The lifter of my head - Mark5:25-34

I'd lost everything.

Well, everything that meant anything. My husband had all but gone, for he was an upright man who feared God & who kept the law, so could have nothing to do with me. If you knew the law of Moses you would know that I am unclean because of my illness. 

We lived in the same house, my husband & I but that was all. That was all there could be & all there had been for 12 years. Twelve long, draining years. It felt now as though this problem that I had would overwhelm me.
To begin with we had tried, he had tried, the doctors tried, but one by one eventually they would shake their heads, they would look that way at my husband that showed they had no idea what the problem was & how to treat it.

So, life went on.

I had heard about Jesus from someone who had been to the Decapolis towns & had heard about the weird guy who ran about in the tombs near when you get off the boat there & had heard about how this Jesus had healed him! No, really, He had healed him & now this Simon - no-one had even known his name before, was talking to everyone who would listen about his being healed & set free from demons by this Jesus.

Whoever it was that told me this story told it because Jesus was coming here, to our town. I remember thinking 'If only...' but that was followed up by another feeling that grew inside me & I couldn't put away from my mind, 'If I just touch the hem of His cloak....I don't need to bother Him, or even say why I am doing it..I don't need to draw attention to myself..'

Well I couldn't say, could I, He wouldn't have anything to do with me if I said what was wrong & all the people around would step back, being as I am unclean & I just couldn't deal with that on top of everything else. But I could go, I could just touch His cloak. Everyone knew that there would be crowds surrounding Him, no-one need ever know, but I would be healed if I could touch His cloak.

I'm not sure how I knew that or even why I was so sure. Like I said, it was something that grew inside me, a conviction that wouldn't go away, wouldn't be assuaged, ironically similar to my problem! 

So, the day came, I joined the crowd, gradually working my way forward towards Jesus. His disciples couldn't even keep people a distance from Him, it was really a wonder He, they & all of us weren't crushed, but it suited my purpose. My one overriding purpose....to touch His cloak. He had Jairus with Him & they were on their way to Jairus' house. I knew his little girl was sick, so I guessed He was going to heal her. Gradually I got closer, closer, missed several times as another arm jostled mine to touch Him, but then, I did it, I touched His cloak!

The world stood still for a minute as the crowd carried on without me. I stood still because I knew I'd been healed. I knew within my body, within my mind, within my heart I was healed. I knew it every bit as certainly I had known I would be if I could only touch His cloak.

I realised then that the crowd had stopped moving & Jesus Himself was asking a question.
'Who touched my cloak?'

My heart was in my mouth, I was certain He meant me.
I didn't know how He knew, but He did know. His disciples began to protest, telling Him that many people had touched Him, the crowd was all around Him. Still He looked, He kept looking over heads, over & over & then I realised I'd have to say it was me. I really didn't want to, I really just wanted to go home, clean & healed.

I knew as His gaze began to move over towards me I had to own up. I had to say it was me. Ok, well I had no idea what I was going to say, I was terrified, but I fell at His feet. The pain, the anguish & all the upset of twelve years poured out of me as I told Him why & how I'd just known if I touched His cloak, I'd be healed & I was healed. He had healed me.

He bent down & lifted my head, oh so gently & tenderly. The look of love & acceptance in His eyes was so powerful it swept away all my fear & worry. He wasn't going to berate me. He wasn't angry at all with me.

Then, He spoke. To me!

What He said will stay with me forever 'Daughter, your faith & trust in Me has healed you. Go now, do not fear this will return, continue in your healing.' I can't describe how He spoke or explain just how different it seemed from anyone else who had ever spoken to me, but His words, His way, was more the defining moment in my life than even being healed, or at least it seemed so to me in that moment.

Since then, well, I have my life back. Where before there was pain & I just kept my head down & did what I could, keeping myself to myself, now, it was as though sunshine had entered into my life. When He had lifted my head, it was as though He had done so for all the rest of my life. I could hold my head high now, I could live life to the full. I think in the Scriptures King David wrote that 'He is my glory & the lifter of my head.' I claim that too for I knew it to be true. He was. He is & always will be.




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The resurrection!

We were in the Upper room. It had become where we spent most of our time now..... The new now, after what happened on Friday.

Somehow being together made what we had learned & what we thought & what we'd seen & given our lives to for three years more, well more as though it hadn't been a complete waste of time. We were still raw with all that had happened just three days ago, on Friday. Only three days, three days that might just as well have been three years for it seemed to us then that we couldn't really remember things Jesus had said when He was with us, because you see, Jesus was dead & that changed everything!
All we had given up, all the hope we had placed in Him, gone. We couldn't go back to our lives before because to do so seemed like ultimately admitting that we had wasted 3 years on this man who we thought was the Messiah, who we had thought would save His people, just as David & the prophets had said the Messiah would, but He, Jesus, was dead.

I couldn't believe it was a waste, I couldn't believe it had all been in vain, yet......here we were. We seemed to lurch one after another from despair to grief to acceptance & round again & again.

So, it's Sunday.
It's morning & as we stir from the dreamless sleep of the exhausted we realised that Mary Magdalene & the other Mary had gone. They said they would, they wanted to take the spices to anoint His body. None of the rest of us could face it really, brought it home too much I guess.
Before we'd had time to collect our thoughts even, the two of them arrived back. They were really upset - 'They've taken Him, they've taken Him...He's not there.'
At that point it was Peter & I that looked at one another & without a word, ran. We didn't need to ask who or where, we simply ran as though our lives depended on it, for in every way that is important, our lives did depend on it. We ran to the tomb.
Sure enough, the guards were gone - they'd gone back to the priests we assumed, but what of the body? What was the point of them taking His body? The stone wasn't across the face of the tomb - the stone wasn't even in its groove, it was clean out & leaning against the side of the tomb - I remember thinking how strange that was. All these things run through your mind in milliseconds as you run towards your goal. I got there first, Peter couldn't keep up, but I stood there trying to make sense of it.
When Peter caught up with me, he went straight into the tomb itself. I followed & saw there was nothing there. Well, I say nothing, but there was, there were the burial cloths. I'd seen Joseph wrap His poor broken lifeless body in them on that awful Friday, just three days ago, but here they were folded in this tomb. Even the one we wrapped around His bloodied head was rolled up at the end.

It was at that point like my mind had suddenly been freed to remember what He'd said. You see, He'd said this, He'd said He would rise, He'd known He would die & He said He'd rise. Was it actually all true? Had He risen, risen from death?
Belief & hope flooded my whole body. If He had, if it was true, then everything fell back into place like the picture you see when a mosaic is complete. We'd seen fragments before, but now, I thought, for the first time, I think I am beginning to see something of the full picture. I needed thinking time, so I went home to ponder.
Mary told us she wanted to wait behind at the tomb, she said she felt closer to Him there, even though his body had gone. I'm glad she did because of what happened next.

I hadn't been home too long when Mary arrived at my door, I'd left her weeping by that tomb, but this was a very different Mary, banging on our door & babbling....'Angels....seen Him....risen....like He said'

We all met back then in the Upper room. What a difference from the mood of the morning! We almost didn't dare believe it, but when we all listened together to what Mary had seen - angels telling her He had risen, then turning & seeing Him & Him speaking her name & knowing it was Him just confirmed what Peter & I had almost not dared to believe, despite with all our hearts wanting to believe that all He had said was true. That He is the Son of Man & He has risen from being dead!
But before we could fully digest what had happened to Mary, & what she was telling us, He was there! Honestly, He was suddenly just, there! He looked at us all & said 'Peace to you!'

My first thought was that it really was only 4 days ago when He'd last said that to us in this very room, where He'd explained that His peace wasn't like the peace the world gives. So very much had happened since then, but now, here He was, risen from the dead.
As I looked at Him there was something of that brilliance & radiance Peter, James & I had seen when we went up & saw Him transfigured before us, yet it was Jesus. It was the Jesus we'd all known for so long.

Jesus was alive!

Jesus had risen! How can I describe that to you? It was like having lived all your life in a cave & coming out suddenly into sunlight with all it's warmth & light & beauty.

When He held out His hands & spoke peace to us we could see the nail marks on His hands. I looked at His feet & there the nail marks were. It really is Jesus, I thought.

I wanted to laugh, to cry, to jump, to hug Him, to dance & to ask a million questions, but there was time for that. For now it was enough that He was here.

Jesus was alive!



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An eye witness view of Jesus' crucifixion

We all stood there, at the foot of those three crosses on Golgotha's hill. The sky was dark , almost as if night had come early to cover up this dreadful injustice. It seemed like forever that we stood there, quite a band of us, powerless to do anything other than wait. Despite the horror of the previous few hours where we saw Jesus carry the cross, when we heard his anguished cries as He was nailed, hand & foot to that wretched instrument of torture, when we heard the sickening thud as the cross was lifted upright & sank into it's prepared hole - that thud which will remain with me forever & Jesus' cry as the force of it shook his whole bruised & battered body; when we had heard the priests & the soldiers spit their venom at Him, taunting Him, despite all else they had done, they simply couldn't help themselves being the snakes in the grass they truly are. Despite all of that, we still hoped, still dared to hope that He would come down from that cross, that He would work another miracle, that He would come down in glory with God's angels. But his breathing got worse, more laboured, more painful. Louder & louder until all I could hear were these rasping, gasping breaths in the darkness. Time had no meaning any more....we were there with that sound & it felt like forever.
Jesus looked down at us all & saw His mum Mary there. He looked at John & told him to take care of her. How like Jesus that was - thinking of someone else even though He was there on that wretched cross, dying!
It was 3 o'clock, though it felt later, when suddenly Jesus Himself cried out. The sound of His laboured breathing was bad enough, but to hear that cry of abandonment from Him who spoke constantly of His close relationship with His Father, of that relationship from which He seemed to draw His strength & seemed to submit himself to, was heart-breaking, gut-wrenching & was the most hopeless cry I had ever heard in my life. 'My God, my God, why have You abandoned me?' If God had abandoned Him, what hope for the rest of us? We all knew then I think, that He wasn't coming down, that there would be no glorious angelic visitation, that there was only one way this was going to end.
Someone, I can't remember who, tried to give Him some of that bitter wine they keep by the crosses, revolting stuff, & it was then we realised that the chief priests & some of the others who had insulted Him & spat out their venom at Him were still there, still watching, waiting like we were, but that darkness had hidden them. They clearly couldn't hear Him properly, they were too far away & they thought He was calling Elijah! It would have been funny, them being so clever & all, not even knowing that what Jesus had really said was worse than that, so very much worse.
It didn't matter anyway, they could say what they liked now, do what they liked now, none of it mattered anyway. Jesus was dying. Jesus had been abandoned by God, His Father. Jesus, our hope, our friend, Jesus the miracle-worker, the freedom-giver, the one who they proclaimed as Messiah less than a week ago as He rode into Jerusalem on that donkey. JESUS WAS DYING.
His breathing was getting louder, but there were gaps between the breaths now, horrible deathly long gaps. Then, He cried out again, but this was a different cry, a cry more like the Jesus we knew, a cry that said 'IT IS FINISHED.'
Then.....silence.........for a few seconds which seemed like hours.
I remember thinking at the time that He sounded as though He'd beaten something, but then, that silence........
I know it can only have been for a few seconds, because then we heard the earthquake, we felt the earthquake & there were people shouting about graves being broken open, about the dead being raised to life. Why were they surprised? Jesus had died, but that enormous death, like a millstone thrown into still water caused ripples which were felt as dead people came to life again. Someone came running to those priests & told them that the curtain of the temple had been torn in two from top to bottom - imagine that! Top to bottom it had been torn in two. Just at the time Jesus died, that huge curtain tore.
We had no idea what it all meant, but we knew it was all to do with Jesus, even the priests knew that much, but where it brought a glimmer of light in that awful darkness to us that Jesus was still who He had said He was, it freaked them out! We were all still left though with the fact that Jesus was dead.
Joseph came then, a good guy who had spent time with us & with Jesus. He asked to take Jesus' body & offered a grave, the grave he had planned for his burial. They said he could take Jesus' body, so we all set to brining His body down & preparing it, Joseph had brought the embalming creams & cloths - I remember being so grateful for that. We hadn't thought of it, we were so absorbed in being there with Jesus, we hadn't given any thought to afterwards!
The men took his wrapped body to the beautiful tomb in a lovely garden & placed him in the tomb. We closed it & then waited. I have no idea why we waited then, we were simply numb & wanted even then to somehow be near Him, so we waited, we sat, holding each other in a vain attempt at comfort, though none could be found.
After some little while soldiers came to the grave - we could see those snakes, the priests in the background watching them. If I could have felt anything, I would have felt anger then, but I couldn't feel anything. It turned out that the priests had said we might steal Jesus' body & say He had been raised from death as He said He would. How typical of them to think we would be as devious as them. It hadn't occurred to us, because the worst had happened. Jesus was dead.




This was only the beginning! I know that now, but I didn't know it then. The next three days seemed such a long time until the story continued, but continue it did, because His death wasn't the end, but the beginning.


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