Preached by the Right Reverend Grant Lynn Ford at the Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, July 2, 2006
Exodus 15:22-26
22Moses led the Israelites from the Red Sea into the Desert of Shur, where they traveled three days without finding water. 23Finally they came to a place that had water, but it was undrinkable. The local people called it ‘Marah’ or ‘Bitter’. 24This really upset the people: “We’re thirsty! What are we going to drink?”
25Moses, distressed by their complaining, called out to the Eternal, who showed him a piece of wood. He tossed it into the water, and the water became sweet.
It was there that the Almighty laid down some conditions for the people, giving them a choice, saying: 26“If you pay attention to what I tell you, and follow through on your intentions with your actions — right there in my sight — if you fulfill my Divine Principles and Precepts, I will make you immune to the diseases that plagued the Egyptians. Know this: I am the Eternal who heals you, who makes you whole.”
Mark 5:24b-34
24bThere was a large crowd of people around Jesus. 25In the middle of the crowd was a woman who’d been hemorrhaging for twelve years. 26She’d been going to doctors until all her money was gone, but she just grew worse instead of getting better. 27She had heard about Jesus, so she pushed her way through the crowd, thinking, 28“If I can just touch his clothes, I’ll be healed.”
29She reached out and touched him and felt something go through her body. Her bleeding stopped, and the pain was gone!
30At the same moment Jesus whirled around, feeling the power flowing from him. He cried out, “Who touched my clothes?”
31“Come on! Look at the crowd around you,” his students answered. “With this crushing mob you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”
32But he kept looking around, trying to determine who had touched him. 33The woman came up and fell down in front of him — shaking uncontrollably — and told him what had happened to her.
34“Daughter, your faith has healed you,” he said to her. “Go in peace. You’re as good as new! Suffer no more!”
The guy says: “Doctor, Doctor I think I’m suffering from Deja Vu!” to which the Doctor replied: “Didn’t I see you yesterday?”
And then there’s: “Doctor, Doctor I keep thinking there is two of me.” The doctor replies: “One at a time please.”
And how about: “Doctor, Doctor I keep thinking I’m invisible.” “Who said that?”
Enough with the doctor jokes. Even doctors don’t think they’re funny. And neither did this woman in our story today. She’d been going to doctors for 12 years, there was no Medicare and she was out of money, and still they had found no cure for her bleeding.
Chapter 15 of the Book of Leviticus talks about how a woman who is bleeding is ritually impure or unclean. Of course the first 19 verses are about a man with a discharge, how long he is considered unclean, and what he must do about it. So in all fairness both women and men came under the rule of impurity, a means of using religious authority to maintain public health.
But this woman had suffered not for a week, but for 12 years. And there apparently was no medical help for her at that time.
Today things might have been different. We tend to put doctors on pedestals, and when they can’t find a medical solution to our complaint, we are utterly disappointed. The truth is, medical science has come a mighty long way since the time of Jesus, but there are still cures to be found and medical solutions to be applied to conditions of the human body and soul. So we need to give doctors a break!
Back to our woman. She was probably on her way to see the doctor when she heard the sounds of an approaching crowd. It wasn’t long before she saw this itinerant preacher who had been working miracles all over Israel. She thought: “If I can just touch his clothes, I’ll be healed.”
Where did that idea come from? It seems it welled up from within her. To her credit, she had never given up the idea of living in health. And now she saw her opportunity, when everything else had failed.
So she worked her way through the crowd, determined but not wanting to draw attention to herself. Jesus passed right by her, and she surreptitiously touched just the edge of his garment.
That’s when he whirled around and said, “Who touched me? Who touched my clothes?”
“Now, really,” one of his disciples said, “look around you.” Another said, “Come on! It could have been anyone.” A third said: “With this mob crushing us on all sides you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”
But Jesus was just as determined as the woman had been earlier. He kept looking and asking: “Who touched me?”
Finally the woman, who had hidden herself in the crowd, came forward, falling down in front of him. “I did,” she said, shaking uncontrollably. “Forgive me. But, Master, I’m healed! I’m not bleeding!”
This woman was not about to have her moment taken from her, even though she had no idea what Jesus would do to her for having touched him. She knew she was unclean. She feared that he knew, too.
But Jesus did just the opposite of what everyone thought he would do. He spoke lovingly to her: “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace. You’re as good as new! Suffer no more!”
Jesus always comes down on the side of God’s goodness, rejecting the idea that anyone would be so unclean that they would not be loved by God. That’s why he could go around saying, “God so loved the world.”
There are two things that stand out in this story: 1) Determination demands results, and 2) God’s good always prevails.
She was determined to touch Jesus. She just knew that she knew that she knew she would be healed. Nothing was going to stop her or deter her faith. Even when she cowered before Jesus, on her knees, afraid of what he might say or do to her, she didn’t give up her healing. The pain was gone; the bleeding had stopped. She would not allow herself to give up now, after 12 long years.
Jesus was just as determined to find out who touched him, who had reached inside his personal space and touched his aura. He had felt for just a moment her pain and her despair. And then he felt her faith reach out, and he knew someone was been healed. Who was it? He wanted to know, so he could celebrate God’s good with this brave soul.
You see, both Jesus and the woman believed in the goodness of God. How terrifying it must be, then, to be raised in a religion based on fear: fear of the priest or the nun or the minister, fear of hell, fear of an angry God, fear that in one move you could go to hell no matter what your life had been up to that moment. Does all that sound strange…or quite real to you?
This woman would never have risked touching Jesus if she believed in a punishing God. Rather, she believed in a God of all Good.
Those poor Israelites, having just escaped Egypt, couldn’t lose their fear of God. When they came to the bitter waters in the desert, they knew God had tricked them. They were doomed to dehydration. Why had God brought them into the desert in the first place?
Unlike the woman in our story today (an Israelite herself, we might point out), they had a hard time believing in a good God, who would always make provision for them. So God told them: “Know this: I am the Eternal who heals you, who makes you whole.”
It took them another 40 years and a lot more miracles before they believed it enough to enter the Promised Land.
Do we trust God to meet our needs? Paul tells us in Philippians 4:19: “And my God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”
All our needs. That’s step one, and a pretty good step at that. But there’s even a second step. The Psalmist tells us: “Take delight in the Eternal, who will give you the desires of your heart.” [Psalm 37:4]
All our needs. All our desires. What more could was ask for? No wonder we can say “God is good…all the time!”
Now I’m not insisting that every breath has to be a miracle. But every breath is! Just being alive is a miracle, renewing itself over and over.
Dr. H. Emilie Cady, in her book Lessons in Truth, states: “God is Spirit, or the creative energy that is the cause of all visible things. God as Spirit is the invisible life and intelligence underlying all physical things. There could be no body, or visible part, to anything unless there were first Spirit as creative cause.”
Dr. Cady, whose book is the foundational text of the Unity movement, goes on to say: “God is not a being or person having life, intelligence, love, power. God is that invisible, intangible, but very real, something we call life. God is perfect love and infinite power. God is the total of these, the total of all good, whether manifested or unexpressed.”
With this understanding of the Good God, Nona Brooks, co-founder of Divine Science, writes: “Life is one with truth, beauty, love, wisdom, power, joy; it is a rendezvous with goodness, courage, kindness, faithfulness, service, and it is calling you and me to action. Life is, above all, a rendezvous with God; if we do not keep it, we miss the joy of living.”
The woman in our story had a rendezvous with God. She knew she would be healed if only she could touch the garment of Jesus. So she did everything in her power to be there for her rendezvous. And the story tells us she was healed because she believed in a good God.
How about you? Do you have a rendezvous with God? This could be your moment, the fulfillment of your life’s dream.
And that’s the Truth!
This is my rendezvous!
This is my moment!
I reach for my good.
I reach for my health.
I reach for my abundance.
I reach for my joy!
Life is good…
with Jesus by my side…
so I share it with others.
And I like it like that!
And so it is! Amen!
