A Markan Sandwich

Scripture — Mark 5:21-43 (NRSV)

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 he went with him.

And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. 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?’” He 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.”

While he was still speaking, 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.” He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

Devotion

As with yesterday’s devotion from 2 Corinthians, today’s Gospel passage fits into the general move in Ordinary Time to move consecutively through Biblical books. This year, for the Gospel reading, we travel through the Gospel of Mark. It’s hard to tell this story from the Gospel of Mark without reprinting the entire passage, and so I have.

The story, of course, is really two stories. Mark often tells a story from Jesus’s life with another story embedded in the middle—so often, in fact, that Biblical scholars call his method here the “Markan sandwich” (yes, really! The more technical term is “intercalation,” but having spelled that once I don’t want to ever try to spell it again, so you can see why people say “sandwich” instead.) In this particular passage, the story about Jairus and his daughter takes up verses 5:21-24 and 5:35-43, and is interrupted in 5:25-34 with the story of the woman suffering from the flow of blood.

Of course, the first reason for Mark to make one of these sandwiches is simply that he is acting as a reporter; that’s the order in which these things happened, so that’s the order in which he’s going to tell them. (Think about how often we get interrupted while trying to do things in our own lives!) But it seems clear from how Mark tells these stories that more is at work here than that. Jesus may, in fact, have been interrupted other times on the way to heal Jairus’s daughter—but it is this particular interruption that Mark wants to call out.

In this case, both stories involve healings. Both healings involve women. Both situations have gotten to the point where they seem hopeless and it is believed that only Jesus can do anything about the problem. But the stories also differ. Jairus is a well-respected synagogue leader with a large household, and the woman with the flow of blood, who is never named in the story, is definitely poor (5:26) and presumably alone. While Jesus directly takes explicit actions to heal Jairus’s daughter, the initiative in terms of the woman with the flow of blood is all on her side; she touches Jesus’ cloak and the healing happens even before Jesus clearly acknowledges it.

There are a couple of things I think this “sandwich” tells us. One is the emphasis on healing as a big part of what Jesus was about. Jesus did so much healing in his ministry, Mark seems to be saying, that he sometimes healed multiple people at once!

Furthermore, both these people expect that healing will come as a result of their encounter with Jesus, even before they have any evidence in their own lives. (They have presumably heard stories about Jesus’s healing power—in fact, it’s explicitly mentioned that the woman has heard such things—but have not yet seen it firsthand). Jairus trusts that Jesus can make his daughter well (indeed, Jesus urges him to do so even after his daughter is reported to be dead), and the woman trusts that all she has to do is touch Jesus’s cloak to get what she needs.

The contrasts between the stories actually serve to point out exactly how broad-ranging Jesus’ healing power is; the inbreaking of the kingdom is not limited to the rich and powerful. It can happen to anyone. It can happen anywhere. All it takes is an encounter with the living Christ.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the High Calling archive, hosted by the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Who Touched Me?