The Gospel of Life!

Sunday, June 30, 2024

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Wis 1:13-15, 2:23-24; 2 Cor 8:7,9, 13-15; Mk 5:21-43

The thirteenth Sunday invites us to reflect on the fact that the gift of God is the Gospel of Life. 

That health, life, and wholeness are God’s gifts to humanity is the predominant theme of the week. 

The first reading is forthright in its statement that God did not create death. It establishes the fact that the Gospel of Life, proclaimed in the beginning when humans were created in God’s image for a full and perfect life, is contradicted by the painful experience of death, which enters the world and casts its shadow of meaninglessness over human existence. Though God created humans for life and health, it is they who bring death upon themselves through sin. Our God is a God of life, and human flourishing is the adequate way to give glory to God. 

Saint Paul continues the theme of the Gospel of Life when he exhorts the Corinthian community to generosity in the second reading. Paul persuades the community to share their resources with those who have greater need, citing the example of the Lord, who embraced the poverty of the human condition to give us life in abundance. We were made equals to God when God embraced our human existence and relieved us who were in want. If Jesus shared his abundance of life to match our poverty, then we are called to ensure the flourishing of others in loving generosity. The abundance of life that Jesus shared with us is an example of imitation.  

Today’s Gospel contains two healing narratives that continue the theme of the Gospel of Life. 

Healing of the Woman with Blood Issues: The healing of the woman is done on the way to Jairus’ house. Just as secret acts of sin are known to the Lord, secret acts of faith are known to the Lord as well. Here, the woman’s secret expression of faith brings her healing. We can perceive the uniqueness of her faith in the fact that though a multitude thronged Jesus, only she touched him in faith to experience healing. She reminds us that it is not merely enough to be around Jesus without making an act or effort of faith. The woman’s faith could not be said to bear any imperfection because her strong faith believed that she would be cured just by touching the fringe of Jesus’ cloak. She was strongly convinced that the healing power was both within Christ and around him. It is this conviction that gives her healing. Also, we find that the physical and the spiritual are well-connected in Jesus. This is why he could feel the power going out of himself when his cloak was touched in faith. Jesus knew the invisible grace in action. Thus, through her secret expression of faith, the woman becomes an exemplar. 

Raising Jairus’ Daughter: Jairus’ prayer comes at the point of his daughter’s death. When Jesus enters his house, he witnesses a commotion. The people weeping and wailing loudly are evidence of the fact that the girl’s death has already taken place. However, it is in the death of the girl that we witness Christ’s full demonstration of resurrection power. If the healing of the woman with blood issues showed Jesus’ power over illness, the raising of Jairus’ daughter demonstrates Jesus’ power over death. Thus, the healing and the raising show that health and life are the realms of God. Also, we find Jesus selecting Peter, James, and John, the three preferred disciples to witness his power of resurrection. 

In the case of the woman, the silent expression of her faith brings her healing. 

A word of power from Jesus raises Jairus’ daughter from death to life. 

In a striking manner, today’s readings offer a magnificent example of the theme of John’s Gospel that ‘Jesus came so that we may have life and have it abundantly’ (John 10:10). 

It is said that in the city of Werden, Germany, there stands a Catholic Church with a lamb carved out of stone and placed on its roof. When the Church was being built, a stone-carving mason fell from a high scaffold. His co-workers rushed down, expecting to find him dead. But to their surprise and joy, he was alive and only slightly injured. It was providential that he was saved by a flock of sheep that was passing beneath the tower at the time of his fall, and he landed just on top of a lamb. The lamb broke his fall and was crushed to death, but the man was saved. To commemorate the miraculous escape, he carved a lamb in stone and placed it on the tower, in gratitude for the lamb that saved his life. 

Jesus, the Lamb of God, proclaims the Gospel of Life because he died so that we may live!

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar