Loving God, you give hope to the hopeless and healing to the broken-hearted. May your healing and sustaining power be at work within us today and draw us closer to you and to the people around us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Two stories - both true. Story #1, told by the woman from today's gospel:

You know, I don't know if any of you have ever met Jesus before, but when I met him, it changed my life. When I came to Jesus, I was absolutely desperate. For 12 years, I had constant hemorrhages. I had been to every doctor I could find and had spent everything that I had, and still I wasn't any better. However, in some ways, this wasn't the worst of it. Allow me to take you back in time for just a moment.

You see, I am a daughter of Israel, and our law says that women with a flow of blood are unclean. This means that I am not holy, not acceptable to God, not able to gather with others for worship, not able to touch anybody, and only able to live with other people who are also unclean. Of course, others could choose to be with me, but why would they? Why would they make themselves ritually unclean if they don't have to? I can't blame them, really. I wouldn't wish this life on anybody.

This was how it was when I went to see Jesus. I hadn't been touched by another person for 12 years - no hugs, no embraces - not even a hand on the shoulder. I had no money, couldn't see my family, and I was getting weaker and weaker. I heard that there was this man named Jesus who could heal people, and so I went to find him. After all, what did I have to lose?

When I did find him, my heart sank when I saw the crowds of people thronging around him. How was I ever going to get to him? I knew in my heart that if I could just touch even his cloak, I would be healed - saved - made well. I also knew that I wasn't supposed to touch any of the people in the crowd - but that was going to be impossible. And so I took a deep breath and started making my way through the crowd toward Jesus.

When I got close, I waited until he wouldn't see me, came up behind him and reached out and touched his cloak. As soon as I touched it, I could feel the bleeding stop and my strength returning. I closed my eyes just to savour the moment, but then I heard Jesus saying, "Who touched my clothes?" (Mk. 5:30) Oh no! He knows that I touched him - and I touched all these other people, too! What will he do to me if he knows what I just did?

I was hoping that he would forget about it and just keep going, but he continued to stand there, looking around, asking who touched his clothes. When I felt that I could hide no longer, I came forward, fell on the ground at his feet and told him what had happened. I was ready for them to start stoning me or something, but when I looked up, all I saw in Jesus' eyes was love and compassion.

He called me "daughter" and helped me to my feet. He told me that my faith had made me well. He told me to go in peace and be healed. And then a bunch of people arrived and a new commotion started.

I continued to stand there while crowds of people moved past me. I was in a daze and couldn't quite get everything to sink in. I was healed - that I knew! I could feel it in my body. But more than that, I had just been loved and accepted by a teacher and healer who imparted God's peace - God's shalom - to me. Such things just didn't happen in Israel! This was no ordinary rabbi!

Well, at least I'll have 7 days to get used to the idea of being healed. I'll have to wait at least that long to go to the priest and get him to make a sacrifice for my cleansing (Lev. 15:25-30). I have no idea how I'll come up with a couple of turtledoves or pigeons by that time, but I do believe that God will provide! What I have now is not only healing, but hope - all because of meeting Jesus. From now on, I will happily send anybody to him!

Story #2 - by Michael Thompson ["A Future and a Hope" in God Alone: Stories of the Power of Faith (2000: The Word Among Us Press)] First, a verse from Jeremiah:

"I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope" (Jer. 29:11).

Michael writes: "Today, that's one of my favourite verses in the Bible, but it didn't always reflect my life. I spent more than fifteen years in and out of prison, without any hope and without any plans or goals for my future. That all changed a few years ago when I came face to face with God's love.

Growing up in the inner city, I never heard the word "love" mentioned in my family - it was just a word for wimps. Both my parents died before I was fourteen, and good role models were few and far between. Even though I graduated from a Catholic high school, I didn't really know who God was.

Since I hadn't gotten much love during my teen years, I reached out for any attention I could get. I passed by an opportunity to go to college because I was living day by day, with no purpose or plans for the future. I wanted to be like the guy out on the corner with a big wad of money in his pocket and a nice car, getting his attention however he could, even if it was negative. So I began selling drugs, and wound up in prison for the first time when I was twenty-one years old.

That was the beginning of a vicious cycle for me that lasted seventeen years. I'd get out of prison and go back into my old environment and end right back in prison again. In between prison stints, I spent a lot of time just standing on the same street corner in town, a man without hope. One day as I was wasting my life there on my corner, the father of a friend of mine saw me and told me his son had gone to a ministry to street people and the homeless. When he said he could see some definite, positive changes in his son, I decided to go to the mission too.

When I walked through the rescue mission door on August 7, 1995, I was greeted with compassion and a hug. Slowly I began to experience God's love through those who cared for me at the mission. Over the next six months, the love that had been missing from my life became real to me, and the truths of the gospel began to sink into my mind and take hold of my heart. Finally, after so many years of living on my own strength and making a mess of my life, I surrendered to God.

The past four years since my conversion have been the best of my life. What I didn't have before, I have today: A future and a hope. I know who I am in Christ Jesus. I know why I was created. I know what my purpose is. There is a plan for my life. I have goals and good order in my life. I have a wife and a family and a home, and we live in a way that I believe is pleasing to God. Sure, I have troubles like everyone else, but I have something available to me now that I never had before - the Holy Spirit dwelling in me, giving me the strength to overcome difficulties and temptations and anything else that rises against me.

Now, when I look back on my life, I realize that my time in prison did something for me that I couldn't have done for myself: It pulled me out of an environment that was destroying me. I was killing myself out there on that street corner. We all take different journeys to get to the place where God can reach us. Sometimes we have to be beaten up and broken in order for God to come in and fix us. I was a broken man all those years. I had a big hole in my heart, and I tried to fill it with girls, with cars, with money, with drugs - but nothing ever sufficed or satisfied me. Now I thank God for even that rugged road in prison because it brought me to the place where I am today. I wouldn't change that for anything in the world.

My life has become very stable since my conversion. I've grown in perseverance, and I'm learning what it means to have endurance. I've been able to tell my family and friends who had been harmed by my behaviour how sorry I am for that. They are extremely happy with me and with what Jesus has done in my life. Since coming to know how much God loves me and how much he has forgiven me, I've also learned to forgive others. I've realized that holding on to things that were done to me unfairly just kept me in bondage, so now I've let go of all that.

Prayer has become important to me, too, because it's my communication with God and Jesus. When I'm not praying regularly, I miss out on much of what Jesus has made available for me. It's often in the time I spend in prayer with him that he reveals things to me. I also intercede for others so that they will come to know the love of God, that they will be restored, that they will be healed for whatever is needed in their lives.

Jesus comes to the needy and the brokenhearted. ... There is hope... Hope that is available to anyone who turns to Christ. ... Anyone who believes that Jesus is who he said he is and humbly turns to him can receive the strength to live a new life pleasing to God. I know, because I'm living that new life now. Just as he promised, God has given me a future and a hope."

Two stories - both true - thanks be to God! Amen.

Proper 8(B) Mark 5:21-43
July 2, 2006
St. Luke's Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison Moore
? 2006 Lynne Hutchison Moore All Rights Reserved