HEALING OUR FEARS

On my first day back from vacation, I awoke to the news of Michael Jackson’s death. His death affected me on several different levels: after all, he was not much older than I; I had grown up listening to his music, and I had a childhood crush that vacillated between him and brother Jermaine.

Death is always surprising but never more surprising than when it is sudden.
It is always distressing but never more distressing than when it seems untimely, and
It is always destabilizing but never more destabilizing than when it reminds us of our own mortality.

In contrast to the limited information about Michael’s death, many of us heard the news that, three years ago, actress Farrah Fawcett had been battling cancer. After a courageous, much publicized struggle, the popular actress from the television series Charlie’s Angels died last Thursday.

Today’s gospel introduces us to two people who are also looking death in the eyes. One is facing an acute crisis – his child is about to die; the other has a chronic condition – she has been dying slowly over the past twelve years.

We know his name; we don’t know hers.
He’s a leader of the synagogue; she’s a social outcast.
He’s wealthy; she’s spent all she had.

Jairus and the unnamed woman are about as different as two people can be. But they have this in common: they are both desperate – desperate for something that money can’t buy, social standing can’t give, and experts can’t resolve.

Desperation is a great eraser, a great equalizer – it erases differences between male and female, rich and poor, insider and outsider, and it reduces both to the lowest common denominator. Desperate people tend to think and act in similar ways – focusing solely on the object of their concern, blocking out all distractions, and, in their search for healing, abandoning ordinary human fears – fear of what others think, fear of looking foolish, fear of losing control - after all, at this point in their lives, what do they have to lose?

There’s another thing that desperate people have in common – if it’s at all possible, they will go to the best healer they can find. So, having heard about Jesus’ reputation, a desperate Jairus seeks him out, throws himself at his feet, and begs him repeatedly to come -
Come, Jesus, come and see this part of me that is about to die.
Come, Jesus, come and help my beloved daughter – and me – to live – because, if she dies, surely a part of me will die, too.

Never too busy to hear and answer our prayers, Jesus goes with Jairus, but, on the way, their journey is interrupted. The unnamed, desperate woman seizes the opportunity to get her healing. She’s heard about Jesus and decided to give him a try. So she creeps up to him and reaches out her hand. Should she touch him? She knows that he can become ritually unclean from her touch – after all, she is a bleeding woman:

For twelve long years, as long as Jairus’ daughter has been alive, she’s been hemorrhaging.
For twelve long years, she’s been handing out money, and handing out money, and handing out money - until one day she dipped her hand in her purse and pulled out air.
For twelve long years, she’s been running from one doctor to the next to the next –

each time hoping that this next one can stop the bleeding;
each time coming to the awful realization that no, this one, like all the ones before him, cannot stop the bleeding,
each time having to decide between giving up or trying again.

Are there parts of your life that have been hemorrhaging?
And how many doctors or self-help programs have you relied on that couldn’t quite stop the bleeding?
But are you also like the unnamed woman – persistent, courageous, even audacious in your willingness to approach Jesus?

Yes, she is a bleeding woman, but she’s also a desperate woman – so she touches, not him, but the hem of his garment. She believes that she does not even need to touch him to be healed – and healed she is. But the story doesn’t stop there. No, Jesus, perceiving that someone had reached out to him in faith, seeks her out, and, when she falls at his feet and tells him what she has done, he does not reprimand her. Instead, commending her for her faith, he calls her “Daughter”– he calls her “Daughter.” So while she is physically healed, her healing goes beyond the physical – it goes to the core of who she is – a beloved daughter of God.

But then the story takes a painful turn. Word comes to Jairus that his daughter has died. So, it appears that the woman’s healing has come at the cost of the little girl’s life.

How fair is that?
Aren’t the old supposed to die before the young?

And what about Jairus – how may he have been feeling as he watched Jesus chat with the woman for what must’ve seemed like forever?
And what about the woman – how may she be feeling to know that her actions may have cost the little girl her life?
And Jesus – how may he be feeling to know that the delay resulted in death?

It’s easy to fall into “if only” and “either-or” thinking at such times. If only I hadn’t done that; it looks like it’s either you or me. But here’s another thing that Jairus and the woman have in common – something that they can teach us – they believe that Jesus can handle the thing that is making them desperate – even when it seems like there’s not enough Jesus to go around. And, in the process, Jesus is also able to bridge the gap between a powerful male and a vulnerable female, between a rich leader and a poor outcast, between you, and me, and those we might be tempted to disregard.

So Jesus reassures Jairus, and they continue on their way. When they get to the house, Jesus tells the mourners that the child is not dead, but sleeping. Not surprisingly, they laugh at him. After all, they know reality when they see it. But Jesus is undeterred by their – or our – view of reality. And, just as he brought healing to the woman, he brings life to Jairus’ daughter.

But both you and I know that not all illnesses are healed – at least in the way many of us think about healing. Theologian Michael Lindvall tells the story of a friend of his, a man of deep faith, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease when he was in his fifties. Although the man and his wife prayed for healing, twenty years later, he is in the final debilitating stages of the disease. However, he told his friend that his prayers had been answered. He said, “I have been healed, not of Parkinson’s disease, but I have been healed of my fear of Parkinson’s disease.”

When we come to Jesus in faith, he reaches into the dying, and even the dead places in our lives and heals us – not always in the way we may want or expect, but always by making us less vulnerable to the fears that continually assault us. Perhaps it’s the healing of the fears that can paralyze us – whether it’s the fear of dying, or living, alone; the fear of financial disaster; the fear of losing control; the fear of the future, or the countless other fears that assault human beings – perhaps it’s the healing of those fears that is the most life-changing healing of all.