By Melanie Howard, Ph.D.
In Mark 5:24-34, a woman sneaks up on Jesus in a crowd, touches his clothes, and is immediately healed of a chronic bleeding disorder. Jesus’s response to the woman is particularly noteworthy. Picking her out of the crowd, he says to her, “Daughter, your faith has saved you” (Mark 5:34).
The Evangelist’s choice of words here is striking. It is not the case that the woman’s faith has healed her or made her well or granted her health; it is that her faith has saved her. The woman achieves salvation through taking action to improve her physical health.
I find this use of “salvation” language so striking because of the ways in which I have sometimes heard salvation so narrowly defined within church circles. As I have heard it defined, “salvation” is something that means that I go to Heaven when I die. “Salvation” is something that happens for my soul, not my body. “Salvation” is something that is passively done to me by Jesus. In short, the gospel of “salvation” that I have heard preached both explicitly and implicitly is an impoverished vision of full flourishing, shalom, and wholeness.
The salvation that Jesus points to in Mark 5 is one that far exceeds this limited vision. Salvation encompasses physical healing. Salvation includes social restoration. Salvation is a state that an individual can actively pursue. Salvation, according to the Gospel, encompasses all of human reality.
How then does the vision of salvation that we encounter in Mark 5 speak to what it means for the church to maintain health and wholeness in the time of a global pandemic? It may suggest a need to develop a robust definition of salvation that would encompass the many parts of our complex and confusing reality.
Certainly, a wholistic view of salvation would point to the need to attend to the care of our physical health. With wide-spread mask-wearing and social-distancing, this has likely emerged as one of the prominent concerns of our time. However, what about our social, mental, and spiritual health? How are we attending to these wholistic aspects of our humanity?
For church leaders and attendees alike, it may be tempting to reduce “health” to a very limited definition that fragments the many aspects of what it means to exist in community as humans made in the image of God. Yet, in doing this, we miss out on the wholistic vision of salvation that Jesus communicates in Mark 5. Jesus’s vision here is of a salvation of body, mind, soul, and spirit. Furthermore, the example of the woman in this text provides a helpful model. She does not wait for wholeness to find her. Instead, she proactively and assertively acts in order to pursue the wholeness that she needs to thrive.
As we continue to navigate these troubling times, we might do well to emulate her example. How can we claim responsibility for our physical health? How can we steward the precious balance of our mental health? How can we nurture our social health? How can we contribute to our spiritual health? While there are no one-size-fits all answers to these difficult questions, they nonetheless challenge us to pursue the all-encompassing vision of salvation that the Gospel provides.
Dr. Melanie A. Howard is Assistant Professor and Program Director of Biblical & Theological Studies at Fresno Pacific University.