What Are You Holding On To?
The Things We Grasp and the Hand That Reaches Down to Save Us In today's Gospel from St. Luke (8:41–56), we encounter two remarkable stories of faith, healing, and restoration. First, we hear of Jairus, a father desperately seeking the healing of his daughter. Any parent can appreciate the desperation and love behind his request. His daughter is dying, and he knows that Jesus is the one person who can help her. Then, in the middle of this story, we encounter another person in need of healing: a woman who has suffered from a hemorrhage for twelve years. She, too, has come to Jesus with a desperate hope. She believes that if she can simply reach out and touch the fringe of His garment, she will be healed. If we were reading the Gospel of Mark, we might recognize this as one of Mark's famous "sandwich" stories, where one event is placed inside another. The two stories are connected, and together they reveal something important. Both Jairus and the woman come to Jesus wit...