KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 15 May
Talitha Cumi
An Aramaic phrase, it means, “little girl, I say unto you, arise”. It is part of an intriguing scene in which Jesus heals and raises to life, a kind of double miracle, as it were, which helps us to understand the radical nature of the Resurrection. A ruler of the Jews, Jairus by name, comes to Jesus seeking the healing of his daughter who is “at the point of death.” Jesus goes with him and “a great crowd followed him and thronged about him.”
Jesus is in the midst. A woman in the crowd who had suffered “a flow of blood for twelve years” and “who had suffered much under many physicians” thinks that “if I touch even his garments, I shall be made well.” She touches his garment and immediately is healed. But the greater interest is in what follows. Jesus wants to know who touched him, even more he wants the woman who was healed to be embraced in his knowing love of our humanity rather than presuming to steal a cure unawares. She comes to him “in fear and trembling and and fell down before him and told him the whole truth.” His response shows us what God seeks for us: our being healed in his knowing love for us. “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” Only then does he continue on his way to the house of Jairus.
On the way, he is told that she is dead but he comes any way. In the face of the mockery and laughter of the household, he bids her in Aramaic to arise. She is raised up. It is one of three powerful stories where Jesus meets us as mourners and restores to life the dead. Such scenes prepare us and show us something of the radical nature of the Resurrection. It is the only scene, though, which shows our disdain and cynical mockery of the possibility of new life. We laugh and are dead, as it were, to the power of God. This story is meant to counter such behaviour and to awaken us to the wonder of God and to the nature of his will for us.