Lectionary reading
First reading: Wisdom 1:13-15; 2:23-24.
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 29(30):2, 4-6, 11-13.
Second reading: 2 Corinthians 8:7, 9, 13-15.
Gospel: Mark 5:21-43.
Link to readings
Commentary
The theme running across the scriptural offerings this week is that of God as the Giver of life. This is present most strikingly in the Gospel where Jesus brings back to life a dead child. But the First Reading, from the Book of Wisdom (1:13-15; 2:23-24) prepares the way, offering its own distinctive interpretation of the creation story in the early chapters of Genesis. The author insists that human beings have been created to share eternal life with God. If there is death, as indeed there is, it has not come from God but from another source: the envy of a fallen angel, the devil, who by inducing human beings to sin has rendered them unfit for eternal life and so subject to mortality.
This understanding of physical death as the consequence of sin is at odds with modern thought which sees the destiny to die as simply an aspect of being human. Be that as it may, the Book of Wisdom is not open to question in what it affirms concerning eternal life and death. God’s entire will to share eternal life with human beings; it is only human sinfulness that renders physical death eternal death in the sense of ultimate separation from God. By raising Jesus from the dead God has triumphantly demonstrated that physical death, though unavoidable, does not have the last word.
JOURNEY OF FAITH
The intertwined miracles told in the Gospel (Mark 5:21-43) dramatically present Jesus as the conqueror of death. Also, the fact that Jesus’ journey to attend to the dying daughter of the synagogue ruler, Jairus, is interrupted by the healing of the woman suffering from a haemorrhage, offers a significant instruction in faith. In terrible anxiety, Jairus has to stand by and wait while Jesus attends to the woman. We feel his shock at the news so bluntly conveyed to him, “Your daughter is dead. Why put the Master to any further trouble?” Jesus’ response, literally translated, means, “Do not be afraid. Just keep on believing”. Jairus must continue on his journey of faith, a journey now confronting not just grave illness but death itself.
What of the woman? She illustrates a different aspect of faith, not so much one that has to persevere as a faith that overcomes barriers. The account makes much of the fact that a great crowd of people presses in on Jesus as he makes his way to Jairus’ house. Everyone in a sense is touching him, as the disciples rudely point out (v.31). But one person in the crowd touches him in a different way: touches him with faith.
Jesus, realising the “power” (of healing) that faith has drawn out of him, stops and insists that the woman come forward and be acknowledged. Knowing that her condition rendered her unclean and therefore not permitted to touch other people because that would transfer ritual impurity to them, she had hoped to access Jesus’ power simply by a hidden touching of his clothes. That touch healed her physically but for Jesus healing involved much more. By bringing her out in public Jesus offers her social rehabilitation. By asserting that her faith had brought her healing he makes her an example of how faith gives access to the “salvation” he has come to bring.
POWER OF THE RISEN LORD
Through her affliction, the woman suffered social exclusion for 12 years. The little girl to whose deathbed Jesus has been summoned was 12 years old; she had died on the threshold of adult life. The numerical correspondence is not coincidental. In the house, with everyone else save the parents and three closest disciples excluded, Jesus raises the girl so that, now arrived at marriageable age, she may take up her adult life, just as the woman returns to life in the community – including the possibility of marriage – after a 12-year exclusion. The scene is attractively domestic. Faith has rendered the Christian household a place of access to the power of the risen Lord.
Of course, for parents who have themselves suffered the loss of a child the Gospel story will be very painful. Fine in the end for Jairus and his wife. Where was Jesus when our son or daughter died?
There is no easy answer. But one can at least point to the fact that God let Jairus’ daughter die. Delayed by the woman, Jesus arrived too late on the scene. But his overcoming of physical death in this one case points, in a sacramental sense, to a deeper truth. In and beyond the physical death that he himself tasted to the full, he is the One through whom God remains for all believers the author and giver of eternal life.
Paul’s appeal for generosity in the Second Reading (2 Cor 8:7,9, 13-15) contains a beautiful reflection on the Incarnation of Christ in terms of richness and poverty.
Brendan Byrne, SJ, FAHA, taught New Testament at Jesuit Theological College, Parkville, Vic., for almost forty years. He is now Emeritus Professor at the University of Divinity (Melbourne). His commentaries on the Gospels can be found at Pauline Books and Media