Week 17 - Jesus heals

Welcome to this Friday evening meditation. To begin this meditation well, we first become quiet within ourselves. I can do this by taking several deep breaths in and out and sitting as relaxed as possible. As I breathe in, I become aware that I am breathing in God’s love. As I breathe out, I let go of any worries, concerns, stresses I am experiencing at the moment.

I can close my eyes and place myself where I can meet the Good God who knows all my shortcomings and extends a healing hand towards me.

Theme:

Jesus can become a healer of both soul and body.

What I desire:

To see how Jesus’ healing power is at work within me, but also what my own role is in this healing process.

Music: Jesus, lover of my soul

Jesus, lover of my soul,

Let me to Thy bosom fly,

While the nearer waters roll,

While the tempest still is high:

Hide me, O my Savior, hide,

Till the storm of life is past;

Safe into the haven guide;

O receive my soul at last.

Other refuge have I none,

Hangs my helpless soul on Thee;

Leave, oh, leave me not alone,

Still support and comfort me.

All my trust on Thee is stayed,

All my help from Thee I bring;

Cover my defenseless head

With the shadow of Thy wing.

Thou, O Christ, art all I want;

More than all in Thee I find;

Raise the fallen, cheer the faint,

Heal the sick and lead the blind.

Just and holy is Thy name,

I am all unrighteousness;

Vile and full of sin I am,

Thou art full of truth and grace.

Plenteous grace with Thee is found,

Grace to cover all my sin;

Let the healing streams abound;

Make and keep me pure within.

Thou of life the fountain art,

Freely let me take of Thee;

Spring Thou up within my heart,

Rise to all eternity.

Spotify Link:

https://open.spotify.com/track/3kxM9ntdP06BM2plRI5rZz?si=7e9676d8e3c245bf

YouTube Link:

https://youtu.be/zXf7v4z0a3E?si=xVM5e7MZwtsEBX9R

Mark 5: 25 – 34

(A large crowd followed Jesus and pressed in around Him.)

And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years.  She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.  When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak,  because she thought, ‘If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.’ 

Like everyone else, I carry something in my body or spirit that could be healed, perhaps something I would rather not bring into the open. I imagine deciding to reach out from behind in the crowd and touch Jesus’ clothes. What is going on within me from the moment I see Jesus until I have come close enough to touch Him?

*

Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

I imagine touching Jesus’ clothes from behind. I am healed at once. I pause at this one indivisible moment: the touch and the healing. What exactly do I experience at that moment?

*

At once Jesus realised that power had gone out from him. He turned round in the crowd and asked, ‘Who touched my clothes?’  ‘You see the people crowding against you,’ his disciples answered, ‘and yet you can ask, “Who touched me?”’  But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it.  Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth.  He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.’

With the touch and the immediate healing, it was not yet over. Jesus brought me out of anonymity and allowed me to confess that it was I who had touched Him and had been healed. I let all the events after my touch pass before me again and relive what I experienced.

*

Music: Jesus, lover of my soul.