The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 27, 2021

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 Jesus, “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.

“My daughter is at the point of death. Please, come lay your hands on her that she may get well and live.”  The girl had become sick while the Lord was visiting the region of the Decapolis, across the sea.  By the time that Jesus returned, she was deathly ill and her father, a leader of the town’s synagogue, was looking for him.  Searching for him, he would have been told that Jesus was away with his disciples and that it was not known when he would return.  We can imagine that the man sent servants into the town to watch for Jesus, but as his daughter’s condition worsened and his desperation grew, he ran through the town himself, looking for the Lord.  When he saw the him, he threw himself at his feet and begged him to lay his hands on his daughter, that she might live.  The official is very specific in asking Jesus to lay his hands on her, as though he thought that the Lord’s healing power could only transfer into her body in this way.  Along the road, a woman afflicted with a chronic sickness that featured a flow of blood, saw the Lord passing by, and she took a chance: “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.”  She did not dare approach the Lord openly: he would certainly refuse to lay his hands on a woman whose condition would render him unclean.  But in her own desperation she forced her way through the crowd and just managed to touch his mantle as he walked.  At that point, the Lord stopped and turned around.  “Who has touched my clothes?”  Mark tells us that Jesus was aware that “power had gone out from him”, an interesting way to put it.  The woman then admitted what she had done, but rather than reject her, the Lord commended her faith and confirmed her healing.

“Your daughter has died; why trouble the teacher any longer?”  The coldness of the people from Jairus’s house is very striking.  The Greek tense of the word translated here as “has died” is better rendered as “she died”, as in, “Your daughter died.”  The perfect tense, used in the lectionary translation, makes it sound as if the girl has just now died.  But the Greek tense does not.  She “died” sometime in the past.  This allows us to wonder if Jairus knew his daughter was dead when he found Jesus and was hoping against hope that the Lord could still somehow save her — but certainly he would not lay his hands on her if he knew she was dead, for this would render him unclean.  The Lord reassures Jairus that he will do as he asks: “Why this commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but asleep.”  In the house, he took the girl’s cold hand in his and spoke to her in Aramaic, “Talitha, koum.”  Literally, Little girl, arise.  

In both the case of the woman and of the girl, there is the apparent danger of the Lord being rendered unclean, but he does not even hint that this means anything to him.  Particularly in the case of the woman, he shows his awareness of power “going out”, but not of having become unclean.  St. Mark shows us here that the Lord came for the “unclean”, for sinners, even for those dead in sin.  He touches our impurity and makes us pure.  It comes at a mysterious cost for him — power “goes out of him” — but it is one which he willingly accepts.  We also see here that the Lord has such power that those who touch him are cured as well as those whom he touches.  This signifies the greatness of his will to save us.

“She should be given something to eat.”  Brought back from death to life, the girl needs nourishment.  As do we, who have confessed our sins and received the forgiveness of God, need the nourishment of the Holy Eucharist in order to live the life Christ has given us.