. Which will prove to be the greater and true reality? Jesus can see how the decision will go. His solitary No to death, in the power of his solitary Yes to the omnipotent mercy of God, is the reason for his severity in that house of death. When Jesus enters this house, it can no longer be a house of death.[3] Little girl, “Get up,” he says. The other use of funerals is to remind us of those two words. When those who gather sing the last hymn, the minister offers the benediction, and the immediate family escorted out a side door, they may be the best way we have to make it possible to get up ourselves.[4] 42 Immediately, the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). Such rising up is the language of metaphor for resurrection, in this case in the sense of a return to earthly life.[5] At this, amazement overcame them. 43 He strictly ordered them that no one should know this. According to Mark, Jesus tried to stop people from talking about his deeds or magnifying his person. Since the days of W. Wrede it has been customary to trace these features to the Mark and to find in them the theory of a messianic secret that traces back to the post-Easter knowledge by the community of the majesty of Jesus to non-messianic traditions of his earthly appearance. Mark, however, refers to the regard that the work of Jesus evoked and that led to the post-Easter awareness of his divine sonship. Such an account contains traces of a traditional realization that Jesus was aware of the ambivalence into which his message thrust him and that he tried to counteract it.[6] While the secrecy of the messianic identity is a recurring theme in Mark, Jesus' reticence to advertise this resurrection has another implication as well. Part of the healing gift that Jesus leaves this family is a return to normalcy. The daughter is free to resume her childhood, the parents to return to the responsibilities of everyday life, without worrying about taking on some "freak show" identity. Jesus then told them to give her something to eat. Faith in this instance is both astonishing (the daughter comes back to life) and ho‑hum ordinary (give the kid something to eat). Jairus seems to navigate with both sincerity and ease. Mark is not merely promoting a general attitude of faith‑‑the conviction that resources are available to meet my needs. He is saying that one finds such resources in Jesus.
This man is religious, respectable, and educated. He might be like a middle-class person in our world. He is also a desperate father. Beyond the external appearances of security and means, he had an anxious inner life. We know the living Christ turns to similar such persons today with compassion because Jesus of Nazareth responded with compassion.
In the crisis of the moment, Jesus invites Jairus to have faith. It was fashionable to emphasize, as James Fowler, Paul Tillich and others were doing, that faith in its formal structure is the same whether you believe in Buddha, Allah, Moses, Jesus, Big Ernie or even in yourself. Fair enough, but we must face the content question. Who really can supply the resources for which the human heart aches?
Mark 5:25-34 is a story of healing of the woman with hemorrhage. This story interrupts the Jairus story.[7]
25 Now, there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. The doctor's diagnosis and 12 years of agony should have reduced the hemorrhaging woman to hopelessness. 26 She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had (δαπανήσασα τὰ παρ αὐτῆς πάντα); and she was no better, but rather grew worse. If ever there were a direct opposite to the respectable figure of Jairus, this woman is it. First, she is, of course, a woman — but more than that, she is alone. She is unclean. In other words, for twelve years Jewish tradition has banned this woman from sites of public worship or any contact with sacred or holy places and things. The woman, in contrast to Jairus, remains forever anonymous; she is poor, sick, and unclean due to both her gender and her illness. The woman's illness prevents her from being active in the community since it renders her as ritually impure, according to Leviticus 15:25-27. In effect, her condition segregates her and places her "outside" the people of God.[8] In addition, not only is the woman ill, but she is also poor. The woman has not only suffered physically, but has also wasted her money, and instead of getting better, has gotten worse. Physicians have been unable to help her, but now the true physician (2:17) will remedy her situation.[9] Here is a reminder that in the ancient world, the doctor and priest were in close relation and both were to act in respect for and preservation of life. The doctor does not always heal. In fact, if the doctor were an absolute in this matter, he or she would become an unpleasant stranger.[10] We need to pay attention to the structure of how this healing takes place. 27 She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 for she said, "If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well." The woman assumes she will be healed merely by touching Jesus or part of his clothing — a phenomenon not heretofore associated with Jesus' healing ministry. 29Immediately, her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that Jesus healed her of her disease. The method of healing this woman experiences is quite unusual.[11] Her faith in the ability of Jesus to heal here is so great that she believes she only needs to reach out and touch the hem of is garment to receive his healing power. She feels the healing power of Jesus before Jesus says a word to her. 30 Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, emphasizing the power associated with Jesus' divine healing abilities. This power is so all-pervasive, so intimately flowing throughout Jesus' being, that it saturates even the clothing on Jesus' back. Healing is not just a thoughtful addition to God's presence among mortal men and women. Healing, the constant movement towards wholeness and health, is a part of the divine essence itself. Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, "Who touched my clothes?" Many people touched, bumped, brushed, and squashed against Jesus. The woman’s faith-filled, expectant touch was so distinct and unique that Jesus could distinguish it as different from all the others. 31 His disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, 'Who touched me?'" 32 He looked all around to see who had done it. 33 However, the woman, knowing what had happened to her, she had received healing, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. She seems to gather up her faith once more in Jesus and come rather than run away. Only now does Jesus speak to her. 34 He said to her, "Daughter, your faith (πίστις) has made you well; go in peace, an added gift to the healing,and be healed of your disease." Although the healed woman might have been content to sneak away, never even bothering Jesus with her presence, Jesus will not let what has happened go unannounced. Jesus speaks the restorative words of healing and peace to her. Clearly, these words do not constitute the actual healing moment for this woman. His pronouncement comes after her healing. The restorative words of Jesus finalize her healing. Jesus proclaims this woman a “daughter” of Israel once again. The story of the hemorrhaging woman serves as an example of the kind of faith true disciples must maintain. What does all that say about faith? Who knows! We might venture at least this much. Faith is the conviction that resources are present to meet the needs of this moment. The story of this woman is one of prolonged illness, personal struggles, failure to find healing, and enforced poverty. However, all these negatives only serve to point up her story's positive thrust and focus ‑‑ her tremendous faith in Jesus. Despite her appearance, her gender and her status, this woman surprisingly provides an ideal model of faithfulness. The issue of faith becomes a highly personal question. Do you or do you not believe that you have the resources you need to face the challenges of your life as a follower of Jesus? We might have a general answer. Of course, our faith is in Jesus. Yet, when a moment comes that calls for that faith we say we have in general, what is our response? Our Yes may come hesitatingly and fearfully. Yet, in our better moments, the faith is there.
[1] (Francis Moloney, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary, [Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002], 107).
[2] —Richard Kearney, “Losing Our Touch,” The New York Times, August 30, 2014.
[3] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.2 [64.3] 227.
[4] Frederick Buechner, Listening to Your Life, 1992.
[5] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 347.
[6] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 336.
[7] Mark's long, drawn‑out development of the hemorrhaging woman's course of illness, search for a cure and deteriorating condition stretch the time frame for the reader. The details of the woman's illness and the extended interaction between herself and Jesus create a real passage of time. Little wonder that by the time Mark's text returns to the story of Jairus, his daughter is now reported as dead. Such a simplistic function within such a richly detailed and powerful story as the woman with the flow of blood is of course not entirely adequate. Another layered, yet somehow still not entirely satisfying interpretation suggests that the hemorrhaging woman serves as a template for the miraculous resurrection Jairus' daughter will experience. This woman's life has been so filled with pain and misery that it is, in effect, a life full of death. Jesus' healing power delivers her from this death sentence and restores her to a whole and healthy life. This woman's restoration serves as a sort of "practice run," in this view, for the dramatic raising of Jairus' daughter. As the first story continues and runs its course, a far more literal deliverance from death is demonstrated. The little girl who had died is brought back to life. Yet the details are so rich, the images so complete within this second, "interrupting" story of the hemorrhaging woman it seems likely that her place here serves a positive theological purpose ‑‑ one that informs both her own story and the story she interrupts. Instead of being an entertaining interruption, the story of the woman gives shape and direction to Jairus' experience once the thread of his story has been picked up again.
[8] (Francis Moloney, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary, [Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002], 107).
[9] (Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark's Story of Jesus, [New York: MaryKnoll, 2003], 201).
[10] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.4 [55.1] 361.
[11] In Matthew's version, the actual healing moment is freeze‑framed to make it clear that it is through Jesus' intentionally spoken healing word that she is healed (see Matthew 9:22). However, in Mark's text there is no such freeze‑framing.
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