“My daughter is at the point of death.
Please, come lay your hands on her
that she may get well and live.”
Our love for others can draw from us great faith. Many of us intercede for others in a rote and formulaic way most of the time. We work through our list to make sure no one gets omitted. And there is nothing wrong with such a litany of requests. However, at other times, we become so deeply invested in the outcome that our intercession is an entirely different experience. When something equivalent to the life of our daughter is on the line we may become so desperate as to fall at the feet of Jesus, forgetting our synagogue status, and pleading with him earnestly. When our desire for our prayer to be answered is no mere abstraction more faith is required. We will desire to believe that Jesus can do what we need, because if we are able to believe it we can hope. We might, however, worry that since our motivation is not entirely altruistic Jesus would not honor it. We might then experience a litany of doubts, pushing us toward despair.
“Your daughter has died; why trouble the teacher any longer?”
But Jesus is emphatically able to work with us in our human circumstances, even with motives that are not yet perfect. Love for a daughter can lead to greater faith in him, leading in turn to greater love for the daughter, in a virtuous cycle.
“Do not be afraid; just have faith.”
Jesus does not enter our circumstances as merely one more perpetrator of the world's commotion. In fact, to begin his process of healing and transformation he casts out the weeping and wailing of the world. He creates a space where the world's short-sighted perspective loses its power, where even the desperation that originally led Jairus to summon Jesus gives way to faith and to new life. Perhaps if we are in need of new life we can begin by allowing Jesus to cast out all the voices of despair that end up making us feel hopeless. Maybe then, finally, we will hear him speak to us as he did to the girl.
He took the child by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum,”
which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise!”
The woman with the flow of blood was another example where the greatness of the need impelled an individual to an act of great faith.
She said, “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.”
We ourselves touch Jesus every time we go to mass, more intimately than merely touching his clothes. But do we touch him with this level of faith, faith which understands that anything is possible for him? We ought not give up even if our need has persisted for twelve years. Perhaps all of that time has just been a preparation of our faith for the opportunity to finally encounter the power of the touch of Jesus.
We may, like David, be face circumstances that drive us and our loved ones into periods of mourning. The time between tragedy and the Last Day might be measured in many years. But unlike David we know that we and our loved ones have a hope beyond this valley of tears. More than Jairus we have reason for joy, for his daughter would die again, but our hope is life without end. The sorrows of this world can serve for us as a reminder that eternity awaits, and the hope of the glory of that life. May the Lord strengthen our faith so that we might be ready for that day.
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