By Rev. Jean-Pierre Ruiz
Over the last several months, Health Commissioner Dr. Dave Chokshi has become New York City’s best-known physician, with his televised public service announcements encouraging people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and reassuring us that the vaccines are safe, effective, and free.
At least for me, the most persuasive of these spots is the one in which he tells us he has been vaccinated and then admits, “While I am grateful for the protection that it offers me, like many others who have been vaccinated, I was thinking of what it means for my loved ones as well. For instance, my daughter finally getting to see her grandparents and making up for a year of lost hugs.”
A year of lost hugs! Virtual hugs aren’t the same, just as watching the Food Network on television won’t ever be as satisfying as the first bite of a crisp, juicy apple. A hug shared with a grandparent, a handshake with a friend, even an elbow bump with a neighbor: how powerful a simple touch can be!
In Sunday’s Gospel, Jairus approaches Jesus and pleads, “My daughter is at the point of death. Please, come lay your hands on her that she may get well and live.” Without a single word, Jesus goes off with Jairus to touch her, as the synagogue official asks of him. Mark tells us that the large crowd that gathered around Jesus when he and his disciples landed their boat “followed him and pressed upon him.” There was no social distancing that day!
While Jesus, his disciples, and his whole ad hoc entourage make their way toward the house of Jairus, a woman who has been suffering for twelve long years makes her way toward Jesus, thinking out loud, “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured,” and reaching out to come into contact not even with Jesus himself, but with his outer garment. In that instant, there is a connection between them: she knows with full confidence that she is healed, and Jesus knows at once that healing power has gone out from him.
He stops, turns around and asks, “Who has touched my clothes?” Ignoring his disciples’ protestations about how futile it would be to find out who touched him, given the size of the crowd that was pressing upon him all around, Jesus insists. Self-conscious about the attention she has drawn to herself and grateful for the healing she has experienced, the woman presents herself to Jesus not knowing what he might say, only to hear his words of reassurance, “Daughter, your faith has saved you.”
As he witnessed the woman’s healing and heard Jesus commend her faith, Jairus must have worried that with every passing moment, his daughter’s condition was deteriorating. No doubt he was overwhelmed with concern that she would slip away before Jesus could make it to her bedside, that the healing power of Jesus’ touch that restored the woman to health would arrive too late to help his own dear daughter.
His worst fears are confirmed when, as Jesus is still speaking, people arrive from his house with the sad message, “Your daughter has died; why trouble the teacher any longer?” Undeterred, Jesus insists, “Do not be afraid; just have faith,” and so they continue on their way to Jairus’ house.
When they arrive, Jesus hears the commotion of the mourners who have gathered to console Jairus and his family at their loss. Undeterred, Jesus insists “the child is not dead but asleep,” though they ridicule him for what seemed like a preposterous claim. Entering the room where the child lay lifeless, accompanied by the girl’s parents and the innermost circle of his disciples, Jesus takes her by the hand and speaks to her. “Talitha koum,” he says, “Little girl, arise!” Mark preserves these words in Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke on a daily basis, rather than Greek, the language in which the Gospels are written.
This happens again when Mark recounts a healing where at Jesus’ word “ephphatha,” “be opened,” a man can hear (Mark 7:34-35). There is nothing magical about the words themselves, though perhaps the evangelist anticipates the understanding of Jesus as God’s Word-made-flesh that we find in John’s Gospel, recognizing the healing power not only of his touch but even of the words he spoke.
If only Jesus could touch us today as he touched Jairus’ daughter and restored her to life! If only we could reach out and touch Jesus’ garments today with our fingertips and feel his healing power restore us! Yet faith teaches that he does: because we become what we receive when we receive the Eucharist, we are the body of Christ.
After all, in the Eucharist Christ is really and not just virtually present! So, through our hands, Jesus can extend his own healing and life-restoring touch to all those who long for relief. Through our words spoken in Jesus’ name in each of our many languages, the Word-made-flesh brings desperately needed hope and comfort to this hurting world in which we live. In Jesus and in his body the Church, in every hug and handshake and elbow bump of ours, God holds this world close in a divine embrace!
Readings for the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Wisdom: 1:13-15; 2:23-24
2 Corinthians: 8:7, 9, 13-15
Mark 5:21-43 or 5:21-24, 35b-43
Father Ruiz, a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn, is a professor of theology at St. John’s University, Jamaica.