Reach out and Touch Jesus!

XIII Sunday “B” Mark 5, 21-43 I am sure that we all remember that time of the Pandemic. It was a time for wearing masks and keeping our distance. Many places were closed. It was a time of fear of isolation. The toughest thing for me, is that we were supposed to keep our distances and we weren’t allowed to touch one another. I remember a burial during that time. Only 12 people were allowed in the cemetery, and we all had to keep a meter apart. It was so hard to not reach out and touch the aggrieved widow. I can still remember her standing there alone. We need to touch one another. We need to be touched and hug, we need the tender touch of those who love us. We need to be touched by Jesus. Touch is so very important! Jesus desires to reach out and to touch each and every one of us. Jesus doesn’t want to keep his distances. Jesus wants to touch each of us. In the Gospel we meet Jairus, a synagogue official and what does he want? His daughter is ill, and he wants Jesus to come and lay his hands on her. Then we meet the women with a hemorrhage, what does she want? To touch his clothes. “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” We all want to touch Jesus. Jesus wants to touch us, that is why we come here to the Eucharist. To be touched by Jesus. To hear his word, to receive his body and drink his blood. We desire to touch Jesus. Jesus wants to touch us. The woman who had this desire to touch Jesus would have been considered unclean. Like a person sick with covid, she wasn’t supposed to get close to anyone, much less touch them, it would make the other person unclear as well. So, it was a bold act for her to move through the crowd of people to reach out and touch Jesus’ clothing. She thought that she would be able to move away quickly without being noticed but no, Jesus felt her touch. Jesus knew that it wasn’t just someone brushing up against him in the crowd. We he turned around and asked, “who touched me?” I am sure that she was afraid. “I am going to be in trouble” she may have thought. She fell at Jesus’ feet and admitted that it was her but rather than yell at her, Jesus complimented her faith. “Your faith has saved you.” Jesus didn’t come just to heal us; Jesus came to save us. The same is true of Jairus’ daughter. He didn’t want to heal her so she could live another 60 or 70 years. He wanted to save her so that she could live forever. We want to touch Jesus as well. We want to be healed but more importantly we want to be saved. We don’t just want the cancer to go away, we want to live forever. We don’t want our vision to be improved, we want to see Jesus. These stories today are not so much about Jesus healing an old woman or curing a little girl. Much more importantly they are about faith. We can’t touch Jesus’ garment in a crowd, we can’t ask Jesus to lay his hands upon us. We encounter Jesus by means of our faith. The words, “your faith has saved you” and “do not be afraid; just have faith.” Aren’t just about the people in the gospel, they are about us well. Jesus wants us to believe in him as well so that he can touch us as well. With faith we are able to touch Jesus as well, most especially in this Eucharist. But the touching doesn’t end there. Just as we are touched by Jesus we can touch others in the name of Jesus as well. Let us be the healing presence of Jesus in the world today.