We humans hunger for the spiritual made tangible. Yesterday I commented upon the yearning for a touchable deity that is found both in the sincere veneration of relics and in the somewhat absurd (but equally sincere?) interest in religious images found in odd places (like the face of Mary “seen” in a grilled cheese sandwich). We want a God we can grasp.
Luke 8:42-47
As he went, the crowds pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years; and though she had spent all she had on physicians, no one could cure her. She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his clothes, and immediately her hemorrhage stopped. 45 Then Jesus asked, “Who touched me?’’ When all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the crowds surround you and press in on you.” But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; for I noticed that power had gone out from me.” When the woman saw that she could not remain hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before him, she declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed. (NRSV)
When preachers exegete this scene from the ministry of Jesus, two points are usually made: 1) Jesus’ self-awareness of power going out from him, 2) Jesus healing someone without even trying.
While both are certainly worth noting, there is an even more basic point that is most often overlooked: The woman didn’t fall dead on the spot. For that matter neither did any of the crowd’s people who “pressed in on him.”
You see, if as we Christians believe, that Jesus was God in the flesh, it is remarkable that what happened to others who tried to touch or even look at God DID not happen to her. Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, God is portrayed as so awesome, so fearsome, so holy that a mortal cannot see God and live (Exodus 33:20).
The power of this holiness extends even to the “containers” of God. In one of the most disturbing scenes in the Bible (2 Samuel 6) a group of men join David in returning the Ark of the Covenant to the people of God (This is not Noah’s boat, but the container of the tablets of the Ten Commandments and that which held the very presence of God on earth—remember the final scene of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”). They put the Ark on a brand new cart pulled by oxen. When the oxen shook the cart a guy named Uzzah reached out his hand to steady the Ark—and was struck dead.
The juxtaposition of a man dying for touching the “container” of God, and a woman being healed for touching the “clothing” of God is certainly a stark contrast. Maybe when we bid on a sandwich with the face of Mary or go to see the bones of a long dead saint, we are only trying to get a glimpse of something that would otherwise be so awesome that we fear we couldn’t stand it.
Jesus’ coming into the world bridges the gap between Creator and creature, Divine and mortal, holy and profane. Without Jesus, it is impossible even dangerous for humans to reach out and touch the Divine. But in Jesus, God comes amongst us and puts himself within our grasp.
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