Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Luke 8

And there was a woman....
Who touched me?
Denial
Master everyone is pressing up against you
No, someone deliberately touched me...I felt healing power go out from me.
The truth comes out.
The story of illness told.
Daughter, your faith has made you well, go in peace.

-taken from Luke 8

He knew. This Jesus, both God and man, knew who touched him.
So why the question? Who touched me...

She knew. Her unclean, out cast, living with no family, she knew that being in that crowd, touching that many people, touching the Master would make everyone else unclean too.

But desperate people do desperate things.
Because she had tried everything, spent everything, and still had nothing. At her end, there was space for God to begin.

So she wades through crowd, disobeying law by not announcing herself unclean, and she reaches out, and she touches the fringe, because when someone touches fringe on a robe, the wearer
can't
feel
it.
Who touched me...
I wonder if panic coursed through her body. Panic mixed with pure joy, because she knew she had been healed. But this Jesus, this man who shouldn't have known she touched him, knows the truth and calls out for an answer.

And there lies the reason to why Jesus asked the question.

See, this woman had internal bleeding. She knew what had happened, but do you think anyone else in her community would believe the bleeding had stopped? I doubt it.
Jesus set the stage with the question, providing opportunity for the woman to share the miraculous, so that God could be glorified, and the truth could be told.

This woman was a woman of faith, yes.
BUT
she was also a woman of intention, and she was a woman who was done with earthly solutions,
I don't think her goal was healing, I think her goal was HIM.

Daughter

One word, and they are connected, united in family ties. This man Jesus reaches in and heals in a way that is much deeper then physical, offering something that was stripped away like health, but cut deeper then pain. One word spoken in front of a crowd of witnesses, giving identity. And she knows it's the truth.

Go in peace

So I ask myself, when I come and touch Jesus' robe, what my goal? Am I coming to get something? Because I know I treat this relationship like that somedays, looking for the heavenly through my earthly solutions.

But when I come to him out of my nothingness, with no more of my own, is that when He can truly work the miraculous?

Touching Jesus' robe...
Only when I can't do anything, do I reach the point of submission to allow and trust Him to do something. And that something will be my everything, because I have nothing.



Linking today with Imperfect Prose

7 comments:

  1. I have heard this scene preached on and read about it in various texts, but here you make it come alive - I am there, that woman, as I read your words. This coincides with so much He is teaching me lately - to desire Him more than what He can do; to rest in His goodness and purposes. You have been used to remind and encourage me today.

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  2. It's our human nature to go to Him last, when we know there's nothing more that can be done, but I want to go to Him, first. Before I've tried anything else. Great post. Beautiful family, btw.

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  3. So glad that he hears our cries, and feels our reaching out to Him! Good post. :-)

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  4. you paint the scene wonderfully...and her story still touches others as it echoes forward...i relate well wih that last paragraph as well...

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  5. i love how you tell the Bible in a way i've never heard before... you speak with the voice of a true disciple, dear melissa. i miss you so much girl. i LOVE the new photos in the sidebar... xoxo

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  6. This was so good. You brought this passage to life-I could see it happening. So many parts that spoke. I love this story in scripture, and you captured it well. Thanks for sharing.

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  7. I want to be a woman done with earthly solutions.

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