Today’s gospel story is so rich in meaning there simply is no way we have the time to cover everything it is communicating to us. As I studied today’s passage while sifting through the fullness of the reading and deciding on a direction or focus for our time together this morning, I found this quote from Episcopal priest and author, Robert Capon, to be very helpful. When summarizing the gospel message, Capon has said, “Jesus came to raise the dead. The only qualification for the gift of the gospel is to be dead. You don’t have to be smart. You don’t have to be wise. You don’t have to BE anything…..you just have to be dead. That’s it.”
So, with this quote in mind as we look at today’s gospel, I guess the question for each of us this morning is, “Are we dead or alive?” For many of us, our answer might depend on the kind of week we have just experienced. Some of us possibly came here feeling very alive, and we might ask why we are feeling that way? Is it because of a person? Is it because of the love we have been given from another? Or, is it because of something that happened to us? Others might feel sadness. Maybe you are experiencing broken dreams or a sense of alienation. For some, there might be a sense of broken-heartedness that even gives one the feeling of death. Now this does not necessarily mean one is depressed or one feels sad all the time. But, I am sure most of us probably have had times when we can feel and touch a pool of sadness deep within our self. I know that my heart has been breaking a little more each day as I hear of the hurt, struggle and pain in the lives of the most vulnerable among us in our country and in this world.
So, if by chance you don’t feel particularly alive this morning, that is okay because I believe you can enter this gospel lesson by identifying with the twelve-year old girl in today’s story. Now, it may sound shocking to think that we can enter this gospel reading by identifying with someone Jesus brings back to life, but, remember Capon’s words. “Jesus came to raise the dead. The only qualification for the gift of the gospel is to be dead.”
The story begins with this man, a leader in the synagogue, whose name is Jairus. Jairus comes to Jesus because his little daughter is near death and he begs Jesus to come and heal her. Jesus responds by going with Jairus to his home to heal the girl. However, on his way to the house, Jesus gets interrupted and the girl dies. The interruption is intentional on the part of the gospel writer. There is another story that Mark wants us to hear. This is the story of an older woman who looks to us to be very much alive, but she is not. Mark tells us that she has suffered for twelve years with hemorrhaging. This continuous issue of blood has made her an outcast. She is cut off from people and she cannot go to the synagogue to worship. In her heart she believes that she is cut off from God. She is as good as dead in her Jewish community. She is ostracized and considered unclean, untouchable. Yet, something propels her through the crowd. This woman really has guts. She longs to be healed and Jesus may be her last hope. So, from behind, hoping not to be seen, she sneaks a touch of his cloak, and Mark tells us she is immediately healed.
Now, if this were a movie, this would be the point when the camera would zoom in on Jesus as he asks, “Who just touched my clothes?" He then looks around and this woman comes forward, kneels and tells him the whole truth. This, Mark wants us to know, is God reaching down and saying to this woman and to all of us, "Daughter (Son), you took a risk of faith and now you have been made well... you are whole.”
Yes, Jesus came to raise the dead. While this woman had looked alive, she was as good as dead before she touched Jesus. But now, she has been raised to new life. She has been made well and raised to wholeness.
The gospel writer now refocuses our attention on the story of the twelve-year old girl. We are not given her name, but we do know her father was very important. He was one of the VIP’s, one of the big wigs, at the synagogue. He'd heard hundreds of sermons and prayed thousands of prayers. But none of that matters because today he is face to face with death, the death of his child. And, because Jesus had gotten delayed by the woman in the crowd, when they finally reach the house of Jairus, the little girl is dead. Jesus walks in on the preparations for a funeral. People are crying, trays of food are being brought in. People are looking at this stranger, Jesus, wondering who he is and why he has come. And, when Jesus finally speaks it is a pronouncement: "The child is not dead but sleeping.” Sarcastically, the people who are gathered laugh him off, he doesn't know what he is talking about. They do not yet know that they are in the presence of God. In God's presence there is no death – only life. Anyway, Jesus bends down and takes the hand of the twelve-year old girl. He speaks saying, “Little girl, get up!” And, to the surprise of those who are present, she gets up and Jesus tenderly asks them to get her some food. Yes, Jesus came to raise the dead.
Presbyterian minister, author and theologian, Fredrick Buechner, when focusing on this gospel story and Jesus’ power to raise the dead, writes:
Little girl. Old girl. Old boy. Old boys and girls with high blood pressure and arthritis, and young boys and girls with tattoos and body piercing. You who believe, and you who sometimes believe and sometimes don't believe much of anything, and you who would give almost anything to believe if only you could. You happy ones and you who can hardly remember what it was like once to be happy. You who know where you're going and how to get there and you who much of the time aren't sure you're getting anywhere. "Get up," he says, all of you - all of you! - and the power that is in him is the power to give life not just to the dead like the child, but to those who are only partly alive, which is to say to people like you and me who much of the time live with our lives closed to the wild beauty and miracle of things, including the wild beauty and miracle of every day we live and even of ourselves.
It is that life-giving power that is at the heart of this shadowy story about Jairus and the daughter he loved, and that I believe is at the heart of all our stories-the power of new life, new hope, new being, that whether we know it or not, I think, keeps us coming to places like this year after year in search of it. It is the power to get up even when getting up isn't all that easy for us anymore and to keep getting up and going on and on toward whatever it is, whoever he is, that all our lives long reaches out to take us by the hand.
Yes, that God we know in Jesus is always reaching out to us to take us by the hand and raise us up to new life. So, as I reflect upon the broken-heartedness I have been feeling lately, I have realized something. Maybe, we cannot really know Jesus as the one who raises the dead until we find ourselves truly feeling broken-heartedness and sadness and grief. Maybe we cannot really know Jesus as the one who raises the dead until we let go of all the denial that we hold on to and let ourselves truly feel the pain of the grief we carry. Maybe we cannot really know Jesus as the one who raises the dead until we find ourselves truly feeling a broken-heartedness that we are unable to fix by ourselves. Just maybe, we have to truly allow ourselves to feel something of death to understand the power of this Jesus who not only heals but even has power over death, itself. I do believe Robert Capon is right on. It is true! Jesus came to raise the dead. The only qualification for the gift of the gospel is to be dead. Amen.