Sunday, I preached for the first time in many, many months. Either due to circumstance, staffing, or preference, I don’t get to preach on a regular basis. Yesterday’s scripture passage, however, spoke to my life and walk with God in deeply personal ways. The sound system fizzed out on 3 occasions. The livestream audio was distorted and hard to listen to. (The debate is out there as to whether the distortion makes me sound more like Galadriel refusing the ring from Frodo, or Professor Trelawney from Hogwarts…) And yet… I believe the Holy Spirit did Her work.

Below is the written text I preached from, with the caveat that what is on paper and what God does are two different things…

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A Sermon for God’s Beloved at

Gaithersburg Presbyterian Church

June 30, 2024

MARK 5:21-43

Prayer of Illumination
God – this is your word – bring out all that your Spirit intends for the readers, the listeners, and the preacher. Amen.

As some of you may know, for over a decade I was a chaplain where I walked with people as they faced life-limiting illnesses, to hear their stories, and to honor the feelings and the questions they had. But for the last 2.5 years I been living in the wilderness of illness, cancer treatments, and death and dying. When my husband was diagnosed with metastatic cancer, and seven months later, *I* was diagnosed with endometrial cancer, my perspective kind of changed. Add to this whirlwind Ken’s decline and death, and… well, let’s just say that I have learned a lot in the hard-knocks school on this topic. To preaching about healing, death and dying my first Sunday back in the pulpit is kinda like ripping off a Bandaid. But there are no mistakes. Only Divine timing.

Before I get too deep into this sermon, I want to acknowledge that talking about miraculous healing is a chancy business. We know (in our heads) there is a difference between a CURE and being healed. But emotionally, it’s rough. The best reassurance I can give you is that the God who knows you down to the hairs on your head (or lack thereof if you are a cancer patient) — that God is with you and is intimately acquainted with your needs. As we look at this text this morning, I hope that message comes through, loud and clear! God is with you.

When I worked as a chaplain, there were usually more questions than answers for my patients. It didn’t matter if the patient was a Senator or a Metrobus driver, they struggled with the same questions. In the grief support group I’m a part of, we find that our questions are also very similar. These are WHY questions – Why him? Why her? Why now? Why me?? These WHY questions don’t have answers that satisfy. The only answer I have come to know is to remember that the timing, the reasons, and the situations are not unknown to God.

Our text tells of two nobodies who became two somebodies that Jesus healed. Two females being given center-stage in Scripture is significant, given that the primary writers and the audience were steeped in a patriarchal culture. Women and girls were chattal. They had no legal rights. Women and daughters were less favored than men and sons. So to highlight their stories in a culture that does not value them should give us pause…

Let’s look at how these two stories inform each other:

JAIRUS AND HIS DAUGHTER	THE WOMAN IN THE CROWD
Well-known and had a position of leadership at the local synagogue	No name An outcast because of her illness (purity laws)
Made a public plea, begging him repeatedly The crowd heard every word	Snuck in through the crowd (Private action) Touched the hem of his cloak
Came on behalf of his daughter, 12 yo She was at the point of death	Had no one to speak up for her, had to talk herself into going to Jesus; 12 years of this illness. She spent all she had and was getting sicker.
Jairus asked Jesus: Come with me parakaleo – come alongside, be with me Paraclete – Holy Spirit – Comforter, Guide, Companion	Asked “who touched me?” (comedy) Disciples were clueless
When told she had died, Jesus told Jairus, “Do not be afraid; only believe.” Where else in Scripture? “DO NOT BE AFRAID…” (and what happens next?)	Jesus told her: Your faith has made you well MORE than wellness – fully restored physically, emotionally, relationally.
Jesus touched her and raised her	She touched Jesus and was healed

It’s not hard to put ourselves in this setting, and perhaps identify with the feelings that Jairus and the woman must have felt. The fear is real. The unknowns. Seeing someone’s health fade in front of your eyes. Life suddenly has become unpredictable. You have tried every treatment, every pill, doctor, and diet plan. Your sense of security is rocked to its core. Things are out of control. It can lead to feelings of frustration, abandonment, and loneliness.

Dr. Serene Jones in her book Trauma and Grace says:
We have an unrealistic expectation that, on the one hand, we know that death is a part of life. But we operate as though life will generally go well for us. And when that expectation is not met, we are frustrated and begin to question God’s love for us. Pain, illness, suffering – they all shatter the illusion of the life we want, the life we hope for. The challenge is to believe that God is present even in the worst of moments.

What wise words…

Disease comes to every-body. Even the rich, famous, and well-connected. But for this unnamed woman, a nobody, she realized was not a nobody in Jesus’ eyes. She was Somebody. Somebody worthy of his time. Worthy of interrupting his agenda. Worthy of taking a step back to hear her words of confession, to talk to her and affirm her faith. Worthy of claiming her as part of his family. For a social nobody, this was a big deal. The crowd witnessed her healing and her restoration. She was completely restored, from being isolated and ostracized to being publicly welcomed.

These healings touch us because all of us… every one of us… has experienced illness. Has had someone we care about die. Has felt vulnerable, afraid, and even doubting if God hears and knows what we need. When I was sitting in the infusion chair, there were many hymns and songs and Bible verses that reminded me that God’s work is often just out of sight, just about to happen. It is hard – SO hard – to wait with eyes of faith to see what God will do. I read verses like those from Isaiah 43:

I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

The disciples, and Jairus and his daughter, and the woman in the crowd all faced a new thing, and saw a river in the desert. The unknown became known. No one had ever seen miraculous works like these. No wonder they doubted! No wonder they laughed! No wonder they were afraid! And Jairus must have been astounded to see his daughter raised from the dead. A little prequel to one Easter morning coming soon …

In these moments of the unknown, of uncharted waters, we can face them with the reassurance that Jesus will walk through it with us. WHEN YOU HAVE TRIED EVERYTHING… can you trust God for the rest?

Because – honestly – Where would you rather be? Where it is safe, predictable and what you’ve always known? Or in “the room where it happens”? (I don’t know about you, but I want to live with my fears and have a front-row seat to see what God will do next…)

On an episode of Call the Midwife, a BBC mini-series, one of the characters was struggling with the WHYS. Sister Julienne responds: God isn’t in this event. God is in the response to this event. Sometimes there’s nothing you can say, but there’s something you can do.

Yes. Someone once said to me, “Oh, the only thing I can do is pray…” Um. ONLY thing? No. That’s everything.

Will we stumble? Will there be tears? Will there be doubts? Will we get mad at God? Yes…. To all of those. WHEN YOU HAVE TRIED EVERYTHING YOU CAN…  God invites us to walk it with him.

And… even more importantly, God invites us to take this message of hope to a world that needs it. This message is not an insider message, friends. The world is in pain around us. The fears are real. The questions are intense. But can you see that “new thing”? What glimpse of Easter is there for all of us?

Michael Kelly Blanchard, author and songwriter, talks about these moments of Easter joy in a world of medical challenges in a poem entitled, “Hospital Hymns” – I’d like to read a few verses from it in closing… Some of you have weathered these Hospital Hymns, I know…

There are hospital hymns sung in the night,
Cutting and clear like a prophet’s voice.
Played by sirens and flashing lights,
To terrible tunes that leave no choice.
There are moments that no mind can mold,
With clever cues or changing scenes,
That terrify as they unfold and make a nightmare out of dreams.

There are words that only God can hear whispered in the waiting rooms,
Trembling pleas tugged by fears,
Carved in the corridors of the marooned.
There are voiceless vows as strong as steel,
That take each other by the hand,
And look through now into the real where they will understand….

There is Someone beyond boast or brain
Who loves you just because he does.
And now, LOVE will never be the same
What might have been, never was,
For just when human minds give in
To the lonely logic of despair
This ONE draws you close to Him and holds you
Till Easter is… everywhere!

AMEN.