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HOW TO COPE WHEN YOU’RE DESPERATE

Like millions of other Americans, Eric and Raedyn Grasseth both worked to make ends meet, and when daughter Riley came into their lives, it meant a complex juggling of schedules.

Eric left very early each morning for work at the US Gypsum plant in Rainier, Oregon. Raedyn had a job on the night shift of the local 911 service. This is a sleepy hollow, and there are long periods of silence for the operators during the night. But that didn’t bother Raedyn. Her father, Bill, was Cathlemet’s Assistant Fire Chief. Her mother, Cynthia, was a senior paramedic, and her aunt, Erin, lived close by—an emergency medical technician. So their lives were comfortable, surrounded with friends and family, and dedicated to providing emergency services.

Because Raedyn got home a little after her husband left for work in the morning, they had a baby-sitter bridge the gap. That’s the way things were in February, 2001, when early in the morning the phone rang at 911 headquarters. Raedyn answered and heard a most unexpected, agitated voice. She heard her baby-sitter calling from home saying that Raedyn’s nine-month-old baby had stopped breathing! The babysitter had wakened to a silent baby monitor. She rushed to the little girl’s crib and found the baby’s head wedged in the side of its crib.

Raedyn acted like the professional she is. She got the main facts in seconds, then called the baby’s aunt, Erin, the emergency tech, who headed out the door in an instant and began CPR on the baby. Aid crews from two counties rushed to the emergency, sirens shattering the quiet, and headlights piercing the darkness at 3:50 AM.

While paramedics worked, Raedyn could do nothing for her baby! She couldn’t leave the 911 desk. Imagine her fear as she went over all the possibilities and eventualities, knowing she could do nothing. Sadly, the little one did not revive.

That awful tragedy introduces another story found in the “Gospel of Peter,” as we sometimes call the book of Mark. Well, actually it’s a sequence of two interconnected stories one of them the resurrection of the daughter of Jarius.

Only Mark notes the name of the father of this 12-year-old. Matthew overlooks this fact, he just presses on with the story. But Peter through Mark seems to be saying, “Matthew got it right, but let me add that I know this man. I entered his house, walked through the atrium, through the expansive inner courtyard, into the back bedroom where the young girl slept. I know the place, I could describe what the man looked like, the tone of his voice, the look on his face. I was there, I saw it happen! I saw a person raised from the dead, and I was astonished!”

Which gets to the point about desperation, which is the title of this meditation. And to some degree we are all exhibits in a drama of desperation, be it a day-long, year-long, or life-long dilemma. So, the story is for all of us.

It begins on a highly social occasion, a banquet given in Jesus’ honor by Mathew, whom Jesus had just called into His service. I assume Jesus and Matthew could have had some connection (no matter how brief) before the call. But it seems probable that Matthew, a tax collector, and no favorite with the rabbis, would never have expected to be in contact with Jesus again. Yet when the call came, Matthew responded instantly, and that evening they had a celebration party as Matthew said goodbye to friends and family and set off on a three-and-a-half-year walking tour of the Holy Land, living by faith, not tax revenues.

In the midst of the good cheer among the invited guests, came an intruder. Jairus, head of the local synagogue, dashed in the door, dropped at Jesus’ feet, and in agonized, disjointed words, poured out his grief. “My only child, my precious little girl, is sick . . . she’s almost dead. Come! Put your hands on her and she’ll be healed, she’ll live! I know!” He panted these expressions of faith and belief after running all the way from his house just beside the synagogue to Mathew’s exclusive home probably up on the hill overlooking the sea.

Like Matthew, Jairus also knew Jesus. This was not a first-time meeting. Jesus had been to the synagogue in Capernaum. In fact, one day while Jesus had been teaching, a madman burst into that synagogue. He terrorized everyone present at the Sabbath service, but Jesus interceded and healed the man. No doubt Jairus witnessed that miracle. And now in his moment of personal desperation, he turned to the only one he knew had the power to do the impossible!

And what a providence that Jesus happened to be in Capernaum that day! When Jairus came in from the synagogue late that afternoon to check on his daughter, his wife shook her head and wept. Nothing she’d done, nothing the doctors has suggested, had been successful. Their only small child, (and Mark emphasizes her diminutive little body) lay dying.

In an instant Jairus thought of Jesus, and ran to Matthew’s house. And Jesus responded immediately, demonstrating to Matthew that in their new life together there were priorities. People always come first, needs always come first.

As they left Mathew’s house, about to head down the hill to the home of Jairus, they walked into the large crowd that had been waiting outside since the party began. Everyone left together, Jairus leading the way, his anxiety growing by the second at the impossibility of moving quickly. Mark tells us the crowd was so thick they were “choking” Jesus. He could hardly move.

Then in the midst of the slow walk down the hill, Jesus stopped to identify a person that had just touched him and received healing. Mark says that during the walk from Matthew’s house, this lady had been repeating to herself, “If I just touch His clothes I’ll be healed . . . just touch His clothes, and I’ll be well.” Each step down the hill she kept jostling to get close enough for contact, sensing that this was her only chance for healing at the end of 12 years “in the search for a cure.”

Finally, in a desperate thrust between two people, she reaches out, brushes the hem of the cloak, and instantly feels an adrenaline rush of excitement and healing. And at that same moment, the Master stops dead in His tracks and the crowd comes to a halt around Him.

“Who touched me?” He asks. Who touched Him? Everyone was touching Him! And simultaneously another wave of anxiety flows over poor Jairus. Each delay makes him more distraught. His daughter is about to expire, and he can’t get the world’s miracle healer to her because of this maddening crowd!

When every one stops, the lady that had received the miracle tries to shrink back into the crowd that presses tightly around her. But she can’t escape. Like a deer caught in a beam of light, she is caught and terrified. In the sudden silence she watches the Master’s cloak, the cloak she had just touched for healing, and sees it begin to move as Jesus’ feet move in a tight circle. He turns 180 degrees. His eyes meet hers and He reads her fear and fright.

At that same moment, she experiences two incredibly contradictory sets of feelings that she can’t sort out. She feels utter exhilaration from the healing she knows took place the instant she touched the back hem of Jesus’ cloak. But at the same time she feels utter dismay at the prospect of being exposed. She’s a Gentile, blessed by a Jew, and she senses she’ll be forced into some interrogation by Him in front of this crowd. This simple peasant woman, afraid of people of rank and fame, afraid of Jews, afraid of men, afraid of crowds, this woman who lives her life in privacy and isolation, who nurses herself as best she can in her sickness and chronic anemia, will have to speak in front of a crowd of curious spectators.

Spontaneously, as Jesus fixes His eyes on her, she falls at His feet, and from her normally halting lips their flows the passion of a woman whose life had been lived on the edge of despair where hope once died, but who is now filled with the feeling of energy and wellness she has not known for more than a decade. Her story of desperation pours out as Jesus and the crowd listens.

She had no idea she was capable of such spontaneity. And when she’s through, Jesus quietly replies that her faith has healed her spirit. Spiritually she’s a new person, she has entered the household of faith. Then He adds that physically she has been healed and the hemorrhage will not return. No more doctor appointments, no more doctor disappointments.

As this drama played itself out, Jairus, momentarily distracted by the amazing scene in front of him, noticed one of his servants brusquely forcing his way through the silent crowd from down hill, and he whispers the dreaded news. “It’s too late. She’s dead.”

Mark observes that Jesus “overheard” the whispered communiqué, and immediately spoke to the broken father whose desperation had been somewhat tempered by the miracle. But Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid . . . keep on believing.”

And with that dynamic statement, we end our meditation for today. We’ll take up the rest of the story, tomorrow. Don’t miss it!