+LITTLE GIRL, I SAY TO YOU, ARISE! 13th Sunday-B, 2024
Our readings this morning have us take a close look at the reality of death and what God has in mind for us. Our first reading from Wisdom tells us that God has formed us to be imperishable, making us in the image of God’s very own nature. It is because of the envy of the devil that death has come into our world.
Our gospel tells of two women, the one only twelve years old, the other afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years. This latter suffered these years at the hands of many doctors who could not heal here. One can only be grateful that the medical field has so greatly improved. Today those who work in infirmaries or hospitals are faced with some hard decisions as to when to keep someone alive or to let them pass to a better life. I know of a few of our own brethren who were not at all intent on remaining in this mortal life.
What our readings have most to offer I think, are the benefits of an abiding faith. The synagogue official Jairus, whose daughter was at the point of death, fell at Jesus’ feet, pleading that he come and lay hands on her. The woman suffering from hemorrhages came up behind him saying to herself: “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.” She did this at some risk to herself for because of her illness she was unclean and would make anyone she touched to be unclean according to the law. But immediately power went out from Jesus and she was completely healed of her affliction that had lasted twelve years. Her faith had saved her.
Meanwhile people from the synagogue tell Jairus his daughter has died and not to trouble the teacher any longer. Jesus tells Jairus “not to be afraid, just have faith.” What may be the most revealing words in our readings this morning, is what Jesus says when he came to the official’s house where all the people were weeping and wailing loudly. “The child is not dead but asleep” he tells them, only to be ridiculed. What I think we are all being called to do by these words, is move beyond our limited view of human life and to see what God sees. There is a whole new world we are being invited into.
It is our Christian faith that opens us up to this much larger view, when we are so often limited by what we see or think of what’s happening around us. And isn’t this what St Paul is trying to tell us in his 2nd letter to the Corinthians from which we just heard. He would have them and us all to “know the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, for [our] sake he became poor, so that by his poverty [we] might become rich.” This great act of love by which God has entered fully into our poverty, our sickness, our hemorrhages, our human weakness, our political instability, our war-torn world, our great poverty is what gives us a lasting faith and an abiding hope.
God has entered fully into all our poverty and is ready to heal all our human fragility if we allow Christ’s loving presence to fill our hearts. It is this love we celebrate here at this altar, in this Eucharist. The Christ who endured all our human weakness takes these simple elements of bread and wine, changing them into his very Body and Blood, so as to fill us with his own divine life and love.
Here we are not only touching the clothes of Jesus as the woman with the flow of blood, but his very own Body and blood. So let us through faith, open our minds and hearts to his healing power.