Mark 5:21-43
What would it be like to touch Jesus? I can’t imagine it. I would give anything to see Jesus alive that touching Him is almost an after thought. But touching Jesus brings healing. It’s the kind of healing that stops a woman from bleeding and that raises a little girl from death.
Even now as I sit here at my table, I wonder what it is that I need to be healed from the most. Coveting? Pride? Sometimes a critical Spirit? All those at one time? Is that even possible?
You know, it baffles me that whenever people come in contact with Jesus their life is changed for forever. Forever. Freed for forever. Can you imagine that? I mean seriously, what would it be like to be freed from all your stuff for forever? You know, all the stuff that you wouldn’t admit to anyone at your church for fear of rejection or being shamed. Think of that stuff. To be freed from that for forever… Are you getting the picture here?
As I type this, I can’t help but get teary eyed over all the people I have met in my last several years of ministry that are literally dying to be freed from the chaos in their life. Like Legion that we looked at in the beginning of Mark 5, they are continuing to retreat from the crowd, in this case the church, for fear of being found out. They want to be like Legion and run down the mountain to fall at Jesus’ feet and touch Him and beg for healing, but they don’t know how.
They don’t know how because we haven’t shown them a Jesus they can run to. The bottom line for all of us is that Jesus died and left us in charge of the earth and we are doing a horrible job of being Him. We don’t show mercy, we don’t love, and we don’t care for anybody but ourselves. Most of us truly are so caught up in looking for the forest that we can’t see the trees.
What in the world are we to do? I mean, we can’t go on living like this can we? I think the most interesting part of this whole section in Mark is the word immediately. It’s used several times, and I think it is important for us today. If anything, we are to change immediately. Love immediately. Care immediately. Show mercy immediately. And I truly believe people will then begin to run to Jesus, immediately.