In today’s Gospel reading (Mk 5:21-43) we have more stories about faith. Last week it was the disciples on the boat in the storm. Today there are two very different stories. And Mark chooses not to put them one after another, but one inside the other, as it were. He starts the story of Jairus, then breaks off to tell the story of the woman who is suffering from uterine bleeding, then returns to Jairus – whose situation has got much worse. His daughter is now not sick but has died.
Why does Mark juxtapose these stories in this way? Particularly since they seem to have no common thread except the fact that Jesus is healing.
The fact that Jesus healed was not in itself big news in the eyes of the evangelists. It was to be expected. There are plenty of places where they mention Jesus healing people with no further details at all. The significance of these stories is not in the healing but hearing about the people who were healed, what was their journey of faith.
In both these cases there were two stages in the process. Both start with what appears to us to be faith – Jairus and the woman both believe that Jesus can heal. But when Jesus is looking for faith it seems he is asking for more than that. He’s not satisfied to know that he has healed someone, he wants acknowledgement of the fact and the relationship that implies. The woman has to “tell him the whole truth”. It’s at that point Jesus acknowledges her faith and confirms that she is healed.
The two stages of Jairus’ healing (his healing and his daughter’s are one and the same) are divided by the story of the woman. He also starts with belief in Jesus – he can heal. But it is only after he gets the news that his daughter is dead that Jesus challenges him to hold onto his faith. Now he has to go “all in” with Jesus. This commitment to Jesus is not a public act, quite the opposite, and Jesus does not ask him to do anything in particular, other than to hold onto what he believed in circumstances that now make it much more challenging.
Because Jairus is faithful, that is, his faith wasn’t just a matter of asking for something, it was a commitment to Jesus in the same way that the woman opens herself up to Jesus, that faith leads to healing, for his daughter and thus for himself.
Faith isn’t some sort of bargain with God – I’ll believe really, really strongly in order to get something I want. It’s a radical openness to the power of God, independent of how he exercises that power, regardless of whether I get what I want. It’s a willingness to accept Jesus even after your daughter is dead and everyone around is saying “don’t be stupid, it’s over, nothing can be done“. It’s a willingness to open up about the shame of a condition which was the ultimate in uncleanliness and acknowledge God’s healing. That is the faith that Mark is illustrating for us.