Tuesday, December 11, 2012

The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ

(Seed Sowers Christian Book Publishing House. http://www.seedsowers.com/)

Tuesday, December 11, 2012      I Healed the Sick and Raised the Dead  

Page 118-120         Matthew 9:18-26; Mark 5:21-43; Luke 8:40-56

In first century Jewish society, the practical needs for public and private hygiene were codified into laws and rules governing how to remain ceremonially clean. Persons deemed ‘unclean’ were forbidden by these laws and rules to have contact with any other persons, because any contact would render the others unclean as well. Two circumstances that were strictly governed were the issues of bleeding and handling dead bodies. As Jesus pushes against these boundaries, he is always doing the unexpected. He is not afraid of death, and touches the dead girl and restores her life. He is not afraid of blood, and commends the woman for her faith.

The woman does her best to hide her identity, both before and after she touched Jesus, because if discovered, the crowd would angrily shun her. However, Jesus calls her out of her darkness to affirm her faith and her new state of wholeness. (The early church wanted the woman with the bleeding problem to be remembered always. They gave her the name of Veronica and in the devotional exercise Everyman’s Way of the Cross she is the woman who wipes Jesus’ face at Station Six.)

Jairus receives the news that his daughter has died immediately after he witnesses Jesus healing the woman. I suspect his heart leaped for joy when Jesus told him “Don’t be afraid. Just have faith, and she will be healed” (Luke 8:50). When Jesus arrives at Jairus’ home, he takes the child’s hand, he touches a dead person, and calls her to life.

Jesus’ messianic power is clearly displayed. So also his mission: God’s Messiah took upon himself the ‘uncleanness’ of the people. Jesus came to where the people were and he intermingled himself into their lives. He got his hands dirty.

Jesus affirmed the faith, which was born in desperation, of Jairus and Veronica. Jairus risks his standing in the community and humbled himself at the feet of Jesus. Jesus was his only option. There was no other hope for his daughter. Veronica’s faith called her to take huge risks: a woman reaching out to touch a man in a public place, an unclean person (because of her condition) touching the Teacher. However, she reached out and touched Jesus because he was her only hope. Perhaps it was these two stories that inspired Mother Teresa to live by the axiom: you will never know Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have.

Two questions are confronting me after today’s reading. First, there were two very separate and distinct responses to Jesus’ actions. Some opposed Jesus for removing the boundaries. Others spread the news of Jesus’ mighty works. If I had been there, I wonder, in which camp would I have been?

Second, I wonder, how many times have I missed an opportunity to help Jesus remove boundaries? I wonder how many more opportunities I will miss.

Sē’lah

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What word or phrase in today’s reading attracts your attention?

Reflect on that word or phrase.

What insights come to you?

How does this passage touch your life today?

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

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The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ

(Seed Sowers Christian Book Publishing House. http://www.seedsowers.com/)

Wednesday, December 12, 2012           The Blind Saw and the Mute Spoke       

Page 120      Matthew 9:27-34