A sermon on Mark 5: 24b – 34
There’s just something magical, healing and right about being able to touch appropriately – a hug from our child, holding hands with a spouse, a kiss on the top of a baby’s head. We can certainly after the past year appreciate when a touch is good, and we can ask for that kind of healing touch from Jesus.
But what about if we’re the one doing the divine touching? In this era of consent, we can understand how rude it might appear for this woman in our scripture story to just reach out and touch even the hem of his cloak.
I mean if we can get over our fear of germs that tells us that touching in general is frowned upon and dirty, we still might be stopped from reaching out by the notion that to reach out and touch Jesus is precocious, even disrespectful. We’d think this for any human, let alone the Divine Son of God.
So now we have good reason that we don’t reach out to touch Jesus and let him do the touching in our lives – there’s no physical presence to reach out for. However if we want to take touching Jesus in a metaphorical direction, irrespective of the physical issues, I wonder if it isn’t still a little shocking to imagine just reaching out and grabbing what we want from God – taking action ourselves instead of waiting around to be touched.
To hear the rest of this sermon, click here.
