Come as you are
I was at a meeting yesterday where I heard two friends, Maurice and Joyce McDonagh speaking on Mark 5:21-43. In this passage a local synagogue leader called Jairus comes to Jesus because his daughter is dying, he asks Jesus to come to his house and place his hands on her so she would live. As Jesus is heading for Jairus’ house, a woman who has been hemorraghing for 12 years sneaks through the crowd and touches Jesus clothes and she is immediately healed. Jesus, feeling healing power go out of him stops to find out who the woman is. The woman fell at Jesus feet and he says to her, “your faith has made you well, go in peace you have been healed.” By the time all this happens Jairus’ daughter is already dead. But Jesus still goes to the house brings her back to life.
Maurice and Joyce said many good things about this story but something they touched on that really spoke to me was how different the two approaches to Jesus were. One, Jairus, was a man of high standing, a leader in the synagogue. He had much to loose by going to Jesus, many of his fellow Jews particularly the Jewish leaders would not have approved of him going to Jesus. Of course he could have lost his daughter had he not gone to Jesus but he had a lot of other things to loose by going. It doesn’t say what happened to him after this, perhaps he lost his job. The other person, the hemorraghing woman had tried everything to stop her bleeding, spending everything she had on doctors bills and, it says, this only made her bleeding worse. She has nothing to loose by going to Jesus. But both had the common element of faith in Jesus. They both believed Jesus could and would heal.
In the modern day one of the people could be a respectable high flying stock broker with a fancy house and fancy car, the other an alcoholic who had lost their job and been disowned by their family. Both need the transforming healing power of Jesus which can be theirs if they just believe.
Jesus wants us to come to him as we are. We are all broken people in a broken world. Jesus wants us to come to him whether we have much to loose or nothing to loose. The most important thing is that we believe in Him and what he has done for us. No matter who you are or who you think you are, there is so much more to gain than to loose by asking Jesus into your heart. I love these two parables in Matthew (ch13:44-46) that point to how precious the salvation of Jesus is.
“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field. In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field – and to get the treasure, too!
“Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a pearl merchant on the lookout for choice pearls. When he discovered a pearl of great value, he sold everything he owned and bought it!
I am thankful to Maurice and Joyce for this reminder of Jesus love for us and desire for an intimate relationship with each one of us.
