She Was Already Looking Around

I recall the moment when my daughter was born like it was yesterday. For some reason, I was surprised about a lot of things that I probably should have known already. She was looking around and very alert from the first moment she was born. For some reasons that have to do with things I was taught as a child, I didn’t fully appreciate the humanity of the child in the womb. Until that moment, I truly thought that the humanity of the child was somehow missing until some later date. It is actually the case that I was never around any babies in my life from the time I was five or so.

My daughter’s display of humanity when she was born caused me to rethink my understanding of the unborn child. It was a little disorienting to figure out that what I thought I knew before was actually not true. Since truth leads us closer to God, this choice that I made to reconsider my position on the unborn child is something that led me closer to God.

In Mark chapter 5, in the story of the woman who had been bleeding and of Jairus’s daughter, one major point being made is that Jesus is helping people reconsider their position regarding the unclean.

At the time of Jesus, people who were unclean were supposed to make sure that no one else would accidentally touch them. They would ring a bell as they walked around and shout out, “Unclean, unclean!” The rule was that if an unclean person touched another person, then that unfortunate clean person would become unclean.

To become clean after touching an unclean person, that person would need to go to the temple and participate in ceremonial washing and also offer a sacrifice.

The woman had come to believe that Jesus could heal her, but she knew that she’d have to forego the rules about keeping others away from her. She takes the risk of doing something different, and touches Jesus, and is healed. For a Jewish person to go and touch Jesus in hopes that Jesus would make her clean required that they come to a new understanding of the truth. That is why Jesus tells her that it was her faith that healed her. She had come to truly believe that Jesus had great supernatural power.

Now, Jairus is named in this story. That means that he will play a significant role. Think about the situation that Jairus is in. It would be crushing for someone whose whole livelihood was centered around enforcing these rules about clean and unclean. Jairus approaches Jesus knowing that his daughter is about to die. He convinces Jesus to come to his home for the sake of healing his daughter. He is obviously desperate to help his daughter, because Jewish officials knew that Jesus would frequently challenge their authority. Going to Jesus in the first place would already require a great deal of reconsideration about what Jairus knows to be true.

Now, to really amplify the tension on Jairus, Jesus stops and makes a big deal about someone touching him. His disciples think it is nonsensical for Jesus to ask who touched him, as everyone was pressing around him. Jesus is making a big deal about being touched, and the implications to Jairus would have been obvious. If Jairus were to follow the rules, he would have to tell Jesus he could not come to his home until Jesus had been ceremoniously cleaned at the temple. It would take days for that to happen.

Jesus does give a great deal of grace to Jairus, however, because when Jairus is given the terrible news that his daughter died, Jesus assures him that it will be okay. I suspect that Jairus needed that kind of boost in his walk with God and coming closer to the truth.

I do want to point out one other thing in this story. Jesus goes to the daughter of Jairus who is dead. People in the days of Jesus knew when a person died because death was not reserved to a hospital. Everyone was exposed to death, and the daughter of Jairus was physically dead. Yet another way to become unclean was to touch a dead person. And that’s what Jesus does with Jairus’s daughter. He takes the child by the hand and brings her back to life. The message is loud and clear: Jesus does not become unclean when he touches us. The truth is that he destroys our uncleanness when we touch him.

If you are a parent, or you are about to be one, start with the child who is actually in front of you. I walked into that room with a theory I had carried since childhood. She was already looking around. The theory did not survive the first minute. You do not have to pretend you never held the old idea. You do have to let the living child correct it.

Write down one thing you were sure was true about this child — or about children in general — that the last year has made harder to keep. Say it out loud to your spouse, or to one safe person, before you keep parenting from the old map. I had to admit I had not been around babies since I was five. That sentence explained a lot of what I thought I knew.

If you are Jairus in the story — desperate, and also tied to a system that says you should not go to this kind of help — name the rule that is slowing you down. For him it was clean and unclean. For you it may be what people like us do, or what we do not admit. Getting help for your child may require you to reconsider what you know to be true. That reconsideration is not betrayal. It is how he got Jesus into the house.

When the news gets worse before it gets better, stay in the room. Jairus heard that his daughter had died while Jesus was still on the way. Jesus told him it would be okay, and Jairus still had to walk the rest of the way. You may need that kind of boost from someone who can see farther than the report you just received. Ask for it. Then go with the person who is willing to touch what you were taught to avoid.

This is a pastoral reflection, not clinical care and not a substitute for it. If you or someone you love is in immediate danger, call 988 or local emergency services.

Drawn from a homily first preached in 2019.