Where There Is Healing, There Is The Kingdom Of God

 

Mark 5:21-43

Pentecost 6 Lectionary 13 June 30, 2024

Epiphany Lutheran Church Richmond, Virginia

Whenever we experience healing, there is the kingdom of God. Whenever we receive healing – because healing comes to us, as a gift – there is the kingdom of God.

What joy there is in paying attention to this!

In recent weeks, in Vacation Bible School and in Sunday morning worship, we’ve been immersed in the fourth chapter of the gospel of Mark. Jesus has been describing the kingdom of God with parables: of seeds growing and producing foliage and fruit, and that it is God who causes any growth to happen. What grace there is in that – that it’s not all up to us! All you and I can do is sow the seeds. How hopeful we can be – because it’s not all up to us!

What joy there is in paying attention to this, during daily sabbath time – even if that’s as little as 15 minutes – a gift of time to receive, to become aware of our experiences of God’s presence, of God’s peace, of God’s kingdom in our daily lives.

Jesus embodied the kingdom, in his flesh and blood. Jesus spoke words of the kingdom. Jesus enacted the kingdom, in what he did. And, as we move past chapter four into chapter five of the gospel of Mark, we remember that where there is healing, there is the kingdom of God.

* * *

Could we do a little bit of Bible Study? Pull out your bulletins and follow along as I read the first verses of this morning’s stories. (Two stories, as you’ll see!)

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, “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.” So [Jesus] went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him.

Here’s the Bible study part. The author of the gospel of Mark likes to “sandwich” a second story in between the beginning and end of the first story! Notice how that happens here.

Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’” [Jesus] looked all around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

Do you notice there, that the gospel writer has told an entire and complete story? Jesus has healed a woman who had been suffering vaginal bleeding for 12 years!

Now, we continue with the first story. (Do you remember that the synagogue leader’s daughter was gravely ill, and that Jesus had been walking to the leader’s house?). While Jesus is still speaking with the woman who he’s healed, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.”

And you remember how the story proceeds. The professional mourners who are wailing and making a great commotion laugh at Jesus who thinks he can do anything to help a person who has died. But he takes the corpse by the hand and speaks words, and the 12-year-old girl gets up and begins to walk about! At this [everyone was] overcome with amazement.

So, this morning, we read two dramatic stories of the healing that the kingdom of God brings into our lives. Jesus speaks the kingdom. Jesus embodies the kingdom and brings the kingdom into the lives of suffering people physically, through physical touch.

And to those watching what Jesus is doing, and to those who first listened to these stories told, that physical touch would have been startling, shocking, outrageous! Jesus is crossing boundaries that are not to be crossed!

The woman had been suffering from bleeding for 12 years! For 12 years, she had been unclean, according to God’s holy religious rule – and you can read that rule, right there in the Bible, in Leviticus 15:25. Aren’t we supposed to follow the rules that are in the Bible? Jesus doesn’t! The woman shouldn’t even be in the crowd, because anyone who touches her becomes unclean. But she’s heard about Jesus, and she’s desperate. She touches Jesus! With that touch, Jesus becomes unclean! Now, he wouldn’t be allowed into the synagogue without undergoing rituals of purification and cleansing, according to God’s holy rules that are right there in the Bible. And Jesus is on his way to the home of a leader of the synagogue!

When Jesus demands to know who touched him, the woman comes to him in fear and trembling, falling down before him. How does Jesus respond? Does he berate her because she has violated religious rules and even made him unclean? No, he does not. He speaks words of compassion: “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

How would the religious rule-keepers have reacted to this? Wouldn’t they have been outraged? Jesus has paid no attention to what is right and proper, to the boundary protecting the clean from the unclean!

And this offensive boundary-crossing continues, as the first healing story concludes in these verses from Mark. Corpse impurity is the greatest of all impurities! But Jesus doesn’t care if he’s violating that rule: he takes the dead girl’s hand! And he speaks words to her, to rise up from the dead!

(Then comes one of my all-time favorite verses in any of the gospel stories. We read: he...told them to give her something to eat. I love how mundane that is, after the incredible healing he has just performed. But then again, it makes all the sense in the world, doesn’t it? After all, the girl is a 12-year old adolescent. Of course she’s hungry. Twelve-year olds are always hungry!)

* * *

Whenever there is healing, there is the kingdom of God.

Whenever we experience healing, there is the kingdom of God. Whenever we receive healing – because healing comes to us, as a gift – there is the kingdom of God.

What joy there is in paying attention to this!

* * *

Many years ago, after his brother had died, much too young, one of my faithful parishioners said to me: “Healing doesn’t necessarily mean a physical cure.” That surprised me! I asked him what he meant. He said, “My brother died. But during these months before he died, I saw a lot of healing.” In that healing, there was the kingdom of God.

That conversation comes to my mind as we read this morning’s healing stories. It makes me remember another conversation, this time with a young woman, again, years ago – when I was such a young pastor that the ink was still wet on my ordination certificate. Her leukemia had roared back after years of remission, and no treatments were proving to be effective. I visited her and talked with her many times, encouraging her to keep her spirits up, to keep going! (I thought that was my job, you see.) Certainly she didn’t want to die, and to leave her husband and her two young boys. But after many days in the hospital, fighting the disease, she was exhausted. The disease was shutting her body down. During my last conversation with her I said, “It sounds like you don’t want to fight anymore.” And she replied (with some steel in her voice), “Would you?” She loved me! But she was tired of me, and tired of hearing what I thought I had to keep telling her. And she taught me what a faithful death looks like, in full faith that God would take care of her, and that God would take care of her family. What a witness of spiritual healing, even though there was no physical cure.

And here’s another experience of the kingdom that I had, only a month or so ago. I went up to a man whose wife had died a few weeks earlier. I asked, “How are you?” I was struck by his reply. He said, “The healing is happening.” As God leads us through grief into healing, there is the kingdom of God.

So, I think it is true: Healing doesn’t necessarily mean a physical cure.

* * *

Whenever there is healing, there is the kingdom of God.

Have you experienced physical healing? There is the kingdom of God.

Have you experienced the healing of a conflicted relationship; of reconciliation, even, with someone who’s been estranged? There is the kingdom of God.

Whether we are conscious of it or not, whenever we experience healing, there is the kingdom of God. Whenever we receive healing – because healing comes to us, as a gift – there is the kingdom of God.

What joy there is in paying attention to this!

In the name of God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pastor Andy Ballentine