Talitha cum – Jesus

Jesus clearly worked from a different clock than everyone else. Instead of Eastern Standard Time, Jesus seemed to be on Eternal Standard Time. Yet, He never arrived late, and he never arrived early, he simply arrived according to his purpose.

Jesus will not be hurried.

There are a couple of stories in the Gospel of Mark that tell of a time when a prominent Jewish man came to Jesus to ask him to come heal his little girl of a dangerous fever. Jesus agreed and while on the way to the father’s  house, a woman who was afflicted with a debilitating blood flow came up behind him and secretly touched the hem of his garment. She was healed and while Jesus was talking to her, word came to the father that his little girl had died. (Of course, later Jesus went to see the little girl and brought her back to life.)

Jesus allowed a woman with a chronic illness interrupt him while on his way to deal with a little girl with an acute illness. Perhaps triage is not Jesus’ strength.

God’s sense of timing will always confound ours.

You will always give and get from Jesus more than you request.

The father came to Jesus for a cure for a fever, but he got a resurrection. He went to Jesus with enough faith to ask for a minor miracle of a healing, but Jesus looked at him after his daughter died and said, “Trust me with your little girl even now that she is dead.”

The woman with the blood flow came to Jesus for a “hit-and-run healing” but received eternal life. And part of what she had to give Jesus was a public pledge of truth and faith. That’s far more than she expected to get, and it’s also far more than she expected to give.

If you go to Jesus for anything (and I hope you do), I can guarantee he will get from you far more than you originally planned to give him, but he will give to you infinitely more than you dare ask or think, and infinitely more than you give.

Jesus reverses the values of the world

Jesus makes the prominent man with the urgent need wait while he takes his time with a social outcast of a woman. He dignifies her with an honest conversation and makes the man wait. No toxic masculinity from Jesus—just grace!

That is why pimps and prostitutes flocked to Jesus; because they understood that their past didn’t keep them from life with God.  But this is also why many of the preachers and the pious had a hard time with Jesus; because their past didn’t get them any special favors with God. Nobody is disqualified, and nobody is good enough for life with God. God’s grace can only be given to you

In fact, this woman’s faith is quasi-superstitious (she just wanted to touch his clothes). It’s of a lower quality than the father’s faith (He looked Jesus in the eye with desperate confidence when he made his request).

Yet if seems as if Jesus is drawn to people who are the most messed up and who have messed up the most.

Jesus lived the great reversal all the way to the cross

When Jesus got to the house where the little girl was dead, he cleared the house of the professional mourners and went into to see the little girl with the mom and dad. He took the cold hand and in a tender voice said, “Talitha cum.”

Talitha  literally means, “Little girl.” But that does not get across the sense of what he is saying to her. This is a pet name. Probably the best translation I’ve run across is, “Honey.” This is Jesus taking her by the hand and saying, “Honey.”

The second word he uses is cum, which means, “Wake up.” This is the word of a parent who loves the child and who comes in on a sunny morning, sits down, and takes her hand and says. “Honey, it’s time to get up.”

She does!

Look at his power! He is facing death, the most implacable, inexorable enemy of the human race … death. Such is his power that if he holds her by the hand, he just gently lifts her up right through it.

“Honey, get up.”

What love! This is the ultimate parent—for the woman and the little girl.

When you can see the Lord of the universe, the one whose hands scattered the stars like so many seeds, taking you by the hand and saying, “Honey, it’s time to get up”—Why would you want to hurry somebody this powerful and this loving?

There’s nothing more frightening for a little child than to lose the hand of the parent in a crowd or in the dark. But that is exactly what happened to Jesus. The Bible says the sky went dark and He lost his Father’s hand on the cross. When Jesus touched us, He lost touch with His Father. Jesus became unclean so our uncleanness could be dealt with and we could be clean and whole.

He lost the Father’s hand so we could know, if he has us by the hand, he will never forsake us.

Are you trying to hurry Jesus? Take him by the hand and let him do what he wants to do. He loves you completely. He knows what he is doing.

It’s time to wake up.