Happy Easter Monday, Dear Friends,
Have you ever been so fearful that you’ve become desperate? When something so fixes your attention, your energy, your concern that nothing else matters. It is urgent, it is immediate, it is everything. That is to be fearful. That is to be desperate.
The gospel writer Mark records the story of a woman who was fearful (Mark 5:24-34). The story says that she had borne an illness for a long time, and she thought that if she could only touch the hem of Jesus’ robe, she could be healed. So, as Jesus and his entourage pass by, she reaches out her hand from the margins of the crowd, where she has been pushed by her poverty, her pain, her gender. She reaches out to touch Jesus, the Lord, the giver of life.
She was afraid, but she became fearless. She didn’t care that Jesus was going somewhere else; she didn’t care that he was busy; she didn’t care what people would think of her. Only one thing was important: she believed that Jesus had the power of life. Her faith overcame her fear, and she reached out to touch him. That’s all it would take, she believes.
Her story is one of the strongest images of faith I can name from the New Testament. Jesus doesn’t claim to heal her; he says, “Your faith has made you well.” He gives her all the credit. She had faith that Jesus could heal her, but she also had faith in herself — enough to overcome the fears and the desperation. She was determined to be something more than simply a person in pain and helplessness. She had faith in Jesus, but she had enough faith in herself to overcome her fears, and to reach out and receive the power that comes from God.
I believe Mark records this story to show us that there is no force in the world that God cannot conquer, to which God is not superior, which cannot destroy your life because God loves and cares for you. God has come in the form of Jesus who can heal that which is sick, can mend that which is broken, and can make whole that which is diseased.
Now, I don’t wish for you to get sick, but is it all right for me to wish that we all, just once, become desperate and fearful enough to suddenly realize that there is stuff in your life that needs healing? I pray that the time may come when your fears don’t matter, and you reach out to touch God — or at least the hem of his garment.
May we all see healing as a gift of God’s grace,
Bruce Jones, Pastor
Imagine Church
