Wading into the messiness of life

To say that things in the world are a mess is an understatement. We are coming out of a pandemic which is biblical in proportion when we consider how every person on the face of the earth has been affected in body, mind and spirit. The pandemic has had an unsettling effect on our society and culture; take for example how children have been affected by the lockdowns and stay-at-home orders which caused schools to go to remote learning. Children have been isolated from their classmates and friends; it has caused a messiness in the lives of families and especially children. The racial unrest that we are experiencing across our nation has revealed a messiness which has existed in our nation but frankly has been ignored. We can no longer sweep the messiness under a rug thinking it will go away. We must wade into the messiness of our lives and culture to bring Christ’s healing and justice.

Jesus himself waded into the messiness of life offering freedom from oppression and depression of the human spirit. Why else would he time and time again go into the vast crowds of people offering hope and faith to those whose spirits were impoverished. “When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a large crowd gathered around him, and he stayed close to the sea.” (Mark 5:21-43) In this crowd Jesus encountered Jairus, a synagogue official who had a sick daughter. He said to Jesus: “My daughter is at the point of death. Please come and lay your hands on her that she may get well and live.”

Jesus waded into the messiness of the life of Jairus and, just as importantly, Jairus acknowledged the messiness of his own life. He recognized his own inability to effect change in his daughter’s condition through human means. He recognized that Jesus could bring about change through divine intervention. “Seeing him he fell at his feet and pleaded earnestly with him, saying, my daughter is at the point of death. Please, come lay your hands on her that she may get well and live.” (Mk 5: 22-23) Jesus went with Jairus and so did the crowds of people. Among the crowd that followed Jesus was a woman afflicted with hemorrhages. What made this woman follow Jesus? Hope and faith that Jesus could free her from all that oppresses and depresses the human spirit.

We each in our own way wade into the messiness of life, some of the messiness is caused by us and some of the messiness of our lives we have no control over such as the effects of the pandemic. How can we be freed from all that oppresses and depresses the human spirit? By reaching out and touching Jesus as the woman with the hemorrhages did. By doing so we then let Jesus touch us and bring freedom to our oppressed and depressed spirit. “She said, if I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured.” Jairus, the woman and the entire crowd came to meditate on Jesus’ words and to be healed by the word that would clean up the messiness of their lives and bring about new life.

The first reading from Wisdom 1:13-15; 2:23-24, is a foreshadowing of the words that Jesus spoke to the vast crowds that came to be healed of the messiness of their lives that affected them in body, mind and spirit. Wisdom is a beautiful meditation of how God sustains his creation by freeing the human spirit through the promise of eternal life. “God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living. For he fashioned all things that they might have being, and the creatures of the world are wholesome.” This meditation from the Book of Wisdom gave hope to the generations who preceded Jesus’ coming and the crowd who followed Jesus knew of it as well and it would have inspired faith and hope in Jesus. Just like the crowds who witnessed the resuscitation of Jairus’ daughter and the healing of the woman with the hemorrhages, our own spirits can be healed from oppression and depression. The messiness of our lives does not have to remain messy; we only need to be willing to wade into the messiness and allow the Lord to heal us. Let us then praise the Lord for he has rescued us. (Psalm 30: 2,4,5-6,11,12-13)