When faith is like fireworks

When faith is like fireworks

Two very different people. The first runs to Jesus with urgency. “Save my daughter!”

The second never runs or meets Jesus’ face. No words are shared. Instead, she comes in from behind with an outstretched arm. Suffering physically and emotionally, she is just able to touch the hem of His garment as He passes.

One has power. Specifically, religious power. The other is powerless.

Both come for healing.

Their journeys are radically different, but both know of Jesus. Also, both experience their faith expanded tremendously with this Healer who, at this point in His ministry, is gaining popularity.

These two convergent stories in Mark 5 do not seem to be interrelated. In fact, the story of the woman reaching for Jesus’ garment interrupts the story of a time-pressured dad rushing Jesus to his house to heal his dying daughter. Because Jesus stops and asks who has touched his robe on His way to the ill child, there is a pause, a delay.

In this standstill where Jesus speaks to and empowers this woman’s faith, we learn the daughter has died. Jesus is too late.

Just minutes earlier, the man raced to Jesus with hope and desperation. “Please,” he must have said without speaking a word. “Come with me. You must see my daughter.”

All his hope turned to heart-crushing hurt. He fell at Jesus’ feet the first time He met this Healer. Now, with the news of his daughter, he likely wished he could fall into a heap.

What Jesus did with the woman is what He is about to do with the man in his sudden place of loss and pain. As He spoke to the woman about her faith, He was about to speak to the faith of the man in front of Him.

The man’s name is Jairus. Jesus says to him, “Don’t be afraid. Have faith (verse 36).” Then later, in the privacy of Jairus’ home, Jesus heals his daughter. The girl is restored to life.

Restoration is what many wish for here in America as we prepare to celebrate the Fourth of July. A healthier America is the goal.

We don’t want to find ourselves where these two in this text are. We don’t want to grovel. We don’t want to plea. We want our nation’s wellness to be passed out like abundant coupons or flyers at the sliding glass doors of megastores where everything is shiny and new, and bigger is, of course, better.

With church attendance as it is these days, we certainly aren’t running to Jesus. Even though so many of us are hurting, and our nation itself is hurting in some places, we don’t want to extend an arm to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment either.

But what if the Jesus in this story is the same Jesus in our stories? What if Jesus hears our hurts? What if He feels our sorrows? Rather than just doling out some delicious beverages at the backyard party hours like an endless dispenser of things that pop or fizz before the fireworks, what if He is actually making our faith be like the fireworks themselves?

Both Jairus and the woman with health issues wanted it easy. No loss. No fear. No discomfort.

Both would have said a resounding “no thank you” to their white-knuckled moments, their heartbreak, and their hurts. 

That didn’t happen.

Something else did.

Jesus did not just replenish these two. By asking the crowd who had touched His robe, by taking that moment as a full stop for the unnamed woman and for Jairus, the Son of God did not keep their faith where it had been. Instead, He made their faith pop and fizz like fireworks.

After what He had done for them, they could not have been still. They could not have been silent.

We cannot be still or silent because the Jesus then is the same Jesus now. He wants us to rush toward Him. He also wants us to touch Him.

As for faith like fireworks, we can light any darkness or nighttime sky with hope in our healing Jesus.