Mark 5: 21-43 The Healing of the Women as well as the Raising of the Child.
Motto for day: Accept, Heal and Send
This
passage is one of my favorites in the Bible. It also lends it self to
great use in both sermons, church school and of course alternative
worship ideas. Why not eat sandwiches or bring one to show how a
sandwich just isn't as good without all the stuff in the middle. This
passage could be a pretty great and amazing example of Jesus' ability to
rise someone from the dead and in itself a wonderful miracle passage.
But instead it isn't just about one miracle it is about two. So why is
that?
Here we have Jesus' healing a young girl of only
12 years and also a women who has suffered 12 years of bleeding. Here
we have Jesus going to the house of someone who is desperately trying to
save his child and perhaps not as truly strong in their belief in Jesus
along side a women with so much faith in Jesus that she need only touch
his clothes. Here we have a women so desperate to belong, to fit in
and to be healed for her life and all she has is gone and a young girl
who still has her life to live. If Jesus had not stopped to help this
women, the girls story may have ended differently - for perhaps there
would not have been the miracle that it was. Perhaps Jesus would have
made it "on time" to heal her instead of needing to raise her.
Although
we can go in many ways in this passage: one thing is for sure - Jesus
power is great! For the church a good discussion on this passage is HOW
does the church with great faith need to stop in our own tracks and see
the world around us? How does the church need to heal before we can go
out and truly be in peace? How does the church seem like the little
girl dying waiting for Jesus to heal? Are we at a point when we indeed
need to die before the church can once again flourish?
