Pastor Tom Johnson, July 1, 2012
Our Gospel reading this morning is about misdiagnoses—that is, when we misidentify disease—when we fail to classify the human condition. Before we can address and solve a problem, we must first accurately identify what the problem is. Our text says that the woman with internal bleeding suffered greatly at the hands of physicians. She spent all the money she had. Doctors examined her, suggested remedies, and took her money for twelve years. Not only was she not better, her condition was getting worse.Twenty years ago, I was suffering from a belly ache. It wasn’t pain from something I ate, it was a sharp pain right where my belly button is. I saw a doctor in Indiana, and he told me that it was all in my head—that I was probably just under stress—worried about graduating from college and getting married.
I graduated, got married, and the pain got worse. I tried to observe carefully when it hurt and where it hurt. It wasn’t in my head. It was about a quarter inch below my naval. I saw another doctor—this time in Texas. We talked for a few minutes in his office. He poked and prodded a little, and then said, “Boy, you’re just gettin’ fat. You need to loosen your pants and your belt a notch!” I looked at the long horns on his wall, and then at the floor, and then walked out of his office feeling defeated. And the pain did not go away.
I noticed that there was a knot developing under my belly button and the pain was especially sharp after I ran. I didn’t go to a doctor this time. Instead, I started thumbing through a medical dictionary at my in-law’s house. I found “abdominal pain.” I followed the chart of symptoms and it led me to a page that gave a possible cause—an umbilical hernia. I went to a third doctor with my self-diagnosis. And weeks later the hole in my belly button was sewed shut with seven permanent stitches.
The two healings in our Gospel reading reveal that Jesus is a master Physician. He does not even need a CAT scan to examine the woman with the internal bleeding; his healing power simply flows out of him to her.
His diagnosis for the twelve-year-old girl is a little strange, though, isn’t it? He says, “The child is not dead but sleeping.” This contradicts the earlier report that the child is dead. Jesus’ words that she is sleeping quickly turn the crying into laughter. But the most significant diagnosis that Jesus gives is not that she is sleeping. It is the diagnosis that he gives to Jairus: “Do not fear, only believe.” Fear of death—fear of losing his daughter—fear that Jesus’ assurance “she is only sleeping” is wrong—fear of living life powerless to help his daughter—fear of disease having the final word—fear of living in a world dictated by the blind injustice of chance and bad luck.
Jairus was a leader of the synagogue—he understood the importance of the reading of Scripture, prayer, and worship. He was constantly reminded of a God who led and sustained his people through the wilderness. He knew the stories of God who healed and brought people back from the dead. Perhaps his greatest fear was that all that those stories were wonderful accounts of God’s power and presence—but such miracles are for others, not for himself. Jesus invites him to let go of the fear and trust in him.
It is not easy to hear such a strange diagnosis as fear or sleep. But that is exactly the power and perceptiveness of Jesus, the Master Physician. He can not only look into our bodies but also our hearts and our eternal souls. He understands the struggles and doubts we have—he also was tempted in every way but without sin. He not only sees the body of his daughter there but the eternal, spiritual and prophetic reality of her condition. Death does not have the last word. Death has not won the day. Death is a defeated foe. Death has been conquered on the cross and the empty grave. Death for the child of God is no more final that sleep is when we close our eyelids and night.
We lay our children down to bed at night with the confidence that even though their breathing slows, they become motionless, and grow unresponsive—the morning comes when they will wake up to a new day. The Apostle Paul refers to death as sleep many times in his letters. For the child of God we are given the constant assurance that to fall asleep in Jesus is to wake up in our eternal home with him. To not have this relationship with God through faith in Jesus is the worst kind of death and separation. To not live in the assurance of forgiveness and eternal life is the worst state of mental health.
Jesus calls us out this bondage to fear into a trusting relationship with him. We need not fear but only believe that he will take us by the hand like he did that little girl and tell us, “Talitha cum,” “Little girl, get up!” “Little child of God rise up in the confidence that because he lives, we shall live also. And that even that dreaded enemy death is a defeated one. And that to close our eyelids in death here on earth is to open them in our eternal home. And through it all—from sleep to waking up—from death to life—Jesus has us safely by the hand.
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