Grabbing for the Holy

 https://www.magdala.org/duc-in-altum/ 

There is a piece of art in the church at Magdala in the Holy Land that shows the hemorrhaging woman reaching through a crowd to touch Jesus’ hem.  What a surprising image!  We don’t often think about how she managed to make her way through a crowd of people and how she was able to touch his hem.  I have often imagined it being more like touching the back of a suit jacket, and an easy reach that could be surreptitiously done in passing.  But down at the ankle level is a whole other challenge.  Did she get stepped on?  Did she get kicked?  Why didn’t anyone notice her?  How could you not see someone crawling on the ground, squirming through people, past their stinky toes and walking sticks, getting your hands and knees grimy from the dust in the road, wondering if she would manage to make her goal before someone noticed?  Knowing that being in public risked her very life for breaking the taboo laws around women’s blood.

And there’s the desperation of an important man who, when he isn’t busy being an official and leader of the town religious institution, finds himself simply a heartbroken father throwing himself down on the ground, begging for help. 

What kind of desperation does it take before someone is prepared to lower themselves to such a level?  Losing a child is supposed to be the greatest pain a parent can face, and it doesn’t matter whether that child is a miscarriage, a 12-year-old or a 70-year-old.  When my son fell off his motorcycle last year and I got a call from his friend telling me that he was okay but that something had happened, the world stopped for a moment, and I forgot to breathe.

How many parents have gone through this desperation and not had the good fortune to have Jesus come to their rescue?  How many women crawling in their pain to get to Jesus’ sandals didn’t find the healing they prayed for?  The numbers are legion.  This congregation has lost two beautiful people in 2021 already that we prayed hard for.  Sometimes the cure doesn’t come.  Sometimes the healing comes when the cure does not.  Sometimes the community is humbled, silenced in the face of this great mystery.  Jairus came home to chaos, grief, and noise.  He heard mocking, cynicism, and disbelief.  His friends and family told him to turn away from Jesus.  He chose not to.

Just like the storm that Jesus stilled in last week’s reading, the storm of anguish and anger stilled in this story about Jairus.  The storm of isolation that the unnamed woman had endured for years also stilled.  The storm of anger, denial and cynicism stilled.  The pain of the world was not cured, but it was healed.

What is the difference between being cured and being healed? Cured is in my mind more of a physical thing, a relief from symptoms and diseases.  It may be done through scalpels or medication; it may be temporary or permanent. 

Healing can be physical, emotional, spiritual, mental, or psychological.  It is not something that the doctor can do for the patient, or the parent for the child.  Certainly we can help support healing, and encourage healing, but doctors will be the first to say that they are facing a profound mystery when they see their patients regain health.  They will say that they don’t know why one person recovers while another one doesn’t, and that they can’t even predict which person will be which.  I have seen people thrive while very sick, building community and loving family even while failing steadily in health.  And I have seen people who are very healthy tear down their relationships without even being aware of it.

These stories are similar and yet different.  Both feature unnamed females, yet one is on the cusp of womanhood while the other is mature and married.  One female is passive, needing a male to initiate healing on her behalf, her father.  The other is actively searching in many places.  One has Jesus come to her publicly, the other goes to Jesus sneakily.  In both these stories, Jesus did not just heal the individual, he healed the community.  Jairus and his family and friends were healed from their grief and fear.  They were healed from the ridicule of the cynical crowd.  The woman was cured from her illness, but she wasn’t healed until Jesus called her sister and made it safe for her to re-enter society free from stigma, judgement and ostracization.

Where do we see ourselves?  What are we needing healing for?  How can we connect with that healing?  How do we find the courage to ask for that healing?  For those of us who relate more with the crowds, how do we make space for the folks that are traumatized, the ones who need this healing?  Who do we need to support in their search for healing?  What cynicism do we need to let go of to help their healing happen?

We might not be at the kind of desperation that throws us at Jesus’ feet.  But you and I know there are many who are.  People who burn churches down or pull out guns during a backyard birthday party for a child.  People who donate tiny shoes on display.  People who have yet to plan memorial services for loved ones.  People who are wondering just how many graves there are at residential schools.  People who are running over Muslims or stabbing women wearing hijabs. Regardless of where we find ourselves in the story, isn’t it comforting to know that Jesus reaches out to the humble, the desperate, the grieving and the proud and wants to heal us all?  Whether we crawl for it, kneel for it, or don’t even know it is available, healing is with us, we are not alone, thanks be to God.