The touch of life
Who forgives all your iniquity,
Who heals all your diseases. Psalm 103:3
Read Matthew 9:18—26
I’m sneaking along behind Jesus, about as secretive as I can be. Because I’m as weak as ever I can be. Some poor soul has died, and that’s that. I’m useless myself. I’m sick in a way that cuts me off from really living. If there’s a life out there I’m not part of it. Jesus is on his way to stop the wailing, to still the commotion. He’s on his way to turn death back. He’s heading, with a word, a gesture and a bit of crowd control, to dispense with what has caused all humanity for all time past, and will, for all time to come, to howl, to rebel, to quail, to despair, and to invent fantasies to cope. At his command the mourning will turn to dancing. And I’m just hanging onto a little piece of his cloak.
Lord, you pass by on your way and I, mere mortal, with death already a fact for someone I don’t know, and suggesting itself in my own body’s aliments, I reach out to touch you. Where else can I turn? Whom else can I touch? You alone say the word of eternal life.[1] I see in you alone the victory over death and the source and sign of my own healing. May my frailties, my illnesses, and my certain mortality turn me to you. May they all be swallowed up in your life.
[1] John 6:68