18mark 140 recalls an earlier incident involving

18.Mark 1:40 recalls an earlier incident involving healing: a man with leprosy kneels
before Jesus. Jesus accepts kneeling, an attitude of worship, without rebuke or
reprimand. Perhaps Jairus knew of this.
19.The woman mingles with the crowd. Loader (2007) offers insights on the crowd –
observations that add to an understanding of groups of unnamed participants in
biblical stories that serve as bystanders and characters. These bystanders make a
story believable. Combining imagination and scholarship, Loader (2007:1–6) writes
that the people of Capernaum include the unemployed, those looking for work in the
harvest, an occasional Roman soldier and more frequently a Roman tax collector, and
farmers afraid of a possible scarcity in the upcoming harvest. Loader (2007:3) notes
that, whilst people may seem happy, ‘there is also a lot of resentment. Those men
waiting around for work at the market are clearly quite desperate. You wonder how
their families make ends meet. The other day you heard the scandal that the wife of
one of them had turned to prostitution to survive. People had nowhere to go. There
was some help organized by the people who ran the synagogue, but it depended on
gifts and donations. There were no government welfare agencies.’
20.Jairus’ urgency reflects a frantic search for help, for his little daughter is not yet
dead, but is near death (Walters 2012:204).
21.Reading in a canonical sense, the concepts of faith link Jesus and Paul. Indeed, Paul
arguably builds on Jesus’ statements like that in Mark 5:34: ‘Your faith has healed
you.’ Similar statements occur in Mark 10:52, Matthew 9:22 and Luke 7:50, 8:48
and 17:19. A statement of faith from Paul is found in 1 Corinthians 13:2: ‘a faith
that can move mountains.’ For a link between Jesus and Paul regarding faith, see
Pao 2011:321.
22.Spivey et al. (2007:197–198) offer this interesting observation: the healing of
the woman makes the implicit point that belief in Jesus is actually faith in the
and an attentive audience. Each receives healing from Jesus,
but is forced to wait: the woman for many years and Jairus
for agonising minutes, whilst Jesus interacts with the woman.
Her action is both forward (because she ‘takes’ healing from
him) and arguably selfish (because whatever and whomever
she touches becomes likewise unclean and must be separated
from society).
Now let us pause, as the narrative does, and consider the
delay from Jairus’ perspective. Jairus says nothing during
Jesus’ interaction with the interrupting woman, but we
readers and hearers are allowed to imagine his emotions.
Undoubtedly ‘panic and frustration must fill his heart’,
Walters (2012:205) comments. Jairus realises that speed is
essential, for his beloved girl is dying! Yes, a delay occurs,
and word comes that the child is dead. His fatherly heart
must fail him in despair. Yet, that is not the end of the story.