Tell the Whole Truth
Transcripts are AI-generated and may not be 100% accurate.
Thanks so much for coming out tonight, everybody. Glad to see you all. My name is Maggie Keller. I'm on the table team and yeah, just really glad to be with you tonight. I really, really, really wanted to preach on tonight's passage. In fact, I wanted to preach on it so much so that I asked Debbie, I think it was back in December, “Please can I have the end of Mark 5?” And it just worked out that I was able to have that passage tonight.
And there are a couple of reasons why I wanted this passage so much. The first is I always learn so much when I'm preparing a message. It is my favorite way to dig into scripture. I always say I learned new things and I unlearn old things. And how many of you need to unlearn some stuff maybe from these stories? Anyways, so that, that's why I wanted to preach on this passage.
But the second reason why I was drawn to this story is, um, if you've known me for a while or you have seen me preach before or you're married to me, you know that I can be a little dramatic. It's not that I'm a drama queen, but I do have a flair for the dramatic, I was definitely a theater kid growing up and I was an English teacher for a little bit.
And I have to tell you that tonight's passage: it ought to be scripted for the stage. It is so dramatic. There are miracles and there are really complex characters and there's so much going on right under the surface and it's the stuff that film and TV dreams are made of. So anyways, I was really excited about this passage and one of the reasons why I'm excited to share it with you is because whether it's film or TV or the stage, we are drawn to these kinds of stories because of the characters, because we like to see ourselves for better or worse, right? In really complex characters. And so I'd like to introduce you to all of the characters in tonight's story.
But before we get there, before we actually read the passage, I wanna remind you of where we are in the big arc of Mark. I didn't mean to make that rhyme, but anyways, there we are. Okay, so because we've been in Mark for a long time and so what an English teacher would call the rising action of the story is we've just seen a whole bunch of miracles from Jesus. He's just calmed the storm on the sea of Galilee. He casts a demon out of somebody who was possessed. And all of these magnificent miracles are leading us up to this moment. He's about to heal someone of a chronic illness that has stumped all the doctors and he's going to defeat death itself. I told you this would make a really good TV show. I wish there was The Chosen.
Anyways, um, okay, so here's the passage. We're in Mark 5:21. It'll be on the screen behind me if you'd like to follow along:
When Jesus had crossed over again in the boat to the other side, a large crowd gathered around him while he was beside the sea, one of the synagogue leaders, a man named Jairus, approached him. When he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet and urgently pleaded with him, my little girl is dying. Please come and lay your hands on her so that her life may be saved.
Pause there for a moment. Can you hear the desperation in his voice? This man is privileged, he's powerful. He is male. So he is the top echelon of society. It tells us that he works in the synagogue. And so he has a lot at stake by coming to Jesus because the Pharisees, the synagogue leaders, they didn't like Jesus very much. And so this man Jairus is risking his job, his reputation, his status in society by coming to Jesus. But he does it because he believes that Jesus can heal his daughter.
And so here is where Mark is going to interrupt himself. He's going to give us a story within the larger story. But do not under any circumstances, don't forget Jairus because we're coming back to him at the end.
So he, Jesus, went with him being Jairus and a large crowd was accompanying Jesus and pressing up against him. A woman was there who had been sick with a bleeding disorder for 12 years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors. She had spent everything she had and instead of getting better, she'd only gotten worse.
There is a new character on the scene. She has no name. She's only identified by her condition. This woman is truly tragic, right? She has been bleeding for 12 years and to truly understand her situation, I want to give you a little bit of insight into the Jewish cultural context here. So the Jews at this time lived under hundreds of laws. And a good chunk of those laws were purity laws. They applied to both men and women equally. And it had to do with whether you were pure or impure. Everybody was one of those statuses. At one point you moved in and out of purity. And basically if you, if you became impure, then you needed to wait a certain amount of time and men do a ritual of a certain kind and then you were allowed to go back to your normal life.
And I want to note too, that ritual impurity is not the same as moral impurity. This woman was not unclean because she had done something wrong. Certain kinds of impurity are just inevitable. They're normal, they're natural. And I know that it sounds a little bit, um, backward maybe or foreign to our sort of western Americanized ears. But most ancient Middle Eastern cultures had these purity laws. So that's not unusual.
What is unusual is this woman's situation. She is not just on her period, she is experiencing abnormal, longstanding, uh, um, ritual impurity. She's what they called a zavah. So this woman has longstanding abnormal ritual impurity and it lasts for as long as she's bleeding. And it's been 12 years.
So the impurity would've had a lot of ripple effects in her life. So I wanna kind of walk you through what those would look like. So first of all, as long as she's I pure, she cannot enter the temple in Jerusalem and think about the temple as the epicenter of society. So when her family goes for worship, for um, uh, celebrations, for sacrifices, for festivals, she cannot enter the temple with them. So she would have been, um, ostracized in that sense.
Now, scholars don't think she was, um, quarantined. She was probably allowed to live with her family, but she wasn't allowed to touch them. 'cause that's the other thing about ritual impurity. It was contagious. If you touched someone else, they also became impure and had to go through some kind of a ritual cleansing.
The other ripple effect I think about is if she were married, she would not have been allowed to sleep with her husband, and because of that she would've been childless. So think about, um, in first century life, how much it meant for someone to be able to bear children. And so this would've been devastating. It would've represented death in their culture, both the death of her womb, the death of their family line. So absolute, um, just overwhelm, right? And total desperation. So 12 years she's lived like this.
Scripture tells us she has spent all she has, she lives in poverty now. And not only is she not any better, she's actually worse. So she couldn't be more different than Jairus. So as the former English teacher, she's a perfect foil for him, right? She's poor, she's powerless, she's vulnerable, and yet Jesus is going to stop for her.
The next verse says: Having heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and she touched his robe for she was saying to herself, if I can just touch his clothes, I will be healed.
So spoiler alert, she is about to be healed, but why is she touching his clothes? So again, as a little bit of a drama queen, I decided to put myself in the shoes of this character. So go with me for a minute if I'm her, there's a lot of things running around inside my brain right now. I'm thinking to myself, um, I might feel shame about my impurity. I think that if I touch him, then he will be impure. And yet I've heard that he can do miracles. I know and I believe that he can heal me, but if I touch him, is the crowd gonna rebuke me? What if I touch him and my impurity cancels out whatever power is inside of him and now my whole plan is wrecked? What if I touch him and it works? Maybe what I'll do is just be real secretive about it and just come up and quietly touch his clothes.
Here's why the clothes matter. There was a belief in ancient society that your power could be transmitted through your clothing. If I can be imaginative with Scripture, if I can kind of read between the lines here, I think this woman was really smart. I think she remembers all the teaching that she heard in temple before she was no longer allowed to be there.
I think she recognizes something in Jesus and she decides to take him at his word. So whatever fear she has, whatever hesitation she's feeling about her contagiousness of her impurity, she's convinced that whatever's in Jesus is stronger than whatever is in her.
The story continues: Immediately. Her bleeding stopped. She felt in her body, she was healed of her affliction. Jesus realized at once power had gone out of him and turning to the crowd, he said, who touched my clothes? And the disciples said, are you kidding me? Jesus, you're in a crowd. Everybody has touched you. What do you mean who touched me? But he kept looking to see the woman who had done this. And then the woman fearful and trembling because she knew what had happened to her, came and fell down in front of him and told him the whole truth. But he said to her Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be healed of your affliction.
Jesus is giving some main character energy here, friends. This is Jesus in all of his revolutionary power. One of the things we see in Jesus in Mark's gospel over and over again is this great reversal. And the great reversal Jesus is showing us here is that her impurity is not contagious to him. His holiness is contagious to her.
And I also find it interesting that Jesus does not say, “You were never impure to begin with. Just forget about the purity laws.” He doesn't throw the law out. Rather he fulfills it. And Jesus told us that himself, I don't come to abolish the law, I come to fulfill the law. This is what that looks like.
We also see that Jesus is revealing that the kingdom of God is totally upside down. Where the kingdom of this world lifts up Jairus, male, powerful, a leader, Jesus stops for the woman who is vulnerable. She is given priority.
And also he seeks out relationship with her. He doesn't feel the power leave him and then just keep going along his way. He turns around, he looks for her. And then he calls her daughter. It's the only time he does this in the gospels, he calls her daughter. The healing that he's giving her is restoring her physical body and it's restoring her to her community. He's putting her back in community with other people.
The other thing I wanted to say too is when he says, go in peace, that peace word right is Hebrew for shalom. You may be familiar with this idea. It's not like a farewell, go with God. Kind of go in peace, it's go in wholeness, be restored completely to the community of God. Okay? I told you we were gonna get back to Jairus. So here he is:
While he being Jesus was speaking, some people came from Jairus's house and they said, your daughter has died. Why bother the teacher anymore? But Jesus overhearing what they said, said to Jairus, “Don't be afraid. Just believe.” He didn't let anyone accompany them except Peter, James and John, the brother of James.
And they came to the house of the synagogue leader and he saw a commotion. People weeping and wailing loudly going inside. He said, why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child hasn't died. She is sleeping. And they began laughing at him.
But putting them all outside, he took the child's father and mother and those who were with him and he went in where the child was. Taking the hand of the child, He said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means little girl, I say to you, get up. Immediately the little girl stood up and began to walk for she was 12 years old. They were completely astounded. And he gave them strict orders not to let anybody know about this. And he told them, give her something to eat.
There's no fanfare, there's no rituals, no incantations. Jesus uses touch and simple words. So Talitha here, it means lamb. It's a pet name that people use for their children. I think of, um, my kids all went to Spanish language preschool. And the teachers there would always call them things like my heart, my life, my love, right? That's what this means. Little lamb get up.
And the other thing I find interesting is that the Aramaic is preserved here. Aramaic was the language that Jesus was speaking. And Mark doesn't just translate it into Greek. He does ultimately, but he also keeps the words there. And I think that's because again, humor, the English teacher here, I think this is the climax of the whole story. I think the whole story hinges on these two words. And they are ringing in the ears of Peter and James and John who were in the room. And as the early church began to tell the story and retell it to their communities, these are the words they're repeating because these are the words Jesus used.
But don't skate over the fact that he touched her—a dead body. This would've broken all those purity laws. And again, we see the reversal here because just like with the bleeding woman, those laws are reversed. He is taking her hand, doesn't make him unclean, it brings her back to life.
The other nod to the bleeding woman here is, did you catch how old the girl is? She's 12. She has been alive as long as the woman has been bleeding. They both have an encounter with the person of Jesus. And they leave forever changed. They walk into the future, their future life. And they're completely different because they've encountered Jesus
For the past couple of years. I have been in discernment trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. And I do feel like the spirit is calling me towards some kind of spiritual care. And that's because I have seen the words of Jesus, the person of Jesus Christ, the stories in scripture, I've seen them be a lifeline for people. I've seen them be an anchor during pain and trauma. But like many of you probably have too, I've also seen scripture weaponized against people that I love.
And so it is really important to me tonight, both as a student of the scriptures and as a teacher, that we not interpret this passage in a singular way. This is what I mean. The passage becomes dangerous when we give it power by making it prescriptive—for all people, for all time. What I mean is this passage is problematic when we reduce it to some kind of magic math. That instant healing equal is, is what do I have? There it is, prayer plus faith equals healing. That's so reductionistic. There is a difference between praying expectantly, believing that something will happen. And then what I feel is just really gross and also abusive: this message, like if you just had a little more faith than your prayer would be answered.
I don't need to tell you, you already know, that not everybody who prays faithfully gets their prayer answered. Not every child is resurrected, not every loved one that suffers with an incurable disease gets that healing.
But in a really profound sense, prayer is not, it's not utilitarian. It's not getting what you want. It's simply drawing near to Jesus. It's a relationship with the divine. Am I gonna get what I want when I pray? Maybe, but maybe not. But is something gonna change in me, in my heart, in my mind? Maybe. In another sense. I don't think this story is about whether or not physical miracles and healing still happen today. I think it's about enduring when they don't.
Think about Jairus, when Jesus says to him, don't be afraid, he's inviting Jairus into greater faith. And it isn't faith that's one act, one prayer, prayed one time. No, it's a process of enduring and going on.
I do think about Jairus and I think about the crowd and him standing to the side and watching Jesus stop for the woman. Jairus was like, Jesus, we gotta get a move on. Time is of the essence. You told me you would come. What are you doing? And maybe tonight you identify with the waiting Jairus, willing Jesus to just move already. And maybe tonight you've been suffering for years. And so you identify with the woman who is desperate.
A couple of weeks ago, Debbie preached on Jesus calming the storm at the Sea of Galilee. And one of the things you said that I will take with me forever is we don't want a sleeping Jesus. We don't want a Jesus who falls asleep on the job. Get up, Jesus. Don't you see we are drowning here. So the reality though, and this is what you said that night, Debbie, is Jesus was always in the boat.
So when you are in the storm, when you are in over your head, when you're moving maybe from someplace that is familiar and comfortable into someplace that's not God is present to you, the spirit of God is there. And maybe that's the answer to your prayer, the sense that the spirit of God is near to you. Maybe the answer is peace in the midst of disappointment when things don't go the way that you wanted them to. And maybe too, the answer to your prayer are the tangible acts of love and service that you get from your community, right? God showing up through God's people. Maybe that's the answer.
I told you also that there is a fine line to be walked with this passage. And the other side of the line is what I see from the woman when it says that she “came in fear and trembling and she fell down before him and she told him the whole truth about what had happened to her.” What has happened in your life that you need to tell the whole truth about? Because the spirit of God is still at work in this community, my friends. It's at work in you. It's at work in me. And so what's the truth you need to tell? Maybe God has restored a broken relationship. Maybe God has brought about healing of some kind or revived something in you that was dead. How can you tell the whole truth about it? You do have a choice to tell the whole truth at the risk of looking a little crazy.
So at the risk of sounding totally insane, I would like to tell you a story from my family. Jon and I have four kids, Jack Grace, Tom, and Andrew. And in 2018, when Andrew was eight months old, I served him, um, cheesy scrambled eggs. And he broke out in hives all over his face and his hands. He was very quickly diagnosed with a dairy allergy and an egg allergy. And we pivoted, right, as parents do. We started buying soy yogurt and vegan cheese and pea protein milk. No offense if that's the only milk that you get to drink, but it is gross. And Andrew did not like it.
In, uh, 2019, he turned one and his growth slowed. We were referred to the feeding clinic at Children's Hospital. They didn't find any underlying reason for why this kid wasn't growing anymore, but they said he's really guarded when it comes to food. And honestly like that was all that this mom needed to hear because now feeding Andrew is something that I'm thinking about all the time. We're introducing new textures, we're trying new things, we're trying to get weight on this little boy.
There's a picture here: that's Andrew in Thanksgiving of 2019, and I will never forget it because he's 18 months old here. And in that picture, that shirt he's wearing is a size 12 month. At his 18 month appointment, they said “He hasn't grown at all. He has gained no weight since the last time you were here.” And I was full of shame and worry, and we were referred to a dietician and she really didn't give me much to go off of. And I was confused. And I, I did feel some shame around that. That's December of 2019.
On January 2nd, I got a text from my mom and she said, “Our small group prayed for Andrew tonight.” And I said, “Thank you.” That's what you do. I meant it genuinely. I didn't think that in the grand scheme of life that praying for my kids' food allergies was something I needed to trouble God with. But the prayer, the prayer and the love of a grandparent is totally different, right?
My parents sat with their small group who had been studying healing for weeks, and they put an empty chair in the middle of their circle and one of their group members said, we want you to picture Andrew on the chair. And they prayed for his healing.
And six days later, Andrew got a bite of his sibling’s pancake. It had butter, milk, and eggs. And Andrew did not have a reaction. And the next day we tried again this time on purpose and he didn't have a reaction. And within a week he trialed whole milk yogurt and pizza and macaroni and cheese. And he never had another reaction.
And we could say, indeed, if you knew me, then I did. I said, “Andrew grew out of his allergies.” And that makes sense. It's what the doctors told us could happen. We see that sometimes in kids. But if I'm gonna stand up here tonight and I'm gonna tell you the whole truth, then I have to include the part about Andrew's grandparents praying for his healing. I have to tell you that in a house in West Bloomington, there were two more people gathered in God's name and my kid stopped having reactions. So I have to say the whole truth.
Now, I don't know why Andrew was healed of those food allergies, and our mom has not. We've been praying for Jon's mom for seven years. She deals with debilitating mental health. She has not been healed. And I can't explain that to you. I can't tell you why those prayers have not been answered but somebody else's prayers for Andrew were. And I'm sure that you know this feeling right, of watching your loved one struggle with no explanation, no end in sight.
But we are clinging to the promise that her healing will come. It just may not come the way we want it to, and it may not come in our timeline. We know she will be restored someday. We're praying for that to be on this side of eternity. But whatever healing awaits her, it might not be the kind we're praying for.
And this is the both/and, right, as Debbie always says. It's the now and the not yet of the kingdom of God. We both pray for healing in this life, and we know it may only come in the next one. We believe that God is making all things new. We participate and we work for shalom. But we live in the tension, in the mystery. This is not a comfortable place to be. You know it and I know it, but I think it's a really honest place to be.
When we live there, when we live in this, in between this now and the not yet, but we don't close ourselves off to the miraculous, sometimes we get surprised, sometimes we get astonished. And then when we are, when God does something in us or in our relationships or in our expectations, we can be brave enough to tell the whole truth and then walk forward into shalom, into wholeness.
Will you pray with me? God of mystery and God of healing? It is hard to pray in faith, especially when we've been disappointed in the past. We find it difficult to ask expectantly. And so, Lord, we're just here drawing near you are always present with us. And so, Lord, we ask for peace when things don't work out the way that we want and we ask for peace in the waiting. Help us, Lord dis sense your presence, the presence of your spirit, and God make us brave enough to live in the mystery. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.