12 November 2023
JESUS’ MODEL OF POSITIVE MASCULINITY Mark 5: 21-42 The passage has four main characters: Jesus, Jairus, an unnamed adult woman, and an unnamed little girl. Both the female characters needed healing from Jesus. In these verses, we see how Jesus is busy with the crowd that followed him. Jesus is quick to respect women and give them the dignity they deserve. We do not know why the women in the passage have no names. Were their names forgotten or omitted because they were women? Gender violence is when we think one person is less important than the other and, in this case, always denote women as less important. The stories of the two women in the passage will teach us how Jesus treats women as equal to others.
According to the Jewish tradition, power resided in men. Men were significant and were leaders. Here we see a man named Jairus, the leader in the synagogue with power, humbling himself and kneeling before Jesus to heal his daughter. This is a Jewish leader who is concerned with a girl child. She was his child, and he valued her, ready to do anything for her to be cured. In some homes today, girl children are not valued. Jairus gives us an example of a responsible man and father over his family. If parents, especially fathers, were more responsible and good parents, many girls would be protected by them and respected as human beings. Other people would fear abusing them.
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sundays with cwm 2023