You're Missing Out!
Author: Pastor Daniel Rinehart
Text: Mark 5:21-43
The acronym FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is one that we often hear and perhaps experience. There are so many different kinds of things that we might be afraid to miss out on —
Minor things, like the latest episode of a TV show;
More important events, like a child’s performance or a friend’s birthday;
Life experiences, like travel, friendship, marriage, child-rearing.
The stories of the women in this Gospel lesson show them missing out, or at risk of missing out. Jairus’ twelve-year-old daughter is, in her culture, at the cusp of adulthood — as in our culture she would be on the cusp of increasing responsibilities and independence. The death of a young person with a full life ahead of them seems somehow harder to bear than other deaths; we reflect on all the things that person will miss out on.
The woman with the hemorrhage has been suffering with her illness as long as the sick girl has been alive. The nature of her illness would have rendered her permanently ritually unclean. (Most people as a matter of course became ritually unclean from time to time, but there were prescribed means of removing the uncleanness.) This would mean that she could not take part in the religious and social life of her community. So she too missed out on so much of what life had to offer.
The woman went to Jesus believing that he could restore her. She reached out to touch him and received what he sought. Presumably she had expected that her relationship with Jesus would end there — he would go on his way and she would go on hers. Instead, Jesus stopped everything to find out what had happened. So she came before him, and he said, “Daughter, your faith has made you well.” More literally, the Greek words mean: “Your faith has saved you.”
Just then the news arrives that the little girl whom Jesus has been going to is dead. It would seem that Jesus has missed his opportunity to perform a miracle for an important man, and the girl has missed her opportunity for wholeness and life. But Jesus continues to her bedside and, with the jeering crowd outside, raises the girl to life.
With these healings, Jesus restores not only life and health but community and society. The woman, cut off from her neighbors by her disease, will finally take her place among them. The little girl, cut off from her family by death, will resume her place among them and perhaps one day will be mother to a family of her own.
This is what Christ does for us when we reach out to him. We bring our children to be baptized; we come to the Lord’s table; we reach out to touch Jesus and are made part of a community, a family. We are then empowered to reach out to expand this circle of love and community. Everyone is welcome. No one has to miss out on it.
Watch the performance of the Gospel of Mark Chapter 5 performed by Max McLean.