The Fringe

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored to the shore.  And when they got out of the boat, the people immediately recognized him and ran about the whole region and began to bring the sick people on their beds to wherever they heard he was.  And wherever he came, in villages, cities, or countryside, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and implored him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it were made well. — Mark 6:53-56

Not too long before this in Mark's narrative, we are told of Jesus returning to His hometown of Nazareth where the people where "offended" by His teaching and authority causing Christ to utter the proverb, "A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household."  Because the Nazarenes refused to believe, Jesus could do no great works among them, though He did lay hands on and heal a few sick folks.  Now the people of Gennesaret were unlikely to be better people than Jesus' kinfolks in Nazareth.  Yet here Christ was sought out, honored, and believed.  As a result, many were delivered and made whole.

It is natural for us to think that God takes care of the good people, and the devil takes the bad.  But, as Jesus pointed out, there is none good but God.  I have met some saintly people, some people who seemed to have transcended all the temptations of the material world, but they are invariably those who have been touched by the Divine.  It is His grace in the life of the broken that brings them to wholeness.  He makes the unrighteous righteous.  After all, it is not the healthy who need a physician but the sick, and the Great Physician can make the sickest well, "...even the one who could not keep himself alive" (Psalm 22:29). 

I am all too aware of my own faults and failures.  Despite doing my best for many years now to follow Christ, I find that I am hardly what I should be.  There remains in me much that is sick.  I have a choice.  I can continue to try to fix it by my own efforts, or I can do as the people of Gennesaret did.  I can run to Christ.  I can lay my troubled soul down in the marketplace, out there for everyone to see, and I can beg Jesus to just pass by so that I might touch the fringe of His flowing grace. 

It's pretty humiliating.  I should have overcome this a long time ago.  I should not be in this state.  But I am.  I can continue to limp along, crippled and tormented, hiding my sickness from the world, maintaining the illusion that all is well.  Or I can admit that I am broken despite all my knowledge and strength and ability.  Perhaps I will even need some help to get where I need to be.  We are often like the paralytic who was carried to Christ by his four friends who, unable to get through the press of the crowd, climbed up on the roof to lower their friend down to Jesus.  It is a good thing there were four of them, for one or two could not have gotten the man lifted up to the roof, nor effectively lowered him into the room where Jesus sat.  That is even more destructive to our pride, to be dependent on the support and prayers of others to get to where we can come in contact with Jesus.

When we are willing to limp or crawl or be carried by our brothers and sisters out into the open, we will be made whole, not because we are deserving, not because we are good, not because we are special, but because we are there — because Jesus sees our faith or the faith of our friends.   His grace flows to us to make us righteous, to fix the broken parts of our lives, to bind up our wounds, to deliver us from bondage. 

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.  — Titus 3:4-7


 

What Does It All Mean, Mr. Natural?

He went away from there and came to His hometown, and His disciples followed Him. When the Sabbath came, He began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard Him were astonished. “Where did this man get these things?” they said. “What is this wisdom given to Him, and how are these miracles performed by His hands? Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And aren’t his sisters here with us?” So they were offended by Him.

Then Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown, among his relatives, and in his household.” So He was not able to do any miracles there, except that He laid hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He was amazed at their unbelief. – Mark 6:1-6

Those folks from Nazareth have kin all over the world. Some of my ancestors might have come from there.

After all, I wonder, what do we expect?

What I don’t expect is for the commonplace to suddenly take on the transcendent and for the profane to become sacred. I don’t expect “Holy unto the LORD” to be inscribed on my milk cow’s bell. The mockers will often speak of Moses and his encounter with a talking plant, as though a talking animal were any less fantastic. At least the Scripture is clear in the case of the burning bush that it was not the vegetation speaking, but God Himself through it. With primates the source is less certain.

People just don’t like the common to get out of hand. As in the case of Jesus whom the Nazarenes thought they knew, we can be offended when someone or something around us takes on attributes of the divine. I don’t know if it so much that familiarity breeds contempt. It is more like we just stop looking at the things that are most familiar.

What intrigues me most about this passage, though, is that Jesus’ homies do not really question the wisdom of what He is saying or the miraculous power attributed to Him. They seem to acknowledge this, and, in fact, it is this very fact that offends them.

Who are YOU to have wisdom and divine power? The fact that God may be able to speak or operate in this world through some people is not the issue. It is when God begins to speak and operate through someone I know that I have a problem.

You don’t have to empty hospital rooms or break up funerals to cause offense – though I am pretty sure if you did the AMA, the AHA, and the National Association of Funeral Directors, not to mention the ACLU and CAIR, would be on your tail for practicing medicine without a license, unfair trade practices, violating the civil rights of the dead and making a mockery of Mohammed. Much less dramatic demonstrations cause more than enough offense, as the folks that voted for Proposition 8 in California found out. The fact that a person believes in Christ, thinks Global Warming is a scam, opposes Islamic fascism, same-sex marriage, socialism, or one of the left’s other causes du jour is quite sufficient.

Merely living a decent life is enough to make one offensive to many. After all, if there are people who do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God that means it is possible. Some of us may be a little more comfortable thinking that holiness is a nice concept, but not very practical -- which brings me to the point that has been nagging me for the last few days. As 2 Peter 3:10 and 11 puts it:

But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief; on that day the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, the elements will burn and be dissolved, and the earth and the works on it will be disclosed. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people should you be…[?]

Or, how should we then live?

You and I may not have the same set of questions. Mine go something like this:

Do I really believe that I am a child of God in Christ?

Do I really believe God is my Father and cares for me more than any earthly parent possible could? And the corollary to that – do I believe God cares more about my loved ones than I do?

Do I really believe this world is not all there is, and that life, therefore, has a purpose beyond the futility of animal existence?

Can God really be trusted?

Is God able to work His will in the lives of those who trust Him?

Is my obedience really more important than my comfort, my reputation, my status, and my possessions?

Those are a few of my questions, and, like I said, other people may have different ones. The bad thing is that after all these years my answers are still pretty weak and tentative, and sometime inconsistent. I guess the good thing is I do know the right answer.