Mar 16 2020 Mark 5:21-43

'Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’

Jesus is on his way to heal Jairus’ daughter. On his way, a woman who’s been hemorrhaging for twelve years works her way through the crowd to Jesus. She believes that if she just touches his cloak she’ll be healed. So she does. An interesting detail in the story is that Jesus feels that the power goes out of him at that moment, and looks around to see who’s touched him. With the crowds pressing in, the disciples remind him it would be difficult to spot just one person who touched him.

The woman comes forward and identifies herself as the one who touched Jesus, falling at his feet, in fear and trembling. In response, Jesus explains that her faith has healed her. Jesus continues on to heal Jarius’ daughter too.

Here we have another one of Jesus’ healing story. It’s a challenging time in the world and in my house to read two more accounts of Jesus’ miraculous healing. This pandemic is gripping our town, nation and world. In Italy, the decision has been made to simply not treat people over 80 years old, because the system is so overwhelmed. And while the death toll is mounting, the economic and community costs are perhaps greater. Restaurants are being forced to close, events, and gatherings of the faithful all cancelled. Small businesses, those on the financial edge, and the people who work there will struggle to recover after weeks or months of forced closure. The same is true for faith communities.

In my home, my loved one is back in the hospital to be evaluated and stabilized this week, during which time, professionals will decide what’s next. Meanwhile, those same professionals are dealing with the pandemic on a professional and personal level.

Where’s Jesus in all of this misery? Have we deserved this? Are we not praying hard enough? Or worse, have we done something – individually or collectively – to deserve God’s wrath or apathy?

Those are questions it’s hard not to ask, when you look around. Asking them makes me feel like the psalmist, who was lamenting and railing at God. I can imagine the psalmist shaking a fist at God. I can imagine me shaking a fist at God.

And once I’ve done that, I come back to the place of a certain knowledge that God is with us. God is with the ill and dying. Like the hemorrhaging woman who comes in fear, God is with us in our fear and trembling. Even when we laugh like the people around Jairus’ daughter at Jesus’ proclamation that she’s just sleeping, God is with us.

As certain as I am that God is with us, I’m also certain that we did nothing to deserve this. God isn’t apathetic or wrathful. We aren’t insufficient in our prayer. This pandemic or my loved one’s illness isn’t my fault, and definitely does not prove God’s impotence. God is with me. God is with the dying. God is with the fearful. God is with my loved one.

Looking back at what Jesus said to the hemorrhaging woman, I’m struck at what he said. Your faith has made you well. He did not say you are cured of the disease. She was made well. Perhaps with our faith, we can be made well – not cured, but freed from the fear and anger and sense of abandonment.

Then Jesus tells her to go in peace. He says this to a woman who minutes before came to him in fear and trembling. Jesus is talking about healing that part of her – the part that was fearful and trembling. ‘Go in peace’ isn’t about hemorrhages, it’s about her fear. He speaks to her outlook and perceptions. Go in peace.

This morning, I’m thinking about all of us in fear and trembling. I’m thinking about shaking my fist at God, asking where is God now. And mostly, I’m thinking about Jesus’ response about faith, and peace. That’s what we all need now. Faith. And then we need to go in peace.