Mk 5:21-43 Noticed

Tuesday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time
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There was a woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years.  She had suffered greatly at the hands of many doctors and had spent all that she had.  Yet she was not helped but only grew worse.  She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak...Immediately her flow of blood dried up...Jesus, aware at once that power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who has touched my clothes?"

I still remember a delightful conversation I had with a gentlemen who had his "theories" surrounding the beginning of the Universe.  He told me he believed the Universe was created by a gigantic explosion of energy.  I told him I believed that too, and that a lot of love went into it as well.  I offered him a simple example of my theory in the form of a poor man offering a homeless man a five dollar bill.  Physics - mechanics - could help explain the movement of one hand to another.  But we would be foolish if we didn't include a generous soul being moved by the sight of an unfortunate man.

There is more to this scene than meets the eye.  There always is.  There always will be.

A woman suffering from affliction.  She did the right thing.  She went to the doctors and paid for their help.  She did the best she could, and she hoped they would do their best as well. But her condition only grew worse, and she was left penniless and miserable.  She could no longer afford any more doctors.

Now it would be unwise of me to say she was a crazy or desperate woman, for when she learned the Lord was in town, she made a conscientious decision - a wise and thoughtful decision: "If he is truly God, then all I need to do is touch his clothes and I shall be cured."

As she worked through the crowd, she was able to get close enough to Jesus to touch the back of His cloak.  Immediately, she was healed.   

This was a miracle, no doubt about it.

But the Lord noticed at once "that power had gone out from him."  So he "turned around in the crowd and asked, 'Who has touched my clothes?'"

Here's a simple and yet beautiful example of energy and love mixed together.  Christ does not want to be known just as a great physician or mechanic; a fixer-upper man.  He wants to be known as a great lover who used his energy to love others, especially the less fortunate.  He doesn't want to be known just as The Almighty.  He wants to be specifically known as the All-Loving; that is, the Lord of Love.

Power and love.  Engineers have done some amazing things over the centuries.  They have given us the ability to move quickly, to communicate immediately, and to work more industriously.  But I am very reluctant to say they have made life easier for any of us.  For as we can all see, connectivity has its pluses and minuses.  If someone makes a mistake, then not only is that mistake amplified in an unnatural way - for all the world to see - but it will never be removed - forgotten - which is very unnatural.  Life was made in a way as to make it easy for people to move on, to be forgiven and, to a certain extent, be forgotten.  But technology has made certain aspects of human life unbearable:  human failures. 

Now if this curse has not yet hit home, it may, for we all make mistakes, eventually.

Man has harnessed energy in incredible ways and for amazing purposes.  He has also decoded the gene in a most delicate way.  Now the engineers and researchers who experiment on nature day in and day out need not only talent and brains to move God's mountains, but also a heart of gold...a heart made in the image and likeness of Jesus Christ.

God forbid we do it any other way.