Thursday, December 1, 2022

 

Thursday, December 1, 2022


Psalm 74

Isaiah 3:13-4:6

Mark 5:21-43


Observance: First Thursday in Advent


Daughter, your faith has saved you; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.


If you are a student of history, you may have heard of a concept called the Halevy thesis. This is a social theory, that came about from comparing the societies of Britain and France during the revolutionary era. Where France rejected Jesus, vainly drafted several futile efforts to define Man as both autonomous and moral, subjected the people to the Terrors of riots and the guillotine, and spat out a man who crowned himself emperor by right of bloodshed and conquest, Britain did not. The thesis suggests that the reason for this is because during the same time, Britain went through a spiritual awakening in the form of the Methodist revival. Because people were more concerned for how God saw them than how they saw themselves, there was no need to engage in bloody revolution.


Both the Psalm and the reading from Isaiah speak of the frustration and spiritual depression we can experience when we look at the tragedies of our world. Sometimes the big issues can trigger it; our governments at all three levels certainly have given God plenty of reason to reject us. Other times it is our personal situation, and the circumstances outside our control that affect our lives so completely we spin off the rails and need a compass and a packed lunch to try and find our bearings again. This second situation is what was happening to the bleeding woman, and Jarius and his family.


The solution to both is the same. If we really trust that Jesus is in control, and that His plans for us are good and lovely, we will want to turn to Him for reassurance and comfort. And He never disappoints. It works in two stages, and it is a pattern in every single one of Jesus’ healing miracles. First, we are brought into a right relationship with God. This is what the original Greek text reads when Jesus talks to the bleeding woman, as reflected in the sentence for this morning. What follows from this right relationship is healing. Physical, emotional, spiritual, cultural, societal healing; it is guaranteed, and it always only ever follows from the healing of the relationship between us and our God Who Loves Us. Running to Jesus always fixes the healing of the relationship; healing the relationship always leads to healing everywhere else. We need not struggle in vain against the forces that attack us, to rise up in rebellion and build a guillotine. We need only to run to Jesus in faith and touch the hem of His garment.



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