Surprising Healing -- A Healing Message for March 13, 2022

 

Scripture Luke 8:40-56

Now when Jesus returned, a crowd welcomed him, for they were all expecting him. 

Then a man named Jairus, a synagogue leader, came and fell at Jesus’ feet, pleading with him to come to his house 

because his only daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying.

As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. 

And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. 

She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.

“Who touched me?” Jesus asked.

When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.”

But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”

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. 

Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

While Jesus was still speaking, someone came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” he said. “Don’t bother the teacher anymore.”

Hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed.”

When he arrived at the house of Jairus, he did not let anyone go in with him except Peter, John and James, and the child’s father and mother. 

Meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning for her. “Stop wailing,” Jesus said. “She is not dead but asleep.”

They laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. 

But he took her by the hand and said, “My child, get up!” 

Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up. Then Jesus told them to give her something to eat. 

Her parents were astonished, but he ordered them not to tell anyone what had happened.

Here ends this reading of the Word of God for the People of God. Thanks be to God!

Let us pray: “Holy Spirit, take my words and speak to each of us according to our need. Amen.”

Message                                 Surprising Healing

          Sometimes, we are very hard on ourselves. We know we have made mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. But we worry that the mistakes we have made are so horrible, so disgusting, that God could not possibly forgive us.

          We are full of shame. And, we bury our shame and bury our sin deep, deep inside of our hearts. We worry that our mistakes are so awful that God cannot forgive us.

          In the story we read from the Gospel of Luke, Jesus deals with people who apparently had “disgusting” problems. Jewish law forbade Jewish men from touching people who were ritually impure. There were whole books in the Mishnah written about how to deal with menstruating women, bleeding women. Jewish men were never supposed to touch bleeding women. And the woman healed by Jesus had bled for 12 years.

          Jewish men were also forbidden from touching dead people who were outside of their immediate family. If your wife died or mother died, you could touch them to perform the Jewish funeral and burial rites. But, Jewish men were never supposed to touch any other dead people. Yet, Jesus went to the home of Jarius, took his dead daughter by the hand, and restored her to life.

          Proper Jewish men could not have anything to do with bleeding women and dead children. The law forbad them.

          Yet, Jesus didn’t care. Jesus didn’t care what the law said in regards to these impure people. Jesus didn’t care that the rest of the crowd would have avoided the bleeding woman at all costs. Jesus didn’t care that he was expressly forbidden from touching dead people, dead children.  Jesus didn’t care, because he loved people despite their impurity. Jesus loved people despite what the law said. Jesus loved people and wanted to help them, and wanted to help their families, and wanted to restore what was considered “broken” by the rest of the crowd.

          God loves us no matter how we have failed. God loves us no matter how broken we feel. God loves us no matter how much we have violated the rules. God loves us.

          And, it is important to God, like it was important to Jesus, that we understand that nothing we do is so terrible, so damaging that we are beyond forgiveness. In Romans 8, St. Paul wrote:

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God’s love is great, greater than anything we can understand.  And, nothing we do, no matter how we have failed, is significant enough to obliterate God’s love for us. God loves us. God forgives us. And, God wants us to feel like we are restored….we cannot be “broken” because God loves us.

          This is the Good News. Thanks be to God. Amen.