Stop Hiding: Reach Out and Be Healed

Jesus isn't looking for acquaintances who come to him with their Sunday best. He's looking for desperate children. He's waiting for you to break the rules of your own self reliance. He's waiting for you to push back your fears of what other people think. He wants you to reach out to him and risk the interruption and admit, Lord, I can't fix this. I need you. If you bring your uncleanness to Jesus, he doesn't get dirty. You get clean. You cannot be healed while you're hiding. [00:42:16] (55 seconds)  #BringYourBrokenness

We become experts at looking good while bleeding on the inside. When our politeness becomes our religion, the church becomes a museum for the good and not a hospital for the broken. You cannot be healed what you're hiding from God. And that's what this chapter five in the chapter five in Mark's gospel is really getting at. Jesus is trying to get at this truth, and and and we're looking at a woman who's been polite all her life, and she is hiding in the shadows until she reach she reaches a breaking point where she can no longer be polite. [00:30:58] (56 seconds)  #ChurchForTheBroken

It's the only time recorded in the gospels that Jesus uses this word to address this woman. It's a specific term of endearment. He doesn't call her woman. He doesn't call her unclean. He calls her family. He forced her out of the shadows so he could publicly restore her dignity. He stopped the whole world. He delayed an important leader. He made Jarius wait just to look at a desperately broken woman eye to eye and say, you belong to me. You cannot be healed while you're hiding. [00:39:51] (51 seconds)  #CalledFamily

But in this very moment, the parade stops, and Jesus stops walking. He looks around, and he asks what seems to be a most ridiculous question. Who touched me? His disciples laugh at him and say that all these people have been crowding in. What do you mean? Who touched you? And we ask, why does Jesus do this? And he already healed her. Why force this terrified, previously unclean woman to stand in front of this whole crowd and risk the judgment? Because Jesus had more healing to do. [00:37:44] (43 seconds)  #CourageToBeSeen

Because Jesus had more healing to do. Jesus wanted to heal her from the shame, from the trauma, from the isolation, not just her physical suffering. If she had sneaked away, she would have been perfectly physically well, but she still would have viewed herself as a thief who stole a miracle. She would have acted like an outcast. There was so much more to heal. The trauma, twelve years, the pain, emotional, spiritual, poverty. Who touched me? We're told that she comes forward. She's trembling with fear. [00:38:23] (57 seconds)  #HealTheWholePerson

We can hide the financial stress that keeps us up at two a in the morning. We can hide the fact that our marriage is just hanging on by a thread. We can hide the fact that we have anxiety or depression, that we've got a medical diagnosis that's absolutely terrifying us. We can hide it, and we we just think, you know, if I just put my head down and just keep on keeping on, it's gonna be fine. I don't need any help here. But that just leaves us in a crowded room being absolutely isolated. [00:30:22] (36 seconds)  #AloneInACrowd

So let me ask you. What's your twelve year struggle? What's the thing that you've been carrying right now that you have been too polite, too ashamed, too afraid to bring to Jesus? Maybe you think that Jesus has way more important things. I mean, there is a war going on in Iran. Maybe you think that Jesus has more important people to deal with. People at Dravinsky or bigger problems. Maybe he doesn't have time to talk to you about your failing marriage or your anxiety or your secret addict addictions. [00:40:42] (55 seconds)  #NoProblemTooSmall

Imagine what the church would look like, Grace United Church would look like if we all decided to drop this politeness thing. What if the people in Caledonia knew that this was the place where they could be real, where nobody had to pretend to be alright and have it all together. It's the place of imperfect people. When someone asks you how you're doing, you could absolutely be honest and say, you know, I'm not doing so well. Would you pray for me? If it became a a place where people boldly reach out to Jesus with our deepest wounds [00:43:11] (45 seconds)  #AuthenticChurch