Rev. Fr. (Dr.) Osmond Anike

Readings:

First Reading: Wisdom 1:13-15, 2:23-24 – God takes no pleasure in the extinction of the living.

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 29(30):2,4-6,11-13 – I will praise you Lord, you have rescued me.

Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 8:7,9,13-15 – The Lord Jesus became poor for your sake, to make you rich.

Gospel: Mark 5:21-43 – Little girl, I tell you to get up.

The first reading, the responsorial psalm and the gospel of today respectively talk about death and coming back to life. The topic of death is often deliberately avoided by a lot of people as if to say that by avoiding it they will somehow escape death. But as Leo F. Buscaglia says, “Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time. It tells us to tell each other right now that we love each other”. However, in this meditation, we shall distinguish between death of those who are physically dead, and death of those who are physically not dead (and I am not talking about people who have medical conditions like those in coma or in vegetative state). While we pray for the repose of those who are physically dead, I am not going to talk about the death of those who have died; I am going to talk rather of the death of those who are alive.

The greatest tragedy in life is to die without ever having lived. Not all living beings are alive in the true sense of the word. To exist and to be alive are not the same thing. A lot of things exist in nature, which are not alive. And a lot of human beings exist, who are not alive. To be truly alive is to be awake. But alas, it is easier to fall asleep than to stay awake. One doesn’t need any effort to fall asleep. But it demands a lot of effort and self-discipline to stay awake. And this effort to stay awake takes a very long time to realize. The process we are describing here, however, has little to do with opening and closing of the eyelids, or going to bed at night and waking up in the morning. It has, rather, to do with waking up to reality. Many people are asleep all through their lives; and they die without ever waking up.

Take a look around you and see that all vices, all wrong doings, all evils, are as a result of one thing – people are not awake; they are fast asleep, and in their slumber, they do the wrong things. I know that many of you will protest and say that they are not asleep. Well, your eyes are not closed, that is for sure. But let us see it this way: you feel that somebody is making progress in life more than you, and to stop that person from making further progress, you kill him. This is an action of a sleeping person. An ‘awake’ person will realize that by killing the other person, he has not added any progress to his own life. The prosperity of the person killed does not automatically transfer to the person who killed him. When someone is awake, he will realize that the only way to progress in life is not by killing the other person but by doubling his own effort. Take another example: somebody annoys you, and in a fit of anger, you smash your phone to the ground. This is an action of a sleeping person. The person who is truly awake knows that by smashing his/her phone to the ground, it is not the other person who will count his loss but rather himself. We can go on and give countless other examples of actions of sleeping people.

In the gospel of today, Jesus went to Jairus house and “woke up” his daughter whom he described as “sleeping”. Figuratively we all are Jairus’ daughters and need Jesus to wake us up. Remember, last Sunday we argued that it is not Jesus who need to be woken up (because he is ever awake) but rather us. It is because Jesus is ever awake that he is able to identify us when we are asleep. In our sleeping state and consequent lack of awareness, we tend to press hard on Jesus most of the time without ever being aware of who he is. This absolute lack of awareness was vividly demonstrated today in the account of the miracle within a miracle as narrated by Mark’s gospel. Jesus was going to the house of Jairus, on the request of the later, to cure his sick daughter. On their way, a large crowd gathered around him and were pressing all round him. Meanwhile, in that crowd, only the haemorrhaging woman was awake and benefitted from the curative power of Jesus. The rest were just sleep-walking. Many people were touching Jesus; yet, only one person touched him. His disciples taught that he was crazy when he asked who touched him. They couldn’t understand how, in the midst of hundreds of people pressing round him, he was still searching for who touched him. In today’s language, they would have retorted at Jesus with the “are you out of your mind?” dismissal of his inquiry. And this is a clear demonstration that the disciples were just as asleep as the rest of the people. But Jesus was not kidding. He was damn serious that in the midst of hundreds of people pressing round him, only one person touched him – the only person that was awake in that crowd. How long have we been pressing round Jesus without ever touching him? The haemorrhaging woman just wanted to touch his cloth and it would be enough for her. She was awake to the reality of who Jesus was. But we, today’s Christians, not only touch the cloths of Jesus, we eat his flesh and drink his blood, yet we are not awake to the reality of who he is. We receive Jesus in the sacrament, and, while still carrying him in our mouth, we rush to the so-called men of God to seek “anointing”. This is precisely the action of people who are asleep; who are not awake. And this is the reason why miracles no longer happen in our lives (except probably the purported ones that are clearly faked). The day we become awake, that day we shall become truly alive.

To be awake is to realize, as the book of Wisdom tells us in the first reading that God created us to be. To be means to be attentive to the present reality. When we fail to face reality, we metaphorically die. Death, as the reading says, was not God’s doing. We are the cause of our afflictions. Often times we tend to blame God for our sufferings. But in reality, sufferings come our way because we are fast asleep. In our deep slumber, we create alternate reality and hope that such alternate reality will happen. When our alternate world does not match the real world, we experience suffering and then blame God. Imagine someone in a very long dream from which s/he never wakes up; that is the summary of most of our lives.

No matter how beautiful your alternate reality is, it is not real. No matter how sweet your dream is, it is not real. If you want to be truly alive, you need to wake up from your dream; otherwise, you are already dead and only waiting for the day of your funeral. What Jesus said to Jairus’ daughter is what he is saying to all of us: ‘Talitha, kum!’ Brothers and sisters, wake up and live!