Reflection on Mark 5:21-43

As you plummet to the ground, toward your potential early demise, there are a lot of things that go through your head during those 30 seconds of skydiving freefall. The primary thoughts, well, quite frankly, probably do not translate well for a church blog, but the secondary thoughts focus on those around you, your support network.

If, for some reason, something where to go wrong while falling through the air at 120 mph, there are actually lots of people around to help. The instructor on your back knows all of the emergency procedures of cutting away the primary parachute and switching to the backup. The camera person who is videoing your insane step out of a completely good aircraft, knows how to maneuver through the air well and could float over to your rescue. And then, there is the other team jumping at the same time who just might try some heroics of their own. At least I prayed that Eli would want to save his pastor. I guess that I cannot speak for him. And if all else fails, there is God to whom you have not forgotten during this time, and who certainly could not have possibly forgotten you because you have been babbling incoherently to God since the plane took off from the ground. There are lots of people there to make sure you get safely to the ground. There are lots of people who are willing to intercede for you, if things go bad.

Things have gone bad for the little girl in today’s gospel story. She is falling quickly down toward an early demise because of some illness, and her father runs to the rescue. Interceding for her, he runs to Jesus, and begs him, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live”. It is good to have a support system. It is good to have a father like that.

I am not trying to be exclusive here, mothers are good too. Quite frankly, my mother might have been a little too efficient when I left to go skydiving. She would not have let me even step foot on the plane in the first place had she been told of my hopes for freefalling self-destruction; but she was not told. In the gospel story, the mother stays behind to care for the dying child.

Of course the mother cares deeply, but it is the father in the story who runs for help; the father who cannot imagine a world without his child; the father who would do anything for his child; the powerful leader who would be willing to grovel in the dust if it meant that his daughter would be made well.

There is someone in this story who has no father. It is the woman who has been bleeding for 12 years. Her support network has vanished. She has no one to turn toward while she falls. The doctors tried, but floated away unsuccessful. The husband is nowhere to be seen, and her father is missing. She is freefalling, and there is no one falling with her to help.

When you have no one else, you are forced to take matters into your own hands. Skydivers have to reach back and untangle the parachute themselves, hungry and forgotten little boys have to sneak into the grocery store and steal food for themselves, and forgotten, bleeding women have to steal divine powers of healing for themselves.

She thinks to herself, "If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well."

Her mind made up, she reaches up, touches his clothes, and steals her healing. "Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease."

“Who touched me?” Jesus cries out.

Having been caught, freefalling once again, resigning herself to her fate, the woman shamefully tells Jesus the whole truth. The whole truth about how she is not good enough to be loved. The whole truth about how doctors, family, everyone has abandoned her. The whole truth about how she has resorted to stealing to get what she needs, even stealing from God. The whole truth about how she has no father to care for her.

To this Jesus replies, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease."

“Daughter,” that is probably the most beautiful word that she would ever hear; more beautiful even than the words “be healed.” Bleeding is something that you can get used to. It is something that you can put up with for 12 years. Being alone, you cannot. “Daughter,” what a beautiful, soft, yet colorful word.

This daughter will freefall alone no longer. This lonely, pain filled woman has been made a daughter of Jesus; the father who cannot imagine a world without his child; the father who would do anything for his child; the powerful leader who would be willing to be thrown down in the dirt and nailed to a cross if it meant that his daughter would be made well. “Daughter,” what a beautiful word.

Who do you know, who needs to hear the words, “daughter” or “son” spoken to them? Who do you know, who needs to hear that they are part of a family; who needs to hear that they are not freefalling alone?


All Scripture quotes are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyrighted, 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and is used by permission. All rights reserved.