There's Room for You, Too - Part 2
Defining our value #2B
by Jamie Steach
Wait! This is the second part of a 2-part piece. If you didn’t read Part 1 from last week, looking at the woman’s experience in the first half of this story, do that now! (click here)
As a brief recap of Part 1, in Mark 5:21-35, we saw Jesus defy the cultural norms of Jewish society to give special attention to a woman who was desperately seeking His healing. A synagogue leader, Jairus, had come to Jesus right before the woman to beg Jesus to come and heal his daughter. When we left off last week, Jesus had deliberately stopped on His way to Jairus’s house to connect with this woman and offer her safety and belonging, which was likely the first time in 12 years (or maybe even in her life) she had felt this. In Part 1, we focused on the experience of the woman in this story, and now we pick up immediately following news from Jairus’s house that his daughter has died.
Last week, we saw a powerful example in Mark 5 of how Jesus took the time to not just physically heal a woman, but to offer her emotional safety, and a place of value and belonging with Him, as well.
On the flip side of this story, as we jump back in, let’s not forget about Jairus. He’s desperate, as well, and I’m sure it absolutely rocks him to his core to hear those four little words, “your daughter is dead”. Maybe Jairus is even feeling some of those same things we talked about last week in this moment. Maybe he’s thinking: Why weren’t my needs important enough? What about my daughter, my family? Don’t you care about us, too? For most of his life, he has probably been secure in his place and his value. He is probably respected by the people, and trusts that he is important enough that he will receive help when he asks for it. I can see him being caught in the “what about me?” question, and also now questioning his own position of security. This would make sense, as we often find ourselves asking “what about me?” in times where we are uncertain of our place, and of our value. I don’t think that Jairus seems like a prideful person, because to come and fall at Jesus’s feet (v. 22) in the first place as a synagogue leader looks more like humility. But then again, maybe he sees Jesus as a fellow rabbi, and even as a superior teacher to himself, which would both warrant his respect and cause him to expect Jesus to act a certain way. In any case, it’s possible that Jairus has built an illusion of security because of his position in life, and that security is now challenged, forcing him to question the space he thought was his.
Honestly, I can relate to being in this place, as well. If our security isn’t in God, and if God isn’t the one who defines our space, then we will go looking for these things in other places. One place that I found my security and value was school. School was always pretty easy for me, and I built up a reputation as the genius kid that always had all the answers. There would literally be times in high school where during a review game, the whole class would complain that I should play by myself while the rest of them would be a team because that’s what would make it fair. Sure, it felt good for a while to have my scholastic ability widely respected and acknowledged, but there was a danger with this. It made it impossible for me to ever make mistakes. If I ever answered a question wrong or didn’t know the answer to something, people would act like the world was ending. Or at least it felt that way to me. And my security was so wrapped up in being the smartest person that if I ever did make a mistake, it shook my whole sense of value and shattered the illusion of security I had built. So, in my mind, I was never allowed to make mistakes. I had to be perfect. I know this isn’t exactly the position of Jairus, but I can relate in the sense of having your illusion of security shattered by little situations that don’t go the way you expect them to, and then feeling removed from your space as a result.
In any case, let’s get back to Jairus’s place in this story. The woman, who we would expect to have no room here, has just been given a secure space by Jesus. In that moment, I’m sure it might have looked like Jairus wasn’t important enough for Jesus’s time or attention. But how does Jesus respond to the news of the messengers?
36 Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”
37 He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. 38 When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. 39 He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” 40 But they laughed at him.
After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. 41 He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”). 42 Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. 43 He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat.
(Mark 5:36-43 NIV)
There’s a couple of things I love about Jesus’s immediate response to the news of Jairus’s daughter. First, I love that there is a footnote for this passage of how “overhearing” is also translated “ignoring” in verse 36. Because of course Jesus’s power is greater than death, so He can afford to ignore statements like that, and Jairus wasn’t bothering Him. With Jesus, it’s never too late to be healed. But Jairus doesn’t know this, because Jesus never goes around publicly declaring who He is (as in v. 43). This brings me to the second thing I love about this response. Jairus has just witnessed Jesus heal a woman who has been suffering for 12 years from something that was apparently incurable by their doctors. He has just witnessed a miracle by God’s power at the hand of Jesus, and really it seems that all Jesus had to do was exist for it to happen. If seeing that miracle doesn’t give him enough faith that Jesus can still help him, then I don’t know what will. And, as we have just heard, it’s the woman’s faith that heals her. Faith is an important component that we see every time Jesus does a miracle in the gospels. If Jairus doesn’t have faith, then he won’t see his daughter be healed. So really, in this response, Jesus is encouraging Jairus to put his faith in God, and not in what he can see.
There is a part of my mind that is convinced that one of the reasons that Jesus met this woman on the same day was to build the faith of Jairus. I don’t say that to take away from anything discussed previously, or to say that her encounter with Jesus was not actually about her, but I say this from a place of looking at the purpose of miracles. Yes, Jesus did miracles because He loved people and wanted to bring them healing, but their purpose was something greater. Jesus’s miracles happened to give evidence to who He was, and to be a sign from God that the time of the Kingdom had come (Matthew 11:2-6, John 20:30-31). Miracles are just as much about building our faith as they are about bringing healing to those who received them. It is with this in mind that I say this woman’s miracle was not just for her, though the experience definitely was for her. I think this kind of situation still happens to us today. How often do we see someone else receive what we have been asking or anxiously waiting for? And what do we feel in response to that? Jairus is in the same situation here. He has come asking for a miracle, for healing, only to watch someone else receive what he is desperate for. He has two choices in how he will respond. He can respond enviously, with bitterness or sorrow, lamenting why he wasn’t the one to receive that healing when he had clearly asked for it first. This would be a perspective of scarcity, that if Jesus uses His power on this woman then there is none left for me. No room for me. His other option is to let this miracle inspire and build up his faith, and to let it show him that it’s possible to receive what he’s asking for. He needs a healing that no doctor could provide, and that is exactly what he just witnessed. This would be a perspective of abundance, that Jesus’s power isn’t limited to a finite number of miracles, but that He can do just as much for me as I just saw Him do for you. Just like Jairus, we have a choice when we see other people receive what we want from God. We can choose to be bitter and discouraged that it wasn’t us, or we can be encouraged in our faith and rejoice with others, having clear evidence and hope of what could be ours as well.
Whether it’s due to hope or witnessing this miracle, it seems Jairus chooses to have faith, because the next thing we see is Jesus bringing His inner circle (Peter, James, and John) and going to Jairus’s house. I wonder what that walk to his house was like. Did Jairus feel discouraged on the way there, having thoughts similar to Mary and Martha in John 11, that if Jesus had just been there in time, his daughter wouldn’t have died? Did they walk in silence, or did Jesus continue to reassure Jairus along the way? I also wonder what Jairus was thinking when Jesus told the mourners that his daughter was just asleep, and they laughed at Him. Did he question Jesus’s sanity? Did it give him more hope that the people watching his daughter had got it wrong? Whatever the case, he decided to put his hope in Jesus, in God’s power that he had witnessed, and his daughter was brought back to life because of it. Imagine the overwhelming sense of relief and gratitude that Jairus must feel, that Jesus had made time to come to his house, that Jesus had ignored the words of the messengers. How loved and important would you feel that Jesus took the time to grace your house with so great a miracle? That Jesus chose to support your hope even when no one else did, or when it looked like hope was lost? I see Jesus appear very powerfully in different ways to different people in this story, and it tells me that there is always room for us with Jesus, and that Jesus will always have time to show us we are important to Him. Jesus is able to, and will, meet our specific needs in the way they need to be met.
Another thing I love about this story is that Mark adds the little detail that Jairus’s daughter was 12 years old. The woman in the crowd earlier has been suffering for as long as Jairus’s daughter has been alive. I wonder if the illness that brought the girl’s death was chronic. How amazing would it be if Jesus ended two periods of 12 year suffering in one day? And how amazing is it that these people would have been suffering together, but also very much apart for 12 years? Wouldn’t this give that much more weight to Jairus witnessing the woman’s healing? Anyway, we really don’t know anything about the girl’s illness, but what we can see is that people are valuable to Jesus. We are valuable to Jesus. He doesn’t care about what the world’s value system says, and He is willing to go where other people will not. He longs to give safety and belonging to those who feel on the outside, and He will eagerly give hope and support, and even a new space, to those who are secure in their place, as well. Jesus will always have time for you, and there is always a place for you with Him. If you find yourself questioning whether you’re valuable enough to have space in the lives of others, I want to invite you to ask instead where you have placed your security. Are you like the woman, where the world’s consistent message of how worthless you are has drowned out the voice of God, or are you like Jairus, who has found his security in the position given to him in his society? Are you desperately seeking an available space, or are you constantly working to hold onto the space you feel is supposed to be yours? Whether you relate to Jairus or the woman, you will find that Jesus always holds a space for you, if only you will have faith and let your security rest in God.