Touching Jesus - Conclusion

 

        I was recollecting when you came in…this is my big day…and my aunt’s big day…I was recollecting on that dust filled road 31 years ago…on our walk from Chorazin back to Capernaum…with broken hearts…despair…hopelessness.

            We had spent all we had…every penny…and had precious little inventory with which to make more money…

It was a long walk that day…we stopped a few miles out of Chorazin to have lunch …we had taken a bit of bread and cheese from home…and after eating we resumed our journey with an unspoken sense of hopelessness…my aunt and me…walking side by side…not saying too much…but in our hearts wondering “what do we do  now?”

            As we approached Capernaum about four in the afternoon, we saw a great crowd moving along the crossroads at mile marker one north.  The crowd was moving southward and it seemed to have a center, a center of attention if you will.  There was quite a commotion, children, teenagers, older folks, younger folks, it seemed like the entire town was out on an unruly mob-like parade….that their attention was focused on something or someone that they were trying to keep up with or touch…we weren’t really sure what was going on.

            The mob was moving away from us, moving away from the town, and that was good…because that meant that we wouldn’t have to endure their stares and looks of disdain as we headed back to our home.  The words “unclean, unclean, don’t touch them” seemed to be perpetually in their hearts and minds.  So let them go, I thought, let them go, let them go away from us on whatever circus adventure they’re on today, let them go.

            Just as I was thinking these thoughts children ran past us…children who didn’t know enough to know that we were unclean…as they stopped to greet us my aunt Ruth asked, “Children, precious young ones, why all the commotion, what is everyone doing?”

            “Oh,” they replied, “don’t you know?  Jesus of Nazareth is passing this way.  Everyone is trying to get a look at Him and touch Him.”

            Aunt Ruth and I looked at each other.  Jesus.  We had heard of Him, conflicting accounts of Him.  Some praised Him while others condemned Him.  The religious leaders seemed to hate him…but others…well…it was said that He touched people…it was said that He touched certain types of people…it was said that He touched the unclean…that He touched lepers…that He touched the dead…it was said that He touched women…could it be that perhaps…could it be that perhaps?????

            Aunt Ruth took the lead…a quick lead…a determined lead…and we headed toward the moving mob…closer and closer we got…if they recognized us they would push us away…they might even stone us to keep us from coming close…for we were unclean and we’d make them unclean…closer and closer we got…fear and hope both welling-up in our hearts…hearts pounding like kettle drums…

            No one was noticing us…their attention was all focused inward…inside the crowd, inside the mob…moving along that hot, dusty road in Galilee 31 years ago, a cacophony of noise filling the air…people pushing and jostling each other…we reached the edge of the crowd…and my little aunt Ruth began to push inward…inward beneath the men, inward past women and children…I was a few feet behind her…losing her now and then…then finding her again…and finally, finally…we saw Him…people were pushing against Him…this way and that pushing against Him as He walked…

            Ruth later shared with me that she only had one thought in her mind, “If I can only touch the hem of His garment.  If I can only touch the hem of His garment.  If I can only touch the hem of His garment.”

            And before I knew it…there she was…aunt Ruth…almost to Him…almost to Jesus…people crowding around Jesus…and she reached out and thrust her hand between two large men…right between their legs…and she…she…touched the hem of His garment…

            “Nathan,” she told me later, “it was like the warmth of a thousand suns cascading through my body…and I knew…Nathan I knew…that I was healed…I was whole…I was clean.”

            Jesus stopped…the crowd stopped.  Jesus turned around…His eyes scanning the crowd…and He spoke…a question, “Who touched me?”

            Some, whom I later learned were His disciples answered, “Master, how can you ask such a question?  “Who touched me?”  Master, why would you ask such a question?  Why everyone is touching you.  What kind of a question is that?”

            “No,” Jesus said.  Someone has truly touched me, for I know that healing has passed from me to…to.”  His eyes fell upon Aunt Ruth…and she was drawn to Him…she fell upon her knees and – in a Niagara of tears - poured out the misery and helplessness of twelve long years.  The Master said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you.  Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

            Oh the joy we knew that day, that day 31 years ago as we laughed and embraced and returned home that afternoon with hearts filled with hope, love, joy and a sense of destiny. 

            Did I mention that today is our big day?  Oh, but of course, you’re probably wondering about all those people, all those people who were around Jesus, all those synagogue church-going people who were bustling around Jesus, pushing Him this way and that, touching His hands, His hair, His arms, His side, His clothes…and then there was my little aunt Ruth…my unclean little aunt Ruth…who only touched the hem of His garment…what was the difference?

            How is it that people can go to synagogue all their lives and never really touch Him?  How is it that people can “say and do all the right religious things” and yet never really touch Him?  How is it that people can join this church or that church and yet never really touch Him?  How is it?  How can it be?  How is it that the scribes and Pharisees knew the Scriptures forwards and backwards and yet most of them never came to know Him?  How is it that people can learn Bible verses and yet never know the One whom these verses speak of?

            How can this be?  All those people touching Jesus…yet really only one person touching Jesus…my aunt Ruth.

            Did I mention this is my big day?  It’s also my aunt Ruth’s big day.  Did I mention this?

            It’s about time now.  I’ve got an appointment in a few minutes, an appointment much like the appointment on that grimy dusty road in Galilee 31 years ago.  You see my aunt and I continued to follow Jesus, to know Him and to love Him…and 4 years ago we moved here, to Rome, to help establish a fellowship of believers of both Jews and Gentiles.  And today is our big day…

            Aunt Ruth and I were arrested 3 weeks ago by Nero’s soldiers for being followers of Jesus Christ and we’ve been sentenced to die today…our big day…an even bigger day than that day 31 years ago…for today is our graduation day…today we’ll go to be with Him forever.

            O don’t be sorry for us, no please don’t.  After all, we are all going to die…and death is a part of life…the question of course is…when that day does come…will you have touched Him…and will He have touched you…?

           

           

                       

 

Touching Jesus - Part One

Background: Mark 5:21 - 34. 

THE SETTING – A PRISON CELL IN ROME, 64 A.D.

 

            Oh…hi…good morning.  Didn’t see you there…kinda daydreaming.  Not really daydreaming per se, more like recollecting…remembering. 

            What are you in here for?  Quite the group of you.  Have you already been to trial or are you awaiting an appearance before the Roman magistrate?

            Oh…sorry…I didn’t introduce myself, I’m Nathan ben Eleazar…a Jew from Capernaum in Galilee.  Today’s my big day…and I was just recollecting about another big day…that day 31 years ago…long before Nero was emperor…31 years ago…on that crowd-laden dusty road between Capernaum and Chorazin.

            I was with my Aunt Ruth that day, my poor aunt Ruth…at least I thought of her as my poor aunt Ruth before that day…but not after.

            Ruth is my mother’s sister…as a matter of fact she’s in a cell just down this corridor…but that’s another matter…of course this is her big day too…this is a big day for both of us…but back to that dust-filled choking road…

            My Mom died when I was three years old of something I think you call influenza.  Shortly after that my father was killed by robbers as he was transporting bundles of linen and wool from Jerusalem down to Jericho.  That left me an orphan at almost 4 years old.  I have vague memories of my parents, shadows if you will…aunt Ruth has done her best to keep the memories alive…and in fact to give me many more as she tells me about my parents and their young lives before their untimely deaths.

            Aunt Ruth took me into her home and raised me like her own son.  Did I mention that Ruth is a widow?  Her husband also died young in a shipping accident…leaving her a childless widow. So she was a widow without children and I was a child without parents…and she took me in…and loved me and raised me.

            Then, when I was 16 years old, Aunt Ruth got sick.  At first I didn’t notice much about the sickness.  Her skin began to pale, her energy decline…at the end of each workday – aunt Ruth made her living by dyeing linen and wool for weavers and tailors – she was exhausted.  She began going to bed earlier than usual…her smile wasn’t as quick to show as in the past…I knew something was wrong but didn’t know what…

            When I began to question her about her health she’d put me off by saying, “Oh, it’s nothing.  It will be better soon.”  But it didn’t…it didn’t get better.  In fact it got a good deal worse.  There were days when she couldn’t work all day…and an occasional day when she had to stay home.

            I kept after her to see a physician, but again she’d put me off by saying, “Oh, it will get better.”

            Now we weren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination, but we weren’t poor…at least in the beginning of her sickness.  In fact our life was somewhat comfortable.  The business of dyeing linen and wool isn’t a bad living as long as you meet your quotas with the tailors and weavers.  I had learned the trade from aunt Ruth and we were doing pretty well financially.

            One afternoon as I was sitting with the young men of the town sipping wine…it was our afternoon break from work…little Joseph ben Levi ran up to me yelling, “Ruth has fallen ill, Ruth has fallen ill, come quickly!!!”

            Aunt Ruth had fainted, passed out, in our little dye shop, hit her head on one of the dye soaking bins and was unconscious and bleeding from her head.  We got her home, put her to bed, and called a physician.

            After examining her, the physician left her sleeping area in our little home and came into the living room, he told me that Ruth was awake and that her head wound was only superficial…but then he told me that she was weak from loss of blood…loss of blood not from the head wound, but loss of blood due to something he called “a condition peculiar to the female sex,” and that he could do nothing to help her.

            Our lives changed that day…

            My heart was broken and filled with fear for my aunt Ruth.  I had lost my father and mother and now there was the threat of losing my precious aunt.  I embarked on a mission to find a physician who could cure her illness.

            The weeks, months and years that followed are somewhat of a blur…a collage of work, physicians, dwindling money, anxiety, fear, more work, more physicians, less and less money, hopelessness, despair.

            Ruth worked some days…seldom all day…struggling with me to keep our bills paid and our business running…but I insisted on spending whatever need be on a cure.  And so I contacted physician after physician in our area…and they…they virtually all came…and examined Ruth…and took our money…and said…they all said…that Aunt Ruth had, “a condition peculiar to the female sex,” and that there was nothing they could do.

            Year after year went by…and I saw my brave aunt’s health continue to deteriorate.  She was stubborn and determined, and loving and tender…but sheer willpower could only help her get from day-to-day, it could not heal her.

            Early in the twelfth year of her affliction I determined to make one last attempt to fine someone who could cure her.  Our business was struggling, for at this point Ruth could hardly work 3 or 4 hours a day, and while I was working and doing the best I could…our money was going to doctors and I couldn’t afford to pay someone to assist me in the business…I was falling behind in our contracts and was losing customers.

            At any rate…I had heard of the wonderful physicians there were in Egypt…and I heard that one of their esteemed physicians had come to Chorazin to set up practice.  I thought that surely this was our opportunity…perhaps our last opportunity…for a cure.  I knew it would be expensive, it might take all we had…but we had to try…we just had to try.

            Oh, I know what you’re thinking…you’re wondering how we, as Jews, could possibly go to an unclean Egyptian doctor.  Well, it’s not as if the doctor was the only one who was unclean…for please remember…that because my aunt Ruth had this perpetual bleeding due to “a condition peculiar to the female sex”…that my aunt Ruth was unclean as well…and that since I lived with my aunt, and touched her in my care for her…that I was also unclean.

            Yes, for twelve years she…that is we…even since that day when she fainted in our workshop and that first physician had diagnosed her…ever since then…we had been unclean…she because of her condition and me because of my association with her.

            We could not go into other peoples’ homes, they could not come into ours, we could not touch others…we could not even go to the synagogue on the Sabbath…we were unclean…my aunt Ruth and I, Nathan ben Eleazar…were unclean.  I could touch her and she could touch me…but no one else would touch us.  Twelve years without being touched by other people…twelve long isolated years.

            And so, in the twelfth year of her sickness, of her being in “a condition peculiar to the female sex”…in that year…we took the last money we had…down to our last penny…and went to Chorazin to see the Egyptian doctor. 

When I had made an initial trip to first consult with him he gave me hope, he indicated that he had cured many female conditions, that he had prescriptions for cures of all kinds and that surely he could help my aunt Ruth…and so we took our last bit of money, money that we had been hoarding…and we went.

            While Ruth was in the examining room I prayed to the God of my fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in my heart I called out to Him for mercy, mercy on my aunt Ruth…and I tried to believe, I tried to believe that He would finally heal my poor poor aunt.

            And then the door opened and my aunt Ruth and the Egyptian doctor came out…and I head these words from the doctor, “Your aunt has a condition peculiar to the female sex and I do not have a cure for it.”

            Putting my arm around my aunt I led her out of the office for the long walk home.  No money, a failing business, little food in the pantry, broken hearts…and no hope.

to be continued...