Encountering Christ

The sermon from July 1st was the story from Mark 5:25-34 of a woman who spent 12 years with an illness—one that made her ‘unclean’ by temple standards and isolated her from everyone else. She went from doctor to doctor—with no avail—and ended up penniless and desperate. So she reaches out to touch the garment of Jesus.

Some say that her act of reaching was great faith (“I ONLY need to touch the garment and that will be enough to heal me”). This puts the emphasis on the smallness of the touch and the greatness of God’s power. Merely brushing against holiness is transformative.

But I also wonder if the woman’s small gesture came from a sense of feeling unworthy to do anything else. Perhaps she thought, “I don’t want to bother Jesus; I’m not worthy to interrupt him.” Maybe 12 years of suffering had left her feeling alone. unworthy. outcast. –and she couldn’t bring herself to face the crowds or be the object of pity yet again. So she thought, “I’ll just touch his garment and then I can sneak away unseen. unnoticed. I won’t be a bother.” 

Either way, she reached out.
She touches the garment of Christ and--wonder of wonders--she feels her body stop bleeding.

You would think the story would end there.
It would be enough for her body to be made better. It would be enough for this to be a miraculous story of God’s mighty power coursing through threads and fingertips.

--But there’s more--
Jesus stops in his tracks.  
(and it’s not like he doesn’t have somewhere important to be. Jesus is on his way to heal a little girl who is gravely ill, but he stops anyways)

“Who touched me?” Jesus asks.

By the way: I’m pretty sure that Jesus wasn’t lessened by the encounter, and there were several people pushing up against him, so I doubt this was an angry question. I doubt that Jesus was offended that someone had sought healing.

I’m also pretty sure that Jesus knew exactly who had touched him. After all, Jesus shows intimate knowledge of several people in other stories—like John 4 where Jesus knows the life details of the woman at the well –or the encounter with Nathanael in John 1:48 where the soon-to-be disciple is surprised to be known.

So—perhaps—this question from Christ is not an inquiry or an interrogation but an invitation not to hide.  

Jesus asks to see her face-to-face.
Jesus demands to encounter her pain.
And she does. Trembling, fearful and falling, she does:

 she tells him the whole story.

And Jesus’ looks her in the eyes and calls her by an intimate name:

            “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed.”

Perhaps the miracle of this story is not merely in the touch of the garment, but the encounter itself.
It is miraculous that our God gives space for the hurt and the downtrodden and the outcast. God looks us in the face and WANTS us to tell the whole story. Through encountering Jesus, we are made well.