NO REVERBERATION

Sometimes I feel a bit like "the voice crying in the wilderness," like nothing I say or write is heard or read; as if nothing I have to offer is acceptable to anyone. Maybe I am so often on "Send" that no one thinks I will be open to receive.

When someone is very needy there often comes a point where ears are just closed to the same old pleas and there is a limit to what people are able to do or want to do for someone. It is so sad when a person overstays his or her welcome or asks too much of another person.

Nevertheless, that can never happen with the Lord. God loves each one of us so very much that He wants to meet all of our needs. Sometimes we are begging and begging for love or help from a person when if we turn away from that person and just ask the Lord, He will provide whatever we need from sources we sometimes can't imagine.

Often we have relationships with people and we expect certain things from them. Maybe they don't even know we expect whatever it is. We just think they are supposed to feel a certain way towards us, or act a particular way, but over and over we are disappointed. At the same time, someone else dearly wants to give us the exact some thing but without realizing it we turn our backs on the people who love us and want to help us, hurting them in order to keep begging at doors that will never be open to us.

When Jesus taught the people, the way He healed them was by giving them a new way of looking at their lives and at the world. Thoughts and emotions, speech and actions trigger the use of biochemicals in our bodies. Personality is dependent on the formation and use of these biochemicals. Therefore the smallest change in the way we feel or think about ourselves and others -- and the way we talk makes a difference.

Someone who is never happy and always expect things to go wrong will just be burdened and sad. Did you know that the movement of the muscles of your face when you smile or laugh actually releases biochemicals that make you feel happy?

Let's think about that for a minute. Here is a narration of Jesus walking through the crowds. All of a sudden a man runs up and elbows his way through the people surrounding him. He cries out to Jesus,

"Please come to my master's house Rabbi! His daughter is dying!"

Jesus nods and turns to follow the servant with many people pressing in and around him. At that moment a woman is crouched over trying to make herself as small as possible. She is sick and has had an issue of blood for twelve years. In her culture that issue of blood has made her untouchable for all that time. She has been alone. She has not been able to go into the synagogue in her village. She is not able to go up to the Temple in Jerusalem for any of the feasts or celebrations. She is an outcaste.

In addition to that she has tried to get well. The narrator of the scene tells us that she has spent all the wealth she has on doctors who have not helped her in the least.

But think about this. The woman has heard about Jesus. She has heard that He heals the sick. She has heard he delivers people from oppression. And lo and behold, she sees a crowd of people and hears them call His name.

"Oh!" she thinks. "If only I can just touch the fringe of His talit, (his prayer shawl that reaches His ankles) if only I can in secret touch just the smallest part of that sacred garment, I know I will be made whole and healthy again."

As Jesus turns to follow the servant of Jairus, the main with the dying twelve year old girl, the woman with the issue of blood quickly reaches out her hand and indeed is able to grab at the fringe of Jesus' talit. She immediately feels warmth and can almost see the light flowing from the cloth draped around his shoulders and almost touching the ground.

Jesus feels it, too. He asks, "Who touched me?"

His disciples are amazed. "What do you mean who touched you, Lord? All sorts of people are pressed around you in this crowd. You are being jostled and bumped into from all angles!"

Jesus fervently replies, "No. Someone in need touched me. I felt the power go out of me to that person. Who touched me seeking help?"

Now maybe you might think that this was kind of mean of Jesus to ask this question. She might feel humiliated. People know she is not supposed to be out in public. People know she is untouchable. They have an obligation to Torah to stone her and keep her from making anyone else unclean.

And that is exactly why Jesus wants to make sure people know she is now clean. He knows very well who touched His talit and who has therefore received healing and wholeness. By asking her to own up to that act and that faith, Jesus is announcing to everyone that she is now clean. She can return to the bosom of her family. She can take part in every day life of her village. She is welcome to all the celebrations in her village. She can now once again receive forgiveness at the time of the Great Sacrifice. She can again worship in the Temple. She can finally go to the cleansing ritual baths with the other women of her family and her village.

What joy she feels in her heart! How grateful she is to Him! And how amazed are all the people who have just seen her pale, almost white face and hands turn pink with new life and fresh blood flowing through her body.

As Jesus accepts her gratitude, He tenderly lifts her up. Then he turns to follow Jairus' servant, quickly heading toward the house where the young girl is dying.

He is within a stone's throw of the house when people see Him. They are already wailing and mourning loudly. The news they have just been given is that the twelve year old girl has died. Jesus has not come in time. They deride Him and abuse Him with their words. They tell Him to just go away.

But Jairus and His wife have come out to greet him. Grateful that Jesus has come, they are filled with grief that he didn't come in time.

"Never mind that," Jesus urges them. "Just believe in me."

He takes only the father and mother of the child along with his disciples James and John who are the main witnesses to His greatest deeds of power and he enters Jairus' house.

Now let's take a moment to realize a few things. A few minutes earlier, Jesus has restored a woman to her life; to her place in her family; to her place in her community, and given her the ability to again come before the Lord in the Temple. The young girl of twelve has lived during the span of the time that the woman has been unable to participate in the rituals and celebrations of her people before the Lord. And this twelve year old girl is of the age where she is about to become a woman of God, blessed by the Lord and able to take her rightful place in her own home, in her village, in her synagogue and at Temple.

Jesus swiftly walks over and takes the cold hand of the child who was on the verge of reaching womanhood and says to her in Aramaic, "Talitha cum," which means "Little girl, rise up!"

There are only a few places in the New Testament where what Jesus said in Aramaic is not translated into Greek or into biblical Hebrew, into Latin or into any other language in which the Bible exists. One is when He is on the Cross and says, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" meaning "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Another is what he commanded the dead young girl.

Aramaic is the every day street level Hebrew used in day to day life. Most likely the first narrations about Jesus were in Aramaic, the native tongue of the majority of people who knew and loved Him.

So what do we make of these narrations about the life-giving, fulfilling love of God demonstrated by the Incarnate Word?

Salvation is wholeness, shalom, renewal, regeneration. Jesus gave people the gift of being able to be completely who each person was created to be. He made sure that there was nothing interfering with each person's ability to approach and communicated with the Fullness of Love by whom each one was created.

If you are feeling less than your self or separated from people you love or from God, please remember what happened that day when the crowds surrounded Jesus and He was called to Jairus' house. Maybe you can see yourself in the crowd. Maybe you are or have been a grieving parent. Maybe you are sick. Maybe you are one of Jesus' disciples who still has a lot to learn.

God in Jesus Christ meets each one of us at the point of our greatest need. If we allow Him to, though, He will not leave us there. He will grant our heart's desire and bring us wholeness, peace, grace and love.

Whatever you need, all you have to do is reach out your hand, or call out to Him. he is waiting for you, loving you, ready to help you in any way. he wants you to be exactly who you were created to be. he wants you to come close to Him and get to know Him. Jesus is waiting for you with the same offer to each person who is alive now, who has ever live and will ever lie:

"Come to me all you who are burdened and heavy laden and I will give you rest."

Won't you answer Him and come to receive His love and grace?