Nov 09 2008
Did He Touch You?
I attended a revival Wednesday evening. The preacher spoke on the ten samaritans who were lepers. He told the story of these men and their petition for help. The bible states in Luke 17:13, they lifted up their voices to Jesus and said, ” Jesus Master, have mercy on us.”
Today, we had a guest preacher at our church and his text came from Mark 5:21-35. The preacher spoke on the womans illness of twelve years and effort to press through the crowd to touch Jesus.
This sermon really spoke to me. It brought me back to a time when I was going through a lot of emotional suffering. I could recall calling out to God and saying ‘ Lord if I could just reach your garment, if I could just touch you, I know I’ll be made whole.’ It brought me back to a period in my life when I knew God was there, but with all the turmoil going on around me, I could not feel his presence. Though, I wasn’t physically ill, in my soul I was emotionally sick.
I found the similarity of these text and the timing in which I received them to be very interesting. Both speaking to the desperation of the individuals. Both speaking to Jesus travels and interruption. Both speaking to individuals in need of healing and most importantly the actions that cause Jesus to answer.
In the book of Luke 17:13, when these men called Jesus he didn’t ignore them, he didn’t have to touch them, or even tell them to go wash their faces. He looked at them and told them to go show themselves to the priest. As you continue to read through the chapter, you realize these men were healed. The interesting part of this is after being healed. After lifting up their voices to Jesus in a cry for help, only one came back.
(to be continued)
