The 6th Sunday after Pentecost 2024
Texts: 2 Corinthians 8:7-15; Mark 5:21-43
We would all agree that is was a good thing when someone was healed by Jesus. In the lesson from Mark, he healed a young girl and an older woman who had been sick for 12 years. However, this lesson could easily misunderstood, and it does raise some tough issues.
Jairus was a leader in the synagogue. He was not someone readily inclined to ask Jesus for help. Jairus was an educated man, someone to be respected in his community. Jesus, on the other hand, was an uneducated man, the son of a carpenter. Yet, here we have a man of stature begging a man with no stature to heal his daughter.
Jairus had apparently heard the stories of Jesus healing the sick, and he desperately wanted that for his daughter. We don’t know if Jairus sincerely believed who Jesus was, or if was desperate enough to just ask. We don’t know if he came to believe that Jesus was the son of God after the healing.
Then there was the story of the woman with the hemorrhage, who believed that if she just touched the hem of Jesus’ garment she would be healed. She did touch it and immediately she was healed after 12 years of sickness.
In both cases Jesus states that the healing is related to belief or to faith. “Do not fear, only believe.” “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
But you and I know people, people of true belief and sincere faith who asked God to heal them or a loved one of an illness, but it did not happen. Sometimes these were people who loved God dearly and trusted Him, whose prayers were apparently not answered. And so we ask, “why?”
It is not God’s will than anyone be sick. Enduring illness is part of the condition of being a broken human living in a broken world. No matter how painful or terrifying a situation is, God does love us and He never abandons us. Perhaps God’s answer to our prayer is ‘yes’, or ‘not yet’, or ‘I’ve got a better idea for you’. It is never ‘I don’t hear or care about you.’
When we are in great need of healing, for ourselves or for someone else, we draw closer to God in prayer. And whether or not we are immediately aware of it, whether we go to God in desperation or sincere belief, we are being healed deep within our souls. Sometimes in the midst of anguish we are being brought into God’s peace, which is something more enduring that the cure we so desire.
This is the process of living and dying. From the minute we are born we are moving toward death. How we live, how we respond to our greatest challenges, is what truly matters. A life well-lived, being selfless, giving life to others, being humble, good, honest—and faithful, we become a gentle light of Christ shining brightly for others.
This is the kind of life Paul sees in the Corinthians. He wrote, “Now as you excel in everything—in faith, speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you—so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking. I do not say this as a command, but I am testing the genuineness of your love against the earnestness of others.” Then he goes on to address the challenges they are facing. The issue is not that they have these challenges, but how they endure them.
In 23 years of ordained ministry I have walked with so many parishioners and their families in the final years of their lives. This may surprise you, but I have never even once heard a parishioner who was dying ask why God had not cured them. Most have looked forward to being with God and at peace. They were more concerned about their loved ones, not themselves or what they were experiencing. Some have seen Jesus coming to them, to deliver them from this world. For some there has also been the desire to see a particular long-estranged loved one before they pass. And when that peace has been made their life is complete. I have seen God’s healing of a soul in the process of dying.
God’s will for us is not always what we want for ourselves, or those we love. But God’s love is much larger than all our pain or sorrow.
It would be too easy to misunderstand, to take away from this lesson the idea that if only we had enough faith our prayers would be answered. And this is a common misunderstanding. But each situation is different just as each life is different. In this lesson Jesus was speaking only to Jairus and only to the woman with the hemorrhage.
We do need to listen to God’s voice speaking to each one of us in our own lives. The more we seek the will of God, not matter what we or our loved ones are enduring, the more able we are to be at peace with the circumstances, to abide in his grace. When we trust him just enough, he will open our eyes to see miracles all around us—some small, some large, some desired, some unexpected.
The following prayer was found on the body of a dead Confederate soldier in Virginia during the Civil War.
I asked God for strength that I might achieve
I was made weak, that I might learn humility to obey
I asked for health, that I might do great things
I was given infirmity, that I might do better things
I asked for riches, that I might be happy
I was given poverty, that I might be wise
I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men
I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life
I was given life, that I might enjoy all things
I got nothing I asked for - but everything I hoped for
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered
I am among all men, most richly blessed!
We may be mistaken about our “unanswered” prayers, not realizing that God has answered them in what is best for us.
Often the miracles unexpected are the most important of all, the restoration to wholeness, the realization of what love truly means, the ability to see that someone was indeed a good person, the freeing of a tortured soul by forgiveness, the reconciliation of someone we have longed to embrace with a hug.
In the end, when we are actually asking for a cure, God is intending to heal, to make whole. Healing is more than being cured of a specific illness or disease. It is about finally accepting the person God created each one of us to be, to the depth of our souls—whole and restored, cleansed and forgiven, knowing that we are the object of God’s undying care and devotion. And this would be the greatest answer to all our prayers. Amen.
