I. Recap
A. Verses prior: Jesus on his way to Jairus’s house (a synagogue leader…big guy in charge).
B. Slowed by a large crowd, pressing against him, wanting to touch him, grabbing his clothes.
C. One woman comes, presses her way through the crowd only to touch his outer garment…a large piece of cloth that Jewish men wore.
D. She is instantly healed.
E. Jesus realizes some healing power has left him and asks, “Who touched me?”
F. The disciples think he’s crazy--not the first time--and wonder how he could ask such a question with a large crowd around him.
G. The woman is afraid, comes trembling and falls at his feet, knowing that she had been healed.
H. And Jesus says to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
I. And then Jesus goes on to Jairus’ house and heals Jairus’ daughter.
II. Intro
A. Throughout the Bible, OT and NT, the faiths of people are being played out…people are acting according to their faith in God.
B. Every story in the scriptures has something in common--people are acting upon their faith.
C. Faith is not something we hold on to, it is not something that lays on a table and does not move but only for display.
D. Faith is active--it is what causes us to act. If a person is not acting on upon his/her faith, then that person has no faith.
E. When we have faith in God, when we have faith God’s incarnation in the person of Jesus Christ, and we can feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives we cannot help ourselves but to act upon it…like the woman.
F. Faith should be a verb, not a noun. I am faithing. When we pray, we are faithing. When we are doing God’s work we are faithing.
III. There are three people or groups of people that give us the examples in this story: Jesus, the Disciples, and the woman.
A. Jesus - expends himself entirely
1. healing costs him
2. he knows when power has left him.
3. The Ragman
a) man, strong, pushing a cart full of bright, new clothes.
b) “Rags!”
c) Woman on a porch, crying a thousand tears into a handkerchief.
d) “Rags! Rags! New rags for old!”
e) A young girl whose head was wrapped in a bandage, whose eyes were empty. Blood soaked the bandage. A single line of blood ran down her cheek.
f) “Rags! Rags! New rags for old!” cried the sobbing, bleeding, strong, intelligent Ragman.
g) Man leaning against a telephone pole.
h) “are you going to work today?”
i) “Are you crazy” and pulled away from the pole, revealing the right sleeve of his jacket--flat, the cuff stuffed into the pocket. He had no arm.
j) Drunk man, lying unconscious beneath an army blanket, and old man, hunched and sick. The ragman took the blanket and wrapped it around himself and gave the man new clothes.
k) Though weeping uncontrollably, bleeding freely from the forehead, pulling his cart with one arm, stumbling for drunkenness, falling again and again, exhausted, old, old and sick, yet speeding through the streets.
l) Came to a landfill, to the garbage pits.
m) Climbed a hill, and slowly cleared a place on the hill and laid down.
n) Pillowed his head with a handkerchief and a jacket. Covered his bones with an army blanket. And he died.
o) I Cried through Friday night, slept through Saturday.
p) Sunday morning came and I was awakened by a violence--light, pure, hard, demanding light slammed against my face. I looked and saw…
q) The Ragman, folding the blanket most carefully, a scar on his forehead, but alive! And besides that…healthy!
r) No sign of sorrow nor of age, and all the rags that he had gathered shined for cleanliness.
s) I lowered my head, trembling for all that I had seen and walked up to him. I told him my name with shame, for I was a sorry figure next to him.
t) Then I took off my clothes in that place, and I said to him with dear yearning in my voice: “Dress me.”
u) He dressed me. My Lord, he put new rags on me, and I am a wonder beside him. The Ragman, the Ragman, the Christ!
B. Disciples - use logic instead of faith
1. use common sense.
2. do understand yet faithing
C. Woman - risks everything because of her faith in Jesus, whom she had only heard of.
1. faith is active
2. that faith heals her, not the act of touching Jesus’ garment
3. she is faithing
IV. Closing
A. Let’s Pretend faith is a verb.
B. Let us show the world our integrity.
C. Let us show that our God is living and active in a world without faith, living and active in us!
D. Let us expend ourselves as Jesus did, finding rest and renewal when we need to as Jesus did.
E. Let us not rely on common sense or logic when it comes to the things of God--the things of God being our entire lives! Instead, let us trust the promises that God will provide, God will come through, God will not let us go even when we let God go.
