Risking faith in Jesus

Mark 5: 21-43

I visited someone this week who was telling me that where her daughter lives, in Canada, going to church or chapel is the norm “You’re the odd one out there if you don’t go to worship, if you don’t believe – here it’s the other way round. We are the odd ones out”. 

It can feel risky to say you believe in God, or that you try to follow Jesus, or that you choose to go to church or chapel on a Sunday.

In “The Message” version of the Bible, the intertwined stories we heard of people seeking healing from Jesus are given the title “the risk of faith”. Was it really that risky to ask Jesus for help, for healing?

 

The first person to take a risk is Jairus. He’s the leader of the synagogue – he might think that Jesus could be a bit dodgy, not the sort of person you want to be associated with. Jesus is teaching and healing outside the synagogue, the official place of worship, as well as inside.

 

But Jairus puts his daughter’s needs first, and comes to beg Jesus to come to his house: his daughter is at death’s door. His request is full of action, full of verbs:

‘Come.. lay hands on her…save her’.

At first, there’s relief – Jesus goes with him – there is a chance. His risk has paid off. But then things get really tense for Jairus – Jesus is stopped in his tracks by an interruption.

 

A woman who has suffered haemorrhages for 12 years comes seeking healing, coming up behind Jesus to touch his cloak. She takes the risk of being in the crowd at all – bleeding, especially women’s bleeding was considered to be unclean – she should be at home, behind closed doors.

But her risk pays off, too - there and then, as she touches Jesus cloak she is healed. 

This needn’t have delayed Jesus – the disciples and Jairus know nothing at this stage and the crowd could just have passed on.

But Jesus knows – Mark says he is aware of the power going out of him and he stops and turns round, asking ‘who touched my clothes?’. His disciples point out that he is in the midst of a jostling crowd – but Jesus waits for the one who has touched him seeking healing to step forward.

 

It’s easy to imagine you are Jairus in this moment… you just want to get Jesus home to your daughter – time is of the essence. We can imagine the poor man hopping from foot to foot, ‘come on, Jesus.. please…’.

 

We can ease our tension by reminding ourselves that Jairus’s daughter will be not only healed but raised from death by Jesus – so all will be well for Jairus and his family.

I want us, for a moment, to shift our imaginations back to the woman at the heart of the interruption.

 

When she risks confessing the whole truth to Jesus he does an amazing thing – a unique thing in the gospels.

He calls her ‘daughter’: ‘Daughter your faith has healed you. Go in peace, free from your afflictions.’

 

We never learn her name – but the shift from desperate face in the crowd to beloved and healed daughter of Jesus surely makes her the most important interruption in the whole of Jesus’ ministry and shows that however risky it is for her, she is right to take the risk of reaching out for healing from Jesus.

 

How does this story feels from her point of view? What would she say if we asked her?

“ I was desperate…drained…destitute. For 12 long years this bleeding had afflicted me: and the doctors took my money, but it got worse. I had heard about this Jesus..and he came to our village. I joined the crowd, making sure no-one recognised me – out in public and touching other people! I said to myself that  if I could just sneak up behind Jesus and touch his cloak I might be healed. I pressed forward.. I reached out.. I touched him.. and I felt the bleeding stop. I could scarcely breathe. I was healed.

But just then Jesus turned round and stared at us all and asked ‘who touched me?’.

I knew I had to tell him, whatever might happen. I had to take the risk. I was trembling as I knelt before him and explained who I was, what I had done, what had happened. Would he punish me for touching him?.. but then he looked at me with such … such grace. “Daughter, your faith has made you well, go in peace”.

Then people around me in the crowd started to smile at me, too: I was…me again.. and a loved daughter of Jesus, who healed me.”

 

This woman was far from being just a risky interruption in Jesus’ mission to save Jairus’s daughter – this woman was the whole focus of healing and power for Jesus in that moment.

 

But meanwhile Jairus receives the worst news possible. Some people arrive with the dreadful news that his daughter has died.

Jairus’s risk, asking Jesus for help, has not paid off – it is too late.

But Jesus says to Jairus “Do not fear, only believe”: and together they travel to his home (too late, surely – the mourners are already weeping outside). Jairus risks continuing to have faith in Jesus – and 

miraculously all is put right. Jesus returns his daughter to him, alive and hungry!

 

This story, so full of risk and tension, ends in two healings for those who are prepared to trust Jesus and risk faith in him.

 

And what about us? We have decided to worship God today. We might even think we will be lucky enough to be part of a crowd who bump into Jesus here; the spiritual equivalent of seeing Jesus from a distance – being aware of the stories of his love and healing.

But dare we take the risk of faith, like Jairus and the woman?

 

We can dare to reach out in our need for healing, despite all that has happened to us;  we can trust that Jesus will respond to us, heal us, restore us, and we can trust that he will call to us ‘son, be made well’, ‘daughter, your faith has healed you’.

 

Whatever the people or the events crowding in on us – the healing of Jesus is available to us. Risk, trust, believe, reach… and be made whole.

We might well be the odd ones out – to trust and worship the God who comes to us in Jesus; but we are the ones who believe that in Jesus we can be made whole.

 

And what about our church communities – how can we encourage each other to take more risks in the name of Jesus? Above all, can we take the risk of allowing God’s Spirit to show us when something or someone is not an interruption or distraction, but is a call to respond there and then - that we can risk trying to do something to help.

 

I can think of a church I know where the young people of the area used to wander round the church car park. So the church locked the gates and put barbed wire on top of the wall to keep them out. Then the young people used to stand at the bus stop next to the church and throw glass bottles over the wall, to have the satisfaction of hearing them smash on the other side. The church could no longer use the car park because of the broken glass, so they campaigned to have the bus stop moved, to try to stop the young people from gathering there. 

But eventually there was a change of leadership and a change of heart. The barbed wire came down, the hall was opened up to a toy library, food club and repair shop. 

For too long the church had considered the behaviour of the community as an interruption to their work, rather than a call to deeper involvement in the needs of the community. By the time they took the risk of faith, the church was too depleted to continue to sustain their building any longer and they made the difficult decision to close. 

But the community were determined to keep the activities going that meant so much to them. The building has now been sold to a firm aiming to build student flats and a community space that can still be used for the kingdom of God. Some people are praying for the required planning permission to come through.

 

Being involved in the work of Jesus involves taking a risk of faith to reach out in his name, having trust for healing where we are wrong, and showing a readiness to be interrupted from our own plans, for God’s sake.

 

Whichever way we vote on Thursday, and whatever the result of the General Election, I pray we will move into the future knowing the power of Jesus to touch us. 

 

Restored, healed and welcomed by Jesus, I pray we will learn to live with risks, asking how we can best serve our neighbours.

So may we put our trust in faith in Jesus and move in the strength of his Spirit, to God’s praise and glory. Amen.