Hearts Alive

By David Guyor

There are many stories of Jesus that include miracles, but there is one that, for me, is spectacular.  It’s the story of a woman who has suffered from bleeding for 12 years but is then healed by Jesus

Let me set it up.  Jesus has just returned to town, a large crowd is waiting for him, and you get the sense that a lot is going on.  While everyone is trying to get close to Jesus, a Jewish leader begs him to come heal his little girl because she’s very ill.  Jesus is glad to help, and the text says that “Jesus went with him, the whole crowd tagging along, pushing and jostling him.”

But in the midst of this frenzy, the woman, in desperate need of healing, thinks to herself, ‘”If I can put a finger on his robe, I can get well.” And the moment she does this, her bleeding stops, she feels the change, and she knows she’s been healed.

Okay, so a supernatural, miraculous event has just occurred.  By merely touching Jesus’ robe, a woman’s body becomes well in a single moment.  There is simply no natural explanation for this.

But, for me, the really spectacular moment hasn’t happened yet.  Keep reading.

At the same moment, Jesus felt energy discharging from him. He turned around to the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?”

His disciples said, “What are you talking about? With this crowd pushing and jostling you, you’re asking, ‘Who touched me?’ Dozens have touched you!”

But he went on asking, looking around to see who had done it. The woman, knowing what had happened, knowing she was the one, stepped up in fear and trembling, knelt before him, and gave him the whole story.

So, Jesus keeps on asking and keeps on looking, and eventually the woman gets to give him her whole story. 

Wow.  Now that’s miraculous.

Let that sink in for a moment.  Try to see the scene in your mind.

The only way I can imagine it is with Jesus insisting on holding up whatever was going on, quieting everyone around him, and after seeing who it was that touched him, saying something like, “Okay everybody, please give me some time with this woman.  Go sit down or go on without me and I’ll catch up.”

And whether this happened for several moments or for several minutes, Jesus was present with this woman, and he let her tell him her whole story.

Again, I say, “Wow!”  The One who is the One True God, the One who is Ancient, the One who is literally, eternally, and finally the Creator of all Reality, sits down and spends a little time getting to know a woman!

That’s the miracle.  Really.  Healing blindness, paralysis, deafness… even raising the dead are wonderful, amazing signs of power.  But to believe that the desire of God, and the offer of God, is to be with us, love us, know us, be our best friend and even our lover is simply spectacular.

It’s beautiful; heartbreakingly beautiful.