Grace to you from
God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus, The Christ. Amen
Desperate Hope,
Resilient Faith,
And Healing—
These are the words that come to
me today.
We believe in a
God who is the author and giver of all life, and Jesus, the Son who came to
redeem and heal.
Powerful stories
of healing dot our lives.
We’ve heard them,
perhaps even experienced them.
And also, there
are those times of disappointment, of longing for a healing that did not come.
This is the
stuff, the important stuff, of faith and life.
A father is
desperate.
His daughter is
at the point of death, and so, he reaches out to Jesus, begging him to lay his
hands on his daughter and make her well, so that she might live.
Many people have
prayed the prayer.
Sometimes we pray
because we believe it’s the first thing we should do. We pray at the first sign of trouble, a
diagnosis we did not want, and yet we pray with a degree of confidence in the
prognosis, believing that God can heal us through the various gifts of the
medical profession.
And indeed, there
are so many times when those prayers do not disappoint, when healing comes, and
when life is fully restored.
Thinking of my
own life, I am reminded of having heart surgery. My mitral valve had failed. In time, it might have killed me.
Prayers were
offered. And a skilled surgeon sought
out, and healing happened. A time of
thanksgiving. And then life goes
on. It’s been over fifteen years now and
everything is fine.
Such healings
come so frequently these days, we hardly even think of them as an answer to
prayer. We tend to think that healing occurred
because we had a gifted surgeon. And a
well trained medical staff.
Yet, we pray
because that’s what we do as people of faith, and whether Jesus gets the credit
or not, we are healed.
Thanks be to God.
When Jairus came
to Jesus, it was not the first thing he had tried.
His was not a
prayer of reverent and confident piety offered as a matter of course.
Everything he had
tried had failed.
His daughter was
at the point of death.
And his prayer
was now one of desperation.
Brad was my
doctor, the one who had diagnosed my heart problem.
A few years after
that, tumors were discovered in Brad’s
brain. Such news sets all sorts
of things in action. Surgery was not
possible, but radiation was, and so the journey began.
Prayers, week in
and week out.
But as the weeks
and months passed by, those prayers became increasingly desperate, and even
hopeless. At the point of death we
prayed more for peace, than healing, and in anticipation of the resurrection.
That’s likely
where Jairus was, hoping against all hope, desperate, but also realistic.
What could it
hurt, this one last try.
There was no time
to waste.
And so he turned
to Jesus.
Here’s where a
curious turn of events happened.
On the way, as
the crowd pressed in upon Jesus, a woman who had suffered many years from hemorrhaging,
snuck up behind Jesus and touched him, hoping that by doing so she might be
healed.
And in that
moment, she was.
“Who touched me?”
was Jesus response.
What ensued was a
conversation that Jairus probably found both hopeful and disturbing all at the
same time.
That Jesus had
healed this woman undoubtedly gave him hope.
And yet time was
running out and here they were caught in the crowds, delayed. And his daughter was at the point of death.
There is a
subplot going on here, that we might note.
Jairus was a
leader of the synagogue.
The woman, due to
her ailment, her bleeding, was an untouchable.
To touch her made one unclean.
Jesus, feeling
her touch, would have become unclean himself according to the Law.
At any rate, it
was an outcast that had delayed Jesus going to Jairus’ daughter. An outcast who was healed.
Imagine if your
heart surgery had been delayed because a homeless person had been brought in
that day. . .
And then, Jairus’
friends arrived from his home.
It was in fact,
too late. His daughter had died.
So often, this is
where we find ourselves.
We are left to
offer care and compassion at the time of death.
One morning I
received the phone call from my colleague at hospice. Brad had indeed died.
And so we go,
intent on only one thing, doing what needed to be done at the point of death.
A different prayer
would be offered.
A funeral would
be planned.
We try to find
words to comfort one another, but there really are none, grieving is the agenda
for the day.
“Your daughter is
dead. Why trouble the teacher any
further?”
We have resolved
to accept death as a part of life.
Gathered together
in Brad’s living room with his wife, and his doctor friends, we dealt with
reality that day.
The prayers for
healing had long since fallen silent.
As a pastor the
scene is all too familiar.
Every time I
experience it, I’m reminded of the many times before.
Despair, though,
is not the emotion of the day.
There is a
resilience of hope, and we do not grieve as those who have no faith.
“Take off your
shoes, Moses, for you are standing on Holy
Ground.”
The time of death
is a sacred time and a sacred space.
Holy.
My own ministry
was shaped early on by the experience of death, some far too soon, some delayed
so long.
I began to see my
ministry as “walking people to the gates of heaven.”
We speak of that
ultimate hope in the face of death.
We might have
preferred that healing had come, but we still have hope.
And yet, as holy
as those times are, there is a yearning.
I wish that I had
the power to say two words. Just two
words in those moments.
Especially when
death comes too soon, like it did for Alison, a fifteen year old, or Paul, a
nine year old, or for the Benton’s baby, just five days old, all people who
died within a few weeks of each other in my first parish.
Two word I wish I
could have spoken.
“Talitha Cum.”
“Little girl, get
up!”
But only Jesus
can speak those words.
Not I.
Not You.
Not the greatest
surgeon in the world.
Just Jesus and
him alone.
Prayer has its
limits.
That’s what I’ve
come to believe.
And this is the
limit.
No matter how desperate,
no matter how resilient our faith, no matter how hopeful – we cannot pray
ourselves out of our own mortality.
Talitha Cum.
Oh that we could
speak those words, oh that Jesus would speak those words, to all the Alisons,
or Pauls, or dying babies of this world.
Death, however,
will never be defeated this side of the grave.
This is a mystery
hidden in God’s wisdom.
We will never
know or understand why some are healed, and others die far too soon.
Oh, we know the
basics.
Brad died because
of the tumors that grew uncontrollably in his brain.
Alison, because
she was thrown from a car going about 80 miles an hour.
Paul, because of
a blow to his head.
And the Bensons
baby because it had been born before its lungs had developed enough.
What we
understand though, is merely the cause of death, not the why.
But even more so,
Life’s ultimate victory will remain for us a mystery until that day dawns in
heaven.
But what we have
is a deep, resilient faith, that will not be defeated in the face of the
reality of death.
Jesus will speak
the words “Talitha cum!”
And we will arise
and experience what is spoken about in Revelation:
"See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no
more,
for the first things have passed away."
Amen, Come, Lord
Jesus. Amen and Amen.
