Illustration

Since I started youth work, (back in 1974!, where have the years gone!) I have only had two kids go in full time ministry however numerous go into missions, both long and short.  And I recent had the pleasure of hearing one of the ministry ones do a sermon.

He selected Mark 5:21-34, the woman with the issue of blood whom touched Jesus.

Roll the clock back to my pre-Christian days and I had been going to a Synagog for quite sometime trying to figure this whole God/Jesus thing out.  The Rabbi was more than willing to work with me through the stories of Jesus - he knew them intimately well.

Now he told me that a woman having her period or with an issue of blood, such as might be caused by a cancer of some type was considered unclean and had to live to outside of the town until it was over.  My knowledge of such things was not real good and I asked him if that didn't mean that women would be gone from the town quite often.  He smiled and said yes, it was when men were allowed to rest.  Odd comment I thought.

Now I grew up in a small German town near the French and Lux border, so I asked one of the elders if there had been any Jews in my town before the war.  Apparently, there had been.  So, you know my mind, I asked if women were forced to live in the fields during their time of the month.  He smiled and said they had a guest house outside of town the women were sent to.  Hmmm, life was different a hundred years ago it seems.

And this young man is going to talk on this quirky passage!

A woman, whom was not even supposed to be in town because she was unclean, is in the crowd, jostling for position to get close enough to Jesus to touch one of his tassels (there are four of them) which hung from the covering all men were required to wear.

And Jesus stopped and asked whom had touched her .....

Do  you think Jesus knew whom had touched him?
Do you think Jesus knew why he had been touched?
Do you think Jesus wanted to make a point for some reason?

She confessed, I am sure in fear and dread.  Was she going to be stoned by the crowd for what she had done?  They would know of her condition and ban from being in town - and she had not only approached but also touched a Rabbi and now was speaking to him public!  This kind of thing was not supposed to happen!

And Jesus did not condemn her for the breaking of the Law, nor the breaking of Talmud - instead he told her she was healed by her faith.

It was his being which healed her, she had to touch him to be healed, but it was her faith, which drove her past convention to do the unthinkable.

That is the kind of faith we each should have.  Yeah healing of our problems is a very personal and important task.  But, I wonder if we could have that kind of faith, to be real in our lives, for others - what might our surroundings and situations be like?

Yeah, I anticipate faith is not exactly a priority in your life.  We all hop around saying we have faith but it is actually by our own power that almost everything is done.  The black eyes we as Christians receive when one whom calls themselves by his name fails, proves that point.  The failures in ministry ventures show the lack of faith used in how we spend his resources.  The people whom trusted and then were turned off by our individual and collective failures all scream at us our lack of real faith.

Now how to realign ourselves and our thinking to place faith first and presuming upon God ending?