13th Ordinary Sunday, Year B, 01.07.2012

Wisdom 1:13-15, 2:23-24/ 2 Cor 8, 7, 9, 13-15/ Mark 5:21-43

One of the greatest fears and nightmares of parents is to lose their young child in a crowded place, or in a foreign land, or in a place that is considered dangerous.

That kind of thing can happen anytime, and anywhere, and when it is least expected.

Every now and then, we will hear it over the PA system that there is a child who is lost and the parents or relatives are to go to the office to claim back the child.

Yes, with the modern means of communication, a child who is lost can be easily tracked and located and found.

But such may not be the case about 40 or 50 years ago where communication was rather primitive, compared to now, and PA systems were not installed everywhere.

I can attest to the fears and nightmares of parents who have lost their child, even though it may be for only a short period of time.

I remembered that when I was a kid, maybe about 8 or 9 years old. My family went out to the “pasar-malam: (street-side night market) on a Saturday evening.

Being a Saturday evening, the pasar-malam was crowded and noisy and people jostled here and there.

My mum held on to my elder sister and younger brother, who was only 4 or 5 years at that time, and my father held on to me.

Then, we stopped to look at something and my mum began the bargaining process, and the rest of us were just looking around at other things.

Then, all of a sudden, my mum turned around and asked: Where is Simon? (That’s my younger brother).

We looked around blankly, and then stunned, and then it hit us that Simon was not anywhere around.

Then all panic and chaos broke loose as my sister and I were ordered to stay put, while my parents set off in opposite directions looking for my brother, asking people, calling out his name, etc.

I can still remember the dreaded look on my parents’ faces and the panic in their voices.

Well, after what seemed like eternity, my mum came back with my brother, both of them sobbing away – my brother obviously frightened and traumatized, and my mum … maybe angry, maybe relieved.

The pasar-malam outing ended immediately and my mum gave us a good scrubbing on the way home about caring for each other and looking out for each other.

Yes, I have seen the dreaded look on the faces and heard the panic in the voices.

And today’s gospel passage brought back that memory of  mine, as well for as parents who have lost their child, even though it might just be momentarily (which at that time would seem like eternity)

At least, we would be able to understand how Jairus felt.

His 12 year-old daughter was critically ill. All hope was fading and so was her life.

Jairus was desperate and he had that dreaded look on his face – he was losing his daughter and it will be forever.

As he pleaded with Jesus to go and heal his daughter, he already had panic in his voice.

He couldn’t care less that he was a synagogue official and that Jesus was just a street-side preacher, who was not even a scribe or a rabbi.

Jairus couldn’t be bothered about what people would say about him, kneeling before Jesus and pleading with him.

All that mattered was his daughter’s life. He would go to almost any extent to save his daughter.

Certainly, we can see how great is the love of Jairus for his daughter, and by the same token, the great love of parents for their children.

If that is the love parents have for their children, then can we ever comprehend God’s love for us, we who are His children?

It is a great pain and sorrow for parents who have to make funeral arrangements for their children.

Somehow it does not sound right, it does not look right, because it should be the other way round.

So as we try to comprehend God’s love for us, the love a father has for his children, can we also comprehend the pain and sorrow that God feels when His children choose to be lost in waywardness, and eventually succumb to sin and death?

As the first reading will testify: Death was not God’s doing. He takes no pleasure in the extinction of the living.

God made man imperishable. He made him in the image of His own nature. It was the devil’s envy that brought death into the world, as those who are his partners, will discover.

Those are profound words that tell us how great God’s love is for us and that He wants us to have life and health.

On the other hand, the devil wants to snare us to commit sin, so that although we exist, but we are as gone as dead.

Yes, we can try to comprehend how Jairus felt for his daughter and how much he wanted to save her.

We can also try to comprehend how much God loves us and how He searches for us when we are lost, so as to save us from a sinful death.

Yes, life and health, and sin and death, is not a laughing matter, and they are certainly not humorous.

Humour, or at least serious humour, is associated with people like Mr Brown, who is one of Singapore’s most-read bloggers and he is also a social and political satirist.

Whenever you want to have a serious good laugh,  just go to Mr Brown.com and you will get your free entertainment anytime, anywhere. As well as something to reflect on.

But recently, he put up a story which concerned his family, and it was titled “Finding Faith”.

Nothing religious actually. It was an account of how his eldest daughter whose name is “Faith” was lost, and how he and his family and friends went in search of her.

Faith is a special child. She is about 12 years old, the same age of Jairus’ daughter. But she has severe autism, she does not speak, does not respond to her name easily, cannot tell anyone she is lost, and does not know what is dangerous.

Mr Brown was at work, and his wife had brought their three kids for an outing, and they were returning home in the evening.        

It was around 6.30pm (rush hour) when Faith broke free from her mother’s grip and ran off, and this was at Dhoby Ghaut MRT station, and it was rush hour!

The wife immediately called Mr Brown, and panic and chaos were already breaking in. Faith couldn’t have been lost in a worse possible place, at a worse possible time.

Dhoby Ghaut is a huge maze of an interchange station. Faith could be anywhere there, or she might have hopped onto another train and went somewhere else.

Mr Brown had the presence of mind to use modern communication means and he tweeted for help to find Faith.

He checked with the station staff who were monitoring the CCTVs. The PA system were not much of a use because of Faith’s autistic condition.

After a frantic wild goose chase, that seemed like eternity, and with much panic, Faith was found at Telok Blangah station.

Mr Brown proclaimed that it was a miracle to have found Faith.  So many friends and people who came into the picture, and the events that happened, were certainly not coincidences.

And I quote Mr Brown: Above all, thank God for watching over our firstborn and bringing her back home to us.

Yes, thank God that He watches over us and searches for us when we are lost.

Thank God that He loves us and gives us health and life so that we can share His goodness with others.

Thank God that sin and death do not have the final say.  

Because God is the God of the living. In God, let us have faith and let us not be afraid.