NOTES for Mar 5:22-6:1

Death. People are ready to believe in the miracles Jesus performs, that is, to acknowledge His tremendous power. But when the word "death" appears, there is no more reason to trouble the Teacher. Death is the end. Even the most terrible disease still leaves hope, but death is everything.

Yet this is precisely what turns out not to be true. Resurrection takes its place alongside the other healings. Disease and death turn out to be phenomena of the same order. Death is not something beyond the world, something we cannot fight because it is immeasurably greater than we are, nor is it something sacred in that sense. No, death is only the end of a chain of diseases that testify to the corruptibility of this material nature.

That is why the two stories of people being raised from the dead, Lazarus and Jairus's daughter, do not have a special style compared with the miracles of healing. Yes, death is a very important event. But birth is far more important, because death is only a passage. To our earthly eyes, death and birth are events of the same order in the strength of the experience; only the sign of that experience differs. And for our earthly feelings, this is how it should be. It is frightening when people do not weep at funerals out of some false religiosity. But when the soul weeps, the spirit must quietly and calmly learn new paths of connection with the beloved person now that there is no material connection between you. This is possible only if we are filled with the spirit of today's reading.

Death is not an impassable wall. There is One who always gives our dead back to us: the Lord Jesus Christ.

The story of the healing of the woman who suffered from bleeding shows us the Kingdom, and the relationships that bind its inhabitants to one another, from a somewhat unexpected angle. In principle, of course, there is nothing surprising in the fact that a person who comes into contact with the Kingdom is healed: in the Kingdom there can be no place for sickness or death. Something else is interesting: exactly how it happens. Of course, no sharing in the Kingdom is possible without real, living relationship with the One who brought the Kingdom into the world, without trust in Him. But in the story of the woman healed of her bleeding, that relationship was still somewhat one-sided.

That the woman who was healed trusted Jesus completely is obvious: otherwise she would never have dared to touch Him, since people suffering from such illnesses were considered unclean from the Torah's point of view, and their touch defiled those whom they touched. It took very great faith in healing to dare to do what the woman mentioned in the story did. And, of course, it took boundless trust in the One to whom she was turning for healing.

Jesus heals the woman who touched Him without even noticing her. He only senses that someone has touched Him, not the way people accidentally brush against one another in a dense crowd, but seeking healing, touching Him in order to share in that power of God whose fullness He bears in Himself. At the moment of healing, Jesus not only does not pay attention to the woman healed by touching Him, He does not even see her.

As we can see, it also happens that a person takes the first step toward the Kingdom on his own, by his own will, taking the initiative into his own hands, so to speak. It happens, then, that the Kingdom is "taken by force" in this way too. But, of course, in this case the first step is always accompanied by a responsive step toward the person by the One who brought the Kingdom into the world. It cannot be otherwise: relationships are always mutual; they are never one-sided. And Jesus, as we can see, accepts the woman who dared to do what far from everyone would dare to do. And He tells her that her faith has saved her, her resolve and trust in Him. The very things without which one cannot enter the Kingdom.

The woman with a flow of blood, whose healing we read about in today's Gospel, does something completely unlawful. Under Jewish law, blood defiles, and therefore a sick woman must keep away from pious people. All the more must she keep away from the Temple and from God. If one of the Pharisees had intercepted her as she forced her way through the crowd toward Jesus, she would have been condemned and perhaps severely punished. At the very least, she would have been thoroughly shamed: how dare you, so unclean, steeped in sin and impurity, approach the Teacher! Yet He Himself tells the Pharisees that people like her—tax collectors and sinners—enter the Kingdom ahead of the religious high achievers, because they have one important quality: they need this Kingdom desperately.

The principle followed by the inhabitants of Galilee, and which each of us has experienced for ourselves, sometimes reflects a very sad phenomenon in our spiritual life. The essence of this principle is that when people think they know something or someone very well, they become unable to see in that person more than they are used to seeing. Unfortunately, we ourselves often find ourselves in the place of Jesus' countrymen, except that, in addition to calling Him the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joses, and others, we also call Him the Son of God. But this lofty confession does not prevent us from closing our eyes to what we have not yet grasped and have not yet grown into. Like those Galileans, we think we are sufficiently familiar with our Savior from Scripture, from the works of theologians, and from the stories of mystics. But there is one irrefutable argument that shows how little we know Him and how little we believe in Him: spiritual slackness, despondency, life not lived at full strength, weakness in prayer, the inability to see His action in our life, to trust and hope only in Him. No wonder He performs so many miracles neither in our destinies, families, nor communities. What should be done here? That is a question for each of us...

There is only one real barrier between a person and God: distrust. More precisely, there are many barriers, but only this one proves truly insurmountable. Everything else can be overcome, if not by the person, then by God, through the joint effort of two wills seeking a meeting. Distrust, however, is insurmountable precisely for God. If a person persists in it, the wall between him and God becomes absolute.

God could enter a person's life and even his heart without asking for human consent at all, but such an entrance would simply destroy the person as a free personality, as the image of God. Not wanting that outcome, God, if a person does not trust Him, simply steps aside, removing Himself from the life space of the one who does not want to see Him. Or, as another version, who wants to see Him only as he wants to see Him. Of course, no human being can see God as He is.

There is, however, a significant difference between natural human limitation and the limits a person arbitrarily chooses for himself. God as a person sees Him is one thing; God as a person imagines Him for himself is another. For a person in a fallen state, it is at times not so simple to distinguish one from the other. A convenient picture of a convenient "god" often hinders communion with God even more than open unwillingness or obvious sin. The same is true with Christ: whoever does not want to see Christ in Christ sees in Him the kind of person he is used to seeing in life.

This danger is especially great in His hometown, where Jesus is "known" especially well, and judging by the evangelist's account, no one is going to revise that knowledge. This is understandable: if they revised it, they would also have to revise their own lives and their relationship with this Man who seemed to have been familiar for so long. It is easier to leave everything as it is and not trouble oneself. This desire to leave everything as it is leaves no room for a miracle, just as it leaves no room for the Kingdom.

It is not surprising that Jesus cannot work a miracle where people do not believe Him. After all, every miracle is nothing other than a manifestation of the Kingdom that He brought into the world. And the Kingdom is not forced on anyone; it can be accepted and entered only freely, by trusting the Savior.

But if there is no trust, one may fail to notice the Kingdom at all, even while being physically in the same space with it. Spiritually, the person who does not trust Christ will be in different dimensions from Him, and therefore will also be in different dimensions from the Kingdom. But why is Jesus not accepted in the town of His childhood, where He grew up, where everyone knew Him from the time He was a boy?

Perhaps, paradoxical as it may sound, precisely because they knew Him too well. Of course, when some world-famous celebrity, or at least someone famous locally within his own country, returns to his hometown, especially if the town is small, it is always a celebration for the town and a reason for legitimate pride. But the point is that Jesus was not that kind of celebrity, and the inhabitants of Nazareth sensed this perfectly well.

Jesus' renown was already somewhat scandalous, although He did everything He could to avoid a popularity He did not need at all. Such renown could bring the inhabitants of Nazareth no benefit. But even that was not the main reason for their rejection. The main thing was that to acknowledge Jesus as the One He truly is meant also acknowledging His obvious and unquestionable superiority over themselves.

For provincial mediocrity, such acknowledgment is completely unbearable. Then a psychological mechanism is switched on that changes one's point of view toward a great person, making one ignore what matters most and focus on secondary details that have nothing to do with the issue.

And so there arises the illusion of understanding, of knowing "reality," familiar to everyone who has ever said of some great fellow citizen, "Come on, we've known him since childhood," then adding several of the vulgarities usual in such cases. It is not surprising that such a view of a person, whoever he may be, completely excludes any possibility of real, deep relationship. And in the case of Jesus, it also completely excludes any possibility of sharing in the life of the Kingdom that He brought into the world.

Who would go to a carpenter for healing? That question arose among the people of Nazareth when Jesus, already famous for miracles, visited His own hometown. These people saw Jesus only as their familiar neighbor, who earned His living by the carpenter's trade. They already had their opinion of Him, and they were not ready to accept a new one. Yes, people say that He works miracles, but we know Him!

This is precisely the mood that explains the small number of miracles Jesus performed there. He never performed a miracle for the sake of a miracle and did not draw attention to Himself through dazzling shows. Miracles, as a rule, were a response to people's needs. And if no one asks for help, how can a miracle show itself? Jesus could have helped many if they had wanted it. As it was, He "marveled at their unbelief."

Jesus' disciples had witnessed how people rejected Christ through unbelief. They had not yet experienced such treatment themselves. And now the Lord sends the apostles out to preach, equipping them not with a bag, bread, or money, but with authority over unclean spirits and with important instructions about how to carry out their ministry. Notice that Jesus prepares the disciples both for people accepting their preaching and for rejecting it.

Service to the Lord is not always accompanied by visible success, fame, and recognition. Keeping Christ's commandments can lead to people rejecting us. Therefore, as we follow Christ, it is always fitting to ask ourselves: am I ready to be rejected for Him?

Today's passage is devoted to the description of the preaching of Jesus and the apostles in Jesus' homeland, that is, in Galilee (v. 1). Paradoxically, it was precisely in Jesus' hometown that His preaching had, as it appears, the least success and trust (vv. 2-6). But this is not surprising: quite often it is external closeness, and especially family closeness, that prevents people from seeing a person's true greatness and the events that take place with his participation. This evidently happened with Jesus as well: for His household, as for the residents of His hometown, He was merely a well-known fellow townsman and relative, and in His homeland they evidently did not perceive Him in any other capacity. It was at this time that Jesus sent the apostles to preach, and the main theme of their preaching was to be a call to conversion (v. 12). At the same time, however, the most important fact was that the apostles preached not in their own name but as Jesus' disciples, and all their preaching thereby became testimony to Him as the One who had given them the power to do what they did (v. 7, 13). The ban on taking provisions on the road (vv. 8-9) recalls the custom of the ancient prophets, who likewise took no provisions with them on the road, relying on the hospitality of those they would have to pass by. Jesus commanded His apostles to act in the same way (v. 10). But of course there could be no question of imposing one's testimony on anyone: in case of rejection, Jesus commanded the disciples simply to leave the house or city where they were not received and forget about it (v. 11; "shake off the dust," that is, shake the dust from one's feet after leaving a house or city, was in the East a symbolic gesture meaning that the person who did this no longer wanted to have anything to do with that house or city). Such preaching undoubtedly had to make Jesus known throughout all Galilee.

The evangelists always place these two episodes together. What is at issue here is one of the Christian virtues: bold trust. In the case of the woman with the flow of blood, this boldness borders not simply on audacity, but on a crime. According to the law of Moses, this woman is unclean and cannot touch people, yet here she touches the Teacher. One can imagine what it cost her to confess what she had done. But the Lord calls this not a crime and not an insult, but faith: "Your faith has saved you." The second example also speaks of such faith beyond expectation. The ruler of the synagogue is told that while he was going to the Teacher, his daughter died; there is no more hope. But here too the Lord speaks of faith: "Only believe!" These two episodes should still radically change and overturn our ideas about faith, about prayer, and about "politeness" toward God. For Him there are no conventions or etiquette. There is only faith or unbelief, love or lack of love.

It is hard to imagine, even in our own time, which has lost shame in many ways, a woman who would publicly admit that she had suffered for many years from constant bleeding. But in Israel at that time she also had no right to touch people. A woman with a flow of blood was considered unclean; anyone who touched her had to fast for several days and could not enter the Temple. Yet she so longed for healing and so believed that she touched Jesus, and her trust in Him was so great, that when she felt she had been healed, she decided to testify to it before the whole crowd pressing around Him.

Very often shame prevents us from coming to God, sincerely asking Him for something, and turning to Him. We are ashamed to confess, forgetting that God already sees all our sins, everything we are ashamed of, while the priest is only a witness, endowed with the authority to grant us God's forgiveness, but not endowed with authority to judge us. We have nothing to fear. We are ashamed to bear witness to Christ; we are embarrassed and afraid that people will laugh at us, although Christ said that if we are ashamed of Him, He too will be ashamed of us before the Father.

In the Gospel there is a remarkable account of a "healing inside a resurrection." It is about the raising of the daughter of a synagogue ruler ("the ruler of the synagogue") and, as it were along the way, the healing of a woman who for many years had suffered from an unnamed illness involving bleeding. At first glance these events have nothing in common except that they happened at the same time. In reality, however, they are united by one common feature that is not immediately obvious.

Here is a woman who is afraid to admit that she touched Jesus. Today such fear may seem hard for us to understand, but in those days it was fully justified: the issue is bleeding, and according to the norms of the Torah a person suffering from bleeding is considered unclean; touching such a person defiles. Meanwhile the woman touches the Teacher, risking defiling Him if... if only she is not healed. Here it is either healing, or a very serious offense bordering on a crime. Something similar is true with the ruler's daughter: while a person is alive, he can and should be treated, if that is possible, but if he has died, touching his body defiles.

Traditional Yahwist ideas, briefly stated, come down to the understanding that a person is defiled by any contact with anything that diminishes the fullness of his life. Whenever, in modern language, entropy is visibly triumphant, a person is defiled because participation, whether voluntary or involuntary, in such a process is incompatible with another process that is always unfolding in God's presence: the process of sanctification.

Jesus, however, is able each time to turn entropy back, to force it to retreat, even where it seems to triumph irreversibly, as in the case of physical death. For the Kingdom there is no defilement at all: the very presence of its power, its breath, destroys defilement, making the process of becoming defiled impossible in principle. Such is the surpassing life of the Kingdom that Jesus bears in Himself. The only way to be defiled before Christ and the Kingdom is to remain within the space of one's own deliberate sin, but that is another story.