Friday, June 17, 2005
THE HAND GOD LOVES TO HOLD
By Max Lucado, excerpted from "Desperate People"
To see her hand you need to look low. Look down. That's where she lives. Low to the ground. Low on the priority list. Low on the social scale.
Can you see it? Her hand? Gnarled. Thin. Diseased. Dirt blackens the nails and stains the skin...The woman is desperate. Blood won't stay in her body. "There was a woman in the crowd who had a hemorrhage for twelve years" (Mark 5:25). Twelve years of clinics. Treatments. Herbs. Prayer meetings. Incantations.
No health. No money. And no family to help. Unclean according to the law of Moses...The hand you see in the crowd? The one reaching for the robe? No one will touch it.
Wasn't always the case. Surely a husband once took it in marriage. The hand looked different in those days: clean, soft-skinned, perfumed. A husband once loved this hand. A family once relied on this hand: to cook, sew. To wipe tears from cheeks, tuck blankets under chins. Are the hands of a mother ever still? Only if she is diseased.
She is desperate and her desperation births an idea. "She had heard about Jesus...Word among the lepers and the left out is this: Jesus can heal. And Jesus is coming.
As the crowd comes, she thinks. If I can touch His clothing, I will be healed. At the right time, she crab-curries through the crowd..."Move out of the way!" someone shouts. She doesn't care and doesn't stop. Twelve years on the streets have toughened her.
The robe is in sight. Four tassels dangle from blue threads...how long since she has touched anything holy? She extends her hand toward a tassel.
Her sick hand. Her tired hand... she touches the robe of Jesus, and immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel that she had been healed.
Life rushes in. Pale cheeks turn pink. Shallow breaths become full. Hoover Dam cracks and river floods. The woman feels power enter.
Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"
Can we fault this woman's timidity? She doesn't know what to expect. Jesus could berate her, embarrass her...What will the ruler of the synagogue do? He is upright. She is unclean. And here she is, lunging at the town guest. No wonder she is afraid.
The woman, knowing what had happened, knowing she was the one,.knelt before him, and gave him the whole story" (v. 33)...
With the town bishop waiting, a young girl dying, and a crowd pressing, He still makes time for a woman from the fringe. Using a term he gives to none else, he says, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. You have been healed" (v 34)
Illness took her strength. What took yours?...Hard drink? Late nights in the wrong job? Pregnant too soon? Too often? Is her hand your hand? If so, take heart. Your family may shun it. Society may avoid it. But Christ? Christ want to touch it. When your hand reaches through the masses, he knows.
Yours is the hand He loves to hold.
To see her hand you need to look low. Look down. That's where she lives. Low to the ground. Low on the priority list. Low on the social scale.
Can you see it? Her hand? Gnarled. Thin. Diseased. Dirt blackens the nails and stains the skin...The woman is desperate. Blood won't stay in her body. "There was a woman in the crowd who had a hemorrhage for twelve years" (Mark 5:25). Twelve years of clinics. Treatments. Herbs. Prayer meetings. Incantations.
No health. No money. And no family to help. Unclean according to the law of Moses...The hand you see in the crowd? The one reaching for the robe? No one will touch it.
Wasn't always the case. Surely a husband once took it in marriage. The hand looked different in those days: clean, soft-skinned, perfumed. A husband once loved this hand. A family once relied on this hand: to cook, sew. To wipe tears from cheeks, tuck blankets under chins. Are the hands of a mother ever still? Only if she is diseased.
She is desperate and her desperation births an idea. "She had heard about Jesus...Word among the lepers and the left out is this: Jesus can heal. And Jesus is coming.
As the crowd comes, she thinks. If I can touch His clothing, I will be healed. At the right time, she crab-curries through the crowd..."Move out of the way!" someone shouts. She doesn't care and doesn't stop. Twelve years on the streets have toughened her.
The robe is in sight. Four tassels dangle from blue threads...how long since she has touched anything holy? She extends her hand toward a tassel.
Her sick hand. Her tired hand... she touches the robe of Jesus, and immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel that she had been healed.
Life rushes in. Pale cheeks turn pink. Shallow breaths become full. Hoover Dam cracks and river floods. The woman feels power enter.
Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"
Can we fault this woman's timidity? She doesn't know what to expect. Jesus could berate her, embarrass her...What will the ruler of the synagogue do? He is upright. She is unclean. And here she is, lunging at the town guest. No wonder she is afraid.
The woman, knowing what had happened, knowing she was the one,.knelt before him, and gave him the whole story" (v. 33)...
With the town bishop waiting, a young girl dying, and a crowd pressing, He still makes time for a woman from the fringe. Using a term he gives to none else, he says, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. You have been healed" (v 34)
Illness took her strength. What took yours?...Hard drink? Late nights in the wrong job? Pregnant too soon? Too often? Is her hand your hand? If so, take heart. Your family may shun it. Society may avoid it. But Christ? Christ want to touch it. When your hand reaches through the masses, he knows.
Yours is the hand He loves to hold.
# posted by F O O D F O R T H O U G H T @ 9:18 PM 
