Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost
Prefeast of the Entrance of the Mother of God into the Temple
On the surface, today’s Gospel is about two people facing just such hopelessness.
Jairus was a synagogue official with a sick daughter. Maybe he’d heard about Jesus healing the daughter of the Canaanite woman. If Jesus could heal that girl, maybe he’d heal his daughter. “After all”, he might’ve thought, “We’re Jews, the Chosen People, and the Canaanites are idolaters”.
From the parallel passages in Matthew’s gospel, we can guess that some time had passed since last week’s gospel reading. Perhaps Jairus had heard of the power that Jesus had shown in delivering a Gentile - again, not even a Jew - from demonic possession. Jairus was SURE that Jesus could heal his daughter.
I’m sure that, at this point, the only hope Jairus could have is that Jesus would come. He fell at the feet of Jesus, begging him to come and heal the girl.
On his way there, Jesus encountered another person, a woman who’d had an issue of blood - she’d been hemorrhaging - for twelve years! It was a chronic condition, and it made her ritually unclean. She was a social outcast. Undoubtedly, it was a hopeless situation for her.
The crowds gathered around Jesus, pressing in, and the woman fought to get to him. She didn’t want to ask him for healing. She didn’t want to touch him. All she wanted was to touch the hem of his garment.
The next thing that happened has always amazed me. He FELT the power go out from him. He sensed her presence not by seeing her or feeling her. He was so in tune with those around him that he FELT the power go out from him! Are we that sensitive to those in need who surround us?
And her faith was the factor. She believed that touching the hem would heal her, and it did.
Then there was Jarius’s daughter. They received word that she was dead, but, of course, Jesus knew better. Just as he would later do with his friend Lazarus, he called out to her and she was raised from her sick bed.
That’s the surface of the story, but there’s more. Paul points us to it in the epistle reading. Christ has created one new man, one new humanity, out of two. Elsewhere, Paul says there is no longer Jew and Gentile, for we are one in Christ. And that new humanity is being built together as a new Temple, a dwelling place of God.
You see, when the Fall occurred in Eden, it wasn’t just man that was affected. No. All of creation fell when our first parents fell. Paul writes in Romans that the creation is subject to futility; it is in bondage to decay, but it will obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.
Throughout Scripture, we see the number twelve used to represent the fullness of God’s building blocks of the Kingdom. Ishmael, Abraham’s first son, had twelve sons. Jacob, later named Israel, had twelve sons, who were the progenitors of the twelve tribes of Israel. Jesus chose twelve men to be his Apostles. The Old Testament has twelve minor Prophets. In the book of Revelation, there are twelve angels and twelve gates. Twelve is the number of God’s perfection.
Christ came to restore not just man, but all of creation! And the first step is shown here. The daughter of Jairus, who was twelve years old, represents those who, up to this point, lived under the law, those who were ritually clean, the Jew. The woman who had been sick for twelve years with the issue of blood represents those who did not live under the law, the unclean, the Gentile.
Christ has given healing to the two segments of humanity, the clean and the unclean. As St Maximus says, “He restores Human Nature to itself. He abolished the enmity which led nature to wage an implacable war against itself; and- having summoned those far off and those near at hand - that is, those under the Law and those outside it - and having broken down the obstructive partition-wall - that is, having explained the law of the commandments in His teaching to both these categories of humankind - He formed the two into one new man, making peace and reconciling us through Himself to the Father and to one another”.
Paul tells us that Faith, Hope, and Love abide.
Christ gives us hope for us today. In our deepest moments, he is there with us, offering us relief from anxieties. He offers healing of the soul and body.
And he gives us hope for tomorrow. He has reconciled humanity to himself, and, when he has finished, all of creation will be reconciled.
Glory be to Jesus Christ!
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