An important man waits
See Mark 5:21-42
I’ve always hated waiting. And I’ve rarely had to, even as a child. I would push and push to get the thing that I wanted – those things that I needed – right now. My parents called me strong-willed and impatient and they were right.
But as I grew, this trait was encouraged, even admired. As adolescent bargaining with my peers (and then my mentors) to get my way, people called me ambitious. I never let obstacles stand in my way. And now they call me a leader. People in my community respect me, they know my name. I’ve become quite accustomed to getting what I want when I want it, because people around here listen when I speak.
I am not a hard or cruel man. I am a benefactor to many. I give what I can, I help where I can. I have resources. But those resources also mean that I never have to wait to get what I want. There’s little around here that my coins, or my clout, or my favours can’t buy.
Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash
But sometimes life levels the playing field. For me, it came the day that my dear daughter, just twelve years old and on the very cusp of life, became ill. At first, I sprung into action, just as I always did. She didn’t linger long on her sick bed before I had the finest physician that I could find in to see her. He had options, and I paid for the best medicines and therapies immediately. When they didn’t work, I found another who tried a thing or two, and then another. But no matter how much I paid, cajoled, and threatened, they couldn’t help. My daughter grew sicker.
Then I felt something that I have rarely felt in my life – desperate. I worked my networks, I called in favours, but nothing was helping. My wife was terrified, and I couldn’t bear to watch her cry. I knew that I had to do something, but I didn’t know what.
Until I heard a name. A name that I’d heard before carried in the rumour mill, a name spoken in my household among my servants who whisper the latest stories they’d heard. Sometimes my guests would bring it up, a curiosity, a matter of hot gossip for conversation.
“Jesus.”
The stories told about him included that he was able to heal.
It was a measure of how desperate I was that I sought out the opinion of my own slaves, who depended on me for their living, to know more. I knew they had access to information through their own networks, gleaned from the market or other places where they gathered to share the latest news. So, I asked them about Jesus. I smiled for the first time in days when one of my maidservants let me know that she heard he had just come back, his boat landing nearby. I insisted that she take me at once to find him, and she (of course) obliged.
And she was right – there was Jesus, and already there was a crowd around him. Everyone, it seems, wanted to see what he might do next. Many people wanted an audience with him. Many others might have had a need, but I did not wait. I walked right up to him – and the crowd parted and allowed me to reach him. My face is known around here.
I thought I even heard a gasp when I fell at the man’s feet – for it is usually others who bow to me, not the other way around. But I didn’t care what anyone thought. I was very afraid for my daughter. I pleaded with Jesus to come and heal her before he did anything else.
And he came. As I knew he would. Because I’m used to getting my way.
But then, even though the ever-growing crowd surged around us, and I led the way, Jesus suddenly stopped. It felt like my heart was stopping too.
Photo by Kai Pilger on Unsplash
Jesus was on the clock. My clock. But now he was making me wait.
I couldn’t even tell what the commotion was all about, and I honestly didn’t care. I could feel my face grow hot as he stood there, stock still, looking around the massive crowd around him, searching, he said, for someone who had brushed against him.
I was incensed. How could he do this? Could he not see my desperation? Did he not know what it took for me to kneel at his feet? Did he not understand how very sick my daughter was? What kind of healer would let a sick little girl wait when it was in his power to help her?
And still he stood there, eyes combing the crowd for another.
She finally came forward. It turns out that she had no father to come to Jesus on her behalf. The crowd consumed her instead of parting to allow her access to Jesus. It was an act of sheer faith that she had set out at all that day, her purpose not to draw any attention to herself but merely to touch the edge of his garment. Jesus said: “Daughter, your faith has made you well.”1
But when I looked this woman, and at Jesus standing still as he talked to her – I saw only red.
I don’t like waiting.
And I couldn’t wait. My daughter meant everything to me. And she was so very sick. And Jesus was making me, making her, wait.
And then from among the crowd appeared people from my household. And I knew that moment I saw them that something was very wrong. “Why bother the teacher anymore?” they said. My little girl was gone.2
All I could think was: “Is this what I get for my faith?” I, too, had believed in Jesus. I, too, needed something form him that day. I, too, had come seeking his help. I, too, thought he could heal. But he’d made me wait while he wasted time with this woman in the middle of a crowd. And now it was too late.
The anger buzzed in my ears when Jesus turned to me and said: “Don’t be afraid; just believe”3
But Jesus was undaunted. Curiously, he sent away the crowds. He allowed only three of his own closest followers to come with us, and though I was furious, I didn’t know what else to do but lead on. All the way, however, I was preparing the speech I would give him, the fury I would unleash on him when he laid his eyes on my dead daughter.
The scene around my home did nothing to reassure me – we could hear the weeping and wailing almost before we could see the place. Everyone cared about my little girl’s life – everyone it seems, I thought with another stab of rage, except Jesus – the one I’d trusted with my final plea.
But he still appeared unphased, even by their grief. The fool even insisted that they were all wrong, and that my girl was only sleeping. Which sounded so absurd that it provoked laughter!
But Jesus left even the derisive laughter behind. He beckoned my wife and I alone to come into the place where my daughter lay. He looked at her with the most tender look I’ve ever seen. “Good!” I thought. Now he’ll see what he did when he made me wait.
But he took her hand, and said some words to her, urging her to get up off her bed.
And she took his hand, stood up, and began to walk around. And all the angry words that had built in my heart, ready to hurl at Jesus, slipped away.
Photo by Luca Upper on Unsplash
Mark 5:24.
Mark 5:25.
Mark 5:26.