That version of the quote may be even more appropriate to today’s gospel text than the more familiar one about desperate times and measures.
This is a wonderful story about 2 unnamed women who are helped by Jesus. The stories are intertwined and contain much symbolism. In both cases there is desperation and faith—or desperate faith—on the part of someone in the story.
In the case of the 12-year-old girl who is dying, the desperation and the faith belong to her father Jairus. This man was a religious leader—head of the synagogue—with power and authority in the Jewish community. He was probably a member of the group of religious leaders who were not very happy with Jesus because of his popularity with the masses and because of the things he said and did that seemed quite contrary to Jewish Law.
We can certainly understand Jairus’ fear that his daughter is dying and his desperation to get Jesus to his house in time to save her. But the original hearers of the story would have been surprised by Jairus’ emotions and his willingness to seek out this itinerant preacher-healer who was already in trouble with the authorities who were very likely Jairus’ friends.
Prior to the scientific age people did not allow themselves to get too attached emotionally to their children because so many of the children died young in the days before vaccinations, hospitals, and prenatal care. In Jesus' time “60 percent of live births usually died by their mid-teens.”[ii] The gift of a child must have seemed too precarious to invest in wholeheartedly, yet this man couldn't bear to lose his little girl even in a time when daughters were not valued as much as sons. But he is desperate, so he risks being ridiculed, and he risks missing the last few precious moments in his daughter's life.
Jesus is with the usual crowds that follow him, but he immediately agrees to go with Jairus. The crowd goes along too. There are lots of people all wanting to get close to Jesus. I don’t know if they’re jostling or not, but Mark tells us they are pressing in close around Jesus so that I’d imagine you’d hardly know who’s who. Because of this large crowd, it’s amazing to the disciples when Jesus stops and asks, “Who touched me?”
In a crowd like that you’re likely to be bumping up against lots of people so what’s the big deal? But to Jesus it was a big deal. Someone needed his compassionate healing energy and he chose not to let it be an anonymous situation.
We, like the disciples, might wonder how he could possibly have known what happened when the woman with the hemorrhage touched the hem of his clothes. But Jesus was aware that healing power had left him. One of my Reiki instructors in Sedona told about being in line at the grocery store and feeling the Reiki energy kick in and flow out from his body. He wondered who it was nearby who was in need of that energy. I experienced it once myself when I placed by hand over the baptismal font while saying the prayer of blessing over the water and felt the Reiki energy begin to flow from my hand to the water.
The woman who had been bleeding for 12 years was desperate. She had been unclean for 12 long years, which was also the entire life of Jairus’ daughter. That means that NO one had touched her for 12 years. She was isolated. She was tired. She had no energy; no life. She had a desperate faith that touching Jesus would make a difference!
Did Jesus make the incident public so that everyone would know about the power he had? I really don’t think so. He made it public so that everyone would know that the woman was no longer unclean and so she would know that she was loved; that she was important. Now she could be welcomed back into her community. She was acceptable again under the law. What compassion! What a gift!
But as a result of Jesus’ distraction with the healing of a nameless woman in the crowd, too much time has passed. Jairus had been so anxious to get Jesus to his house as soon as possible. Instead messengers come to tell Jairus they are too late—his daughter has died. No point in bringing the Teacher home now. Don’t bother him; let him be.
But Jesus isn’t going to be thwarted by these bearers of bad news. He says to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid, just believe.” Imagine! In the face of such terrible news Jesus says “just believe.”
And so they set off again. But this time Jesus takes only Peter, James, John and Jairus with him. When they get to Jairus’ house everyone there laughs at Jesus and ridicules him for saying the little girl is only sleeping.
I have this wonderful picture in my mind of Jesus saying, “OK that’s it, everybody OUT!” Then he takes Jairus and his wife, Peter, James and John and goes to where Jairus’ daughter is. He takes her hand and calls her to get up and that’s precisely what she does! 
We’re told that in the face of everyone’s amazement, Jesus tells them to feed the girl and not to let anyone know what happened. So… what? They’re going to tell everyone, “oh yeah, the Teacher was right after all—she was only sleeping!”??! Sure. Yeah. Right. Although that might be easier to swallow than to believe Jesus could raise people from the dead. Maybe they could get away with it! But like so many other times when Jesus said “don’t tell,” I’m sure the story spread like wildfire.
These beautiful stories can also be tough because children still die and not everyone who prays for healing gets it. So… what is it? Don’t they have enough faith?
Instead of analyzing whether someone has enough faith or not, maybe we should be asking why these stories are included in Mark’s gospel. Maybe these are not stories about how to get God to do what we want—in other words how to keep in control—maybe these are stories about who God is, how God acts, and what God is like! Maybe Mark’s gospel tells these stories for just ONE reason—to make it clear that this is no ordinary man. This man is the son of God. Believe it!
Miracles are not always what we imagine, and neither is healing. We need to be open to the fact that healing may be “the restoration of meaning to people’s lives no matter what their physical condition might be.”[iii]
In response to people’s desperate faith, Jesus says come and live! “You who believe, and you who sometimes believe and sometimes don't believe much of anything, and you who would give almost anything to believe if only you could…. Get up, all of you—all of you” and LIVE! Jesus gives life not only to the dead, but to those of us who are "only partly alive…who much of the time live with our lives closed to the wild beauty and the…miracle of every day we live and even of ourselves.” Jesus calls us to the power of new life, new hope, new being.[iv]
This is what God is like—filled with compassion and love for everyone, even the unclean and the unnamed. Jesus risked becoming unclean himself twice in this text—once by being touched by the bleeding woman and again by touching the dead girl. People and Love were always more important than religious law and societal taboos.
In these stories we catch a glimpse of the Reign of God, where all are heard, all are loved and community is restored. AMEN.
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