How to Get What You Deserve

I recently had to buy a new car. Mostly because my old car was beginning to show signs of not being able to make it out of first gear. So I did the research, decided on a few leading contenders, and went to a dealership. We made it all the way through the process to the part I was dreading, the part where I mentioned I had a trade-in. Now I wasn’t expecting much, but this car had been with me for 15 years. It had taken me all over the United States, and its worth to me was immeasurable. So when the salesman came back and said, “Now we’re not going to do this, but…,” I braced for the worst. The worst, it turned out, was negative $141. I was aghast. Offended. And I left.

Have you ever been in a situation like that? That you felt you weren’t getting what you deserved? That you did everything the right way, and life handed you a bill for $141?

It doesn’t help then to hear platitudes like “we aren’t owed anything in this life” or “that’s just the way it is.” Why? Why is that the way it is? Why is life so unjust?

In Mark’s Gospel, we see an interesting story that might help us (Mark 5:21-43). There, Jesus is petitioned by an important man, a synagogue leader, to go and heal his daughter. The man, named Jairus, is respected in the community, and is most likely a good and righteous man. So Jesus agrees. After all, Jairus has asked nicely.

But on the way, something happens. A woman, who has had an issue of bleeding for 12 years, grabs the hem of Jesus’s robe and is healed. Which is shocking for several reasons. As someone with a bleeding problem, she’s unclean and shouldn’t be in a crowd at all. It’s irresponsible. She breaks the law. And she doesn’t even ask. She’s the polar opposite to Jairus in that way, and in almost every other way too.

So Jesus begins to look through the crowd for the person who touched him. And Jairus is probably thinking, “Not the time. NOT. THE. TIME. Let’s go! My little girl is dying!” But Jesus keeps looking.

Finally, the woman makes her way back through the crowd to Jesus. And in that moment, Jairus sees her. HER. Because part of Jairus’s job as synagogue leader is to turn away people like this woman. People who are unclean.

It’s probably safe to say that happened over the course of 12 years, because this woman doesn’t seem to have the same penchant for rule-following that Jairus does. She is isolated, destitute, and alone. Is it such a stretch then that this woman would look for solace in religion? In the very synagogue that Jairus helps maintain?

If so, then this woman is not only familiar, but may have been a regular nuisance. It’s this woman who makes her way through the crowd now. I can imagine Jairus is thinking, “No. Not HER. Why? Why is she here? Why can’t she just follow the rules?” And maybe more to the point, because he’s a good Jew, “Now the teacher can’t heal my little girl.” Because now Jesus is unclean. If he invites Jesus into his house, he will, in a very real sense, be inviting this woman.

The hard truth here is quite hard then: no one gets what they deserve. Jairus deserves this healing. This woman doesn’t.

But maybe there’s still time. If Jesus would hurry up. He’s listening to her now. What’s he saying?

“Daughter.”

That is Jesus’s first word to the woman. The very word that was on Jairus’s lips just moments before. And in that moment, we see that Jesus is here to heal someone else entirely: Jairus himself.

But Jairus can’t see it yet. Especially now. Word has come that his daughter is already dead. Jesus looks him in the eyes, eyes no doubt filled with tears, and tells him not to be afraid. And they journey, finally, to Jairus’s house.

When Jesus arrives, professional mourners are hard at work. Jesus tells them the little girl is taking a nap and that their services are no longer needed. Then he invites in only the immediate family and slowly settles in beside the little girl’s bed. He whispers. He doesn’t shout. He doesn’t wave his hands. He whispers, “Talitha Koum.” The very phrase Jairus probably used himself every morning. “Get up, little girl, get up.”

And she does.

But the story doesn’t end there. It does in the text, but we often forget that these characters in Scripture had lives after they encountered Jesus. Part of this life, for Jairus and for his daughter, was the celebration of a Bat Mitzvah, where a young girl transitions to being a woman. It was a celebration the entire town would have been invited to. Including the woman Jesus had healed.

Picture then this scene if you will. A woman healed of a bleeding problem she had for 12 years comes to the celebration of Jairus’s 12-year-old daughter and is greeted and welcomed at the door of the synagogue by Jairus himself. What did they do? Laugh? Cry? Did they ask, “How in the world did we get here?” That’s the healing moment we’re all waiting for. The real stuff of heaven.

And that’s the key to “why.” Jesus could see that coming. They couldn’t.

For us then, it behooves us to remember that God is taking our story somewhere better than we could ever imagine. Could Jairus have even contemplated how good Jesus was if he had told him the ending? Could he have even dreamed how thoroughly Jesus actually cared when it looked like he didn’t seem to care at all?

None of us gets what we deserve. Thank God. But if we have faith enough to keep after this Jesus, we might find out that he is at work healing us in ways we could never fathom on our own.

Jairus had no idea how his religion had made him the opposite of what he wanted to be. That he was part of a system that kept others out, even as he worked to be welcoming. Exposing this to him was a mercy maybe greater than anything else. He would never be able to look at his daughter again and not see that woman. That woman who was God’s daughter.

In that way, we too should look at others when suffering comes our way. When we are waiting on our miracle. There is plenty of hurt to go around, but healing is on the way. We believe that.

In the meantime, may we not miss the hurting children of God around us. And may we (praise God) not get what we deserve, but something deeper and better and stronger than our best thoughts can grasp. It’s quite a trade if we can accept it.