Stories of Faith: Jairus and Veronica
TEXT: Mark 5:21-43
In our gospel passage we hear about these two intersecting stories—a Jewish leader with a very sick daughter, and a woman who has a hemorrhaging disorder. The stories are similarly structured, but with two contrasting characters. Jairus is an esteemed synagogue leader, and the nameless woman, whom I’ll call Veronica, is a social outcast, a woman, a nobody. They both, however, believe in Jesus’ power to heal disease and restore life, so their stories begin with them separately seeking him when they hear he is nearby.
They follow the noise, that crowd of onlookers, in order to find him. Jairus publicly begs Jesus repeatedly to come to his house and lay his hands on his sick daughter. Begging is not the usual public decorum of a leader and it reflects how desperate he is to save his daughter. Veronica, as well, seeks out Jesus but she is surreptitious. She doesn’t want to be noticed. She knows her shameful place in the social strata, and only wants to touch his clothes, not quite as bold a thing for her to do as if she actually touched him. Her sense of shame prevents her from thinking she could touch him. So she pushes in from behind, where neither Jesus nor his disciples nor the jostling crowd notice her. What is important here is that Jesus doesn’t initiate these interactions. The faithful seek him out in their desperation. For Jairus, this is with a beseeching humility; for Veronica, with a shameful humility.
Jesus responds to each of them in a similar manner, with attention, concern, and compassion. For Jairus, Jesus stops doing what he is doing. He graciously heads off to Jairus’ house with a large crowd in tow. They are hurrying to get there, with urgency, when Jesus feels power leave his body because somebody in the crowd touched him. Veronica gets Jesus’ immediate attention when her finger touches his clothes. In Matthew and Luke’s accounts, she touched the fringe of his cloak. In that gentle, light touch, Jesus feels “his power” has left his body, and he turns around and asks this large crowd, “Who touched me?” In Jewish custom, the fringes of a man’s cloak are the most intimate part of his tunic or prayer shawl. They are definitely not to be touched by anyone. The four tasseled corners have sacred significance, representing the commandments of God, and serve as reminders to be obedient to the sovereign Lord. I can imagine Veronica, who was hoping not to be noticed at all for her faith, felt shamefully embarrassed when Jesus asked who touched him.
But notice what is happening here: Veronica, in touching the fringe of his cloak, touches an intimate and sacred part of Jesus. She touches his covenantal relationship with God, and immediately feels herself healed of her disease, and, in that instant, went from being a nobody to a somebody. When she reached out to Jesus in her brokenness and neediness, reached out from her most humble and vulnerable self, she touched the most intimate part of Jesus: his divinity. Veronica connected her need with his compassion. When, in what she initiated, that point of contact was made, Jesus responded immediately with restoration. How beautiful is that?
Both the pain of a physical disease and the social stigma of purity laws had made Veronica an outcast. The bleeding disorder was what physically ailed her; the isolation of being an outcast was her shame to bear, her social illness. Jesus cured both her disease and her illness; he healed her physical body, her uterus, and also the social stigma of being ritually impure that Jewish culture and custom had assigned to her. Jesus, in calling her “daughter,” restored her to the social order and removed her shame. He recognized her as fully a part of the community. “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your disease!” This is a two-fold restoration: the body is restored to health, and the individual is restored to community. Justice and order are both served by the compassion and love of Jesus.
Likewise, with Jairus’s daughter. Jesus is delayed, and the little girl dies. Yet, Jesus tells Jairus not to worry, not to fear, only believe. They continue to Jairus’ home to save his daughter. Faith is trusting what Jesus says is true. Jairus trusts, even at risk of losing his esteemed position as a synagogue leader, even when looking like a fool to his peers because of his choice. Jairus chooses Jesus. When Jesus approaches the house, he is laughed at by the disbelieving crowd of mourners. For Jairus and his wife, their only hope lies in the compassion of Jesus. “Little girl, get up!” Her resurrection and restoration to life is a foretaste of what Jesus offers when he says in John 11, “I am the resurrection and the life.”
The point of these stories isn’t that faithful people don’t suffer death and disease. Those beliefs can be obstacles to faith, and these gospel stories aren’t meant to be obstacles to faith. For many people, it is quite easy to equate the faithfulness of Jairus and Veronica with the positive outcomes Jesus generated. In other words, we may conclude that people with evangelical faith will be healed because of their faith. We may equate having faith with getting what we want for outcomes. We are so transactional in how we think and live in our culture. But faith is not a transactional commodity. It isn’t about doing favors and being rewarded. Faith isn’t contingent on what we do; it’s solely God’s gift to us because of his grace and love. Because of Jesus’s death on the cross and resurrection, we have a relationship to God that is based on forgiveness of our sins and life everlasting. You and I can’t do anything further. We already are totally God’s beloved children.
I was challenged personally by these healing stories when I learned about the death of a young woman who used to work at Covenant Point Bible Camp, close by my home in Michigan. She tragically died while six months pregnant. She went to the ER with severe abdominal pain, but was told it was likely a gastrointestinal infection and she was sent home. By the next morning, she and her unborn son had died - she, at the age of 25, from a ruptured placenta, a bleeding disorder like Veronica. It’s really unimaginable that such a thing could happen. That you could be 25, full of hope, pregnant with life one day, and in a tragic instant your earthly story is over.
An ocean of grief in the suddenness and permanence of death. I imagine Olivia had remarkable faith. Circumstances in life can be blatantly unfair and painful.
God’s gift of Jesus on the cross doesn’t promise us ideal circumstances in this earthly life, but the narratives of Jairus and Veronica underscore the hope we have in Jesus Christ. When we reach out to Jesus in our brokenness and neediness, from our most humble and vulnerable self, we too touch the most intimate part of Jesus. We connect our need with his compassion and, when that point of contact is made, Jesus responds in love. These stories are not telling us that we will always be healed in ways we desire. Rather, these stories illustrate a picture of what it looks like to reach out to Jesus in times of pain and heartache, isolation and loneliness, in order to receive the gift of truth: that you are God’s beloved, known intimately by Jesus. Let those realizations be transformative in your faith, and may you boldly seek restorative and healing justice from Jesus Christ in your own life and for the lives of others you meet in this broken world. Thanks be to God!
This sermon was preached for the campground ministry of Calvary Lutheran Church in Minocqua, Wisconsin.