I wasn’t feeling very well spiritually yesterday and I wound up writing a pretty grim little blog piece which reflected the walking state of angst in which I was struggling. I’m glad such days don’t come around often nor stick around for a long time (although a day of doubting my relationship to Christ seems like an eternity to me when I am in the midst of it!)

This morning’s Gospel lesson was from Luke 8: 40-56. It is a familiar story to most Christians, the narrative of how Jesus is beseeched by a leader in the synagogue, Jairus, to come heal his dying daughter. On the way, a woman who has been sick with a long-term issue of blood reaches out and touches Jesus’ garment, and thus acting in faith, finds herself healed.

Let us pick up the action from there:

⁴⁴ She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. ⁴⁵ “Who touched me?” Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.” ⁴⁶ But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”  ⁴⁷ Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. ⁴⁸ Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

I think this is the heart of all of us deep inside. We enter the presence of the Lord with trembling. We know that we are sinners and have offended His kingly dignity by choice of sin over loving Him. In fact, the woman here is really like us in so many ways – she just wants to use Jesus to get something she is desperate for.  She has heard of Him she thinks to herself that if she can get through the unruly mob surrounding Him and just brushe her hand on the hem of His garment, she will get what she wants and then can melt back into the crowd. There is no indication in the story of her intending to give up all and follow Him as He walks from place to place. Like us, it is not so much Jesus Himself that she wants, it is the benefit of being in some way connected to Him.

Aren’t we all like that by nature? Our first response – the first mental sizing up we do of any approaching situation – is, “What’s in it for me?”  Consciously or unconsciously, that is the human response. I’m no different and neither are you. Our devotion to God is often measured in terms of what we are going to get out of it. It takes time and spiritual growth to become a humble and self-sacrificing person who is more interested in pleasing the Lord than with pleasing ourselves. Knowing this can be very discouraging.

But look at Christ’s response to the woman who fearfully kneels at His feet. She knows He has great power and she knows that He knows that uninvited she “stole a blessing” from Him. Now that she is exposed, what will this powerful man do to her? It is a fearful moment.

Read the last verse. Do it again. Read it until you feel the warmth and the joy  in Christ’s voice. He doesn’t respond in anger. He calls her by an intimate name – daughter.  Instead of upbraiding her for having the nerve to touch him (you must remember the lowly position of women in those days – this was clearly an offense) He bids her to go in peace.

What joy and hope must have filled not only her heart, but the hearts of all the women who observed this interaction. Jesus treats her with a dignity that is unknown in those times.

While I was listening to our pastor speak on this, my mind wandered a bit to another favorite verse in the Bible – several, in fact. All of them say the same thing:

Matthew 8: 16  When evening was come, they brought to him many who were possessed with devils: and he cast out with his word, and healed all that were sick.

Matthew 12: 15  But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself from thence: and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all.

Luke 4:40  Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and he healed them.

Luke 6:19 And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all.

These are among some of the most hopeful verses in the Bible. We don’t just hear a concept – “Well, God loves everyone, of course.”  No, we see a hard-core reality of that love. Jesus turns away no one seeking His help. Being God, He must have known that some were only there for the healing. Once that was done, they would be gone. Others would begin to follow Him, some even unto the martyrdom which awaited the first century church.

I have to imagine that within the crowd of “all” in these verses there were the drunkards, the adulterers, the tax collectors, and every variable kind of sinner you could imagine. Yet we see no indication that Jesus remonstrated with any of them. The verses are short, to the point, and most of all encouraging. Jesus turns no one away, no matter what their spiritual or physical condition.

There is an incredible scene in Mel Gibson’s THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST. Jesus is standing before the agitated crowd who are screaming for His crucifixion. Pilate is desperately trying to let Him go. He appeals to the custom of releasing a prisoner and the crowd responds with its demand for Barabbas.

Barabbas appears and the crowd begins to cheer him. As he takes in the adulation of the crowd, he turns and meets the gaze of Jesus. It is a gaze of loving pity for a man who is utterly lost within himself. Barabbas freezes. For a second, he doesn’t know what to do. The unsettled look on Barabbas’s face when he turns to look at Jesus, even if only momentary, is very powerful as he tries to understand a look he has never been given in his life – a look of genuine love for him.

You and I are Barabbas. We are the woman with the issue of blood. We are Peter, groveling at Jesus feet crying out, “Depart from me, Lord, for I  am a sinful man.” Each one of us carries within us a knowledge of our own sins and inadequacies, of our hypocrisy and lack of love, that makes us desperately uncomfortable in the presence of the Holy One of Israel. And from that discomfort we begin to imagine Jesus not as He is, but as we fear Him to be. Harsh, distant, demanding, severe. Dissatisfied with our weak and utterly self-serving attempts to serve Him.

NO.

“…..and He healed them all.”