Text: Mark 5:21-43
Beloved
in Christ, you might be puzzled by the sermon title for today: “What Salvation
Means.” It’s not that you’re against me talking about salvation. Rather, it’s
just that today’s Gospel doesn’t seem to say much about salvation, and so you
would expect me to address the topic of salvation on another Sunday when that
is more the theme. But if we think that today’s text has nothing to say about
salvation, it is because we have a much narrower view of salvation than the
Scriptures do. In part, that is because the translators have chosen to use
different words rather than “save” in today’s Gospel.
I’m
not faulting the translators. Every word in a language has a range of meaning,
and those meanings rarely line up exactly with just one word in another language.
And so when the translators came across the word in today’s Gospel that would
mean “be saved” in other contexts, they chose instead to translate it as “be
made well.” That’s because English draws a distinction between a “spiritual”
salvation and a “physical” healing that the Greek language just doesn’t. It
would sound odd in English to talk about being “saved” in this context, when
our language would prefer to use another word to refer to healing. And
translators try to make everything sound good in English. But, if we were to
translate literally, we would hear Jairus ask Jesus, “Come and lay Your
hands on her, so that she may be saved and live.” We would hear the
woman thinking to herself, “If I touch even His garments, I will be
saved.” And later we would heard Jesus tell that woman, “Daughter,
your faith has saved you.”
If
we translate the word more literally, it may not sound as smooth in English,
but it does help us to have a deeper and more biblical perspective on what
salvation means. Often people use the phrase “salvation” or “being saved” to
refer to some religious experience (usually in the past) when an individual got
right with God. That is what people mean when they ask, “Have you been saved?”
Other times people may think more of the future when they use those terms. They
think very specifically of God receiving our soul at the moment of our death
and bringing it to be with Him in heaven rather than casting it into hell to
experience eternal torment. Now whether you are talking about the past or the
future, the focus tends to be exclusively on something that happens to the
soul, as the soul finds peace with God or enters into heaven. But, as you can
see from today’s Gospel, the Bible doesn’t look at “salvation” in such narrow
terms. It applies to the body as well as to the soul, and it relates to all
sorts of things that happen in this life rather than just in the life to come.
As we will see, the Bible is indeed concerned about the destiny of the soul,
and we would never want to minimize that concern. But salvation is richer and
deeper than we usually give it credit.
You
could say that salvation is all about bring life wherever death has left its
mark. One of the fundamental truths that Christians teach is that we live in a
dying world, a world where everything is destined to die. “No duh,” you might
say to me. “How is that a revolutionary idea?” Well, we may sort of know that
the world is marked by death, but we spend most of our time pretending that
that is not the case. We pretend that we will be “Forever 21” or “Forever
Young.” We keep looking for the magic pill that will make old age and disease
go away. We think that we are invulnerable, and we are bewildered when we see
that we aren’t. But Christian theology teaches that we live in a deadly world
because we have sinned against God. By our sin we say that we are dead to God,
and He has returned the favor by letting us live in our death-bearing ways. And
so we see death in all sorts of dimensions. There is spiritual death, where we
find ourselves dead to God. There is physical death, as well as all the
diseases, injuries, accidents, and violence that eventually lead to our death.
And then there is the dread prospect of eternal death, the fact that even
physical death does not end this judgment of God upon us.
Death
is multi-faceted. So too is our salvation. Ultimately, we are looking for a
complete reversal of death in all its dimensions. Yes, our souls need to be
saved from their deadly ways. But our bodies too need to be rescued from the
death that threatens them. And so we see that salvation breaking forth in today’s
Gospel, as our Lord heals a woman and raises a girl. In each instance Christ
shows that salvation is comprehensive, affecting the here-and-now as well as
the future, the body as well as the soul.
This
salvation occurs only in, through, and because of Christ. He began His earthly
ministry by doing all sorts of things—healing people, casting out demons,
forgiving sins, and teaching—to show the life He intended to bring to people
through His life, death, and resurrection. In the end, we will have perfect health,
be untroubled by the devil and his minions, have complete peace with God
through forgiveness, and know God fully as He wants to be known. Some of those
gifts (such as complete pardon and forgiveness) we have now; others we will
have fully only in the resurrection. Just as we had lived our lives under the
mark of death, even if it didn’t exert its full power over us every day, so now
we live our lives united with the life Christ gives, even if we have not yet
received its full power. But something has happened. Salvation has begun. And
we will experience it fully when Christ returns.
So
Christ brings life into our dying world. That is what we mean by “salvation.”
We thank God for the healing that He allows to experience in this world, even
as we look forward to experiencing the fullness of that healing in the
resurrection. But there are some other dynamics of salvation that the Gospel
points out. It isn’t just me in my body and soul that receives this salvation.
Instead, we are knit together as brothers and sisters in Christ. Sickness
separates us from one another, but healing brings us together. You see, when
you are sick, people tend to isolate themselves from you. We fear getting what
you have. But when you are restored, so too is your relationship with other
people.
This
was all the more the case in the days of the Scriptures, especially the Old
Testament. God had commanded His people to distinguish between clean and
unclean. Those who were unclean could make others unclean if they came into
physical contact. Numbers 5:2 tells us who would be at the top of the list of
unclean people: “Everyone who is leprous or has a discharge and everyone
who is unclean through contact with the dead.” Already in Mark 1 we had
met a leper. Now we meet someone who “has a discharge” and
someone who is “dead.” And so in a few short chapters we have met
people of each category. But our Lord healed each of them and thus made them
clean. And in so doing He restored them to fellowship. In the process He
Himself became the outcast. To make us clean, He had to touch our uncleanness
and bear it. He did that, even though it meant suffering its consequences on
the cross. Salvation is free to us, but it came at a great cost for Him.
There
is one other aspect of salvation that we see in today’s text: it brings us into
fellowship with Christ. The woman sought to be healed by touching Jesus
anonymously. She didn’t want to bother Him; she just wanted to receive her gift
of salvation quietly. But that is not how God operates. He doesn’t just give
out His good gifts to nameless, faceless people. Instead, He deals with each of
us as individuals. That is why He stopped and asked the woman to explain what
she had done. He wanted to tell her directly and personally, “Daughter,
your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be saved from your disease.”
That
is what salvation means. It is far deeper and richer than we tend to believe.
Therefore, let us cherish the God who does not act one-dimensionally, but comes
to bring full salvation to us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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