A business executive became depressed. Things were not going well at work, and he was bringing his problems home with him every night. Every evening he would eat his dinner in silence, shutting out his wife and five-year-old daughter. Then he would go into the den and read the paper using the newspaper to wall his family out of his life. After several nights of this, one evening his daughter took her little hand and pushed the newspaper down. She then jumped into her father= s lap, wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him strongly. The father said abruptly, A Honey, you are hugging me to death!@ A No, Daddy,@ the little girl said, A I= m hugging you to life!@

That is what Jesus does.

He takes people where they are and hugs them to life.

That is precisely what we see Jesus doing here in this dramatic passage in Mark 5. He is loving needy and hurting people, hugging them to life.

Dr. Bernie Siegel has devoted his life as a physician to teaching his patients how to love. He has said: A I am convinced that unconditional love is the most powerful known stimulant of the immune system. If I told patients to raise their blood levels of immune globulins or killer T cells, no one would know how. But if I can teach them to love themselves and others fully, the same changes happen automatically. The truth is, love heals. Remember I said love heals. I do not claim love cures everything, but it can heal and in the process of healing cures occur also.@

Love is the power that heals and the witness of the Bible is that Jesus came to love human beings into life, fullness of life, abundant life.

And, to teach us that God is love.

So, what if we can be healed?

What does the healing power of love mean for our lives?

First, it means we can be brave enough to think outside the box of what is possible or not. Jairus, ruler of the synagogue, part of the established order of the day, was able to take the risk to think out-of-the-box and try the alternative approach to healing and wholeness for his daughter. Undoubtedly he was driven by desperation.

It still could not have been an easy thing int he face of the gasps of the crowd. But it had come to this C whatever faith he had in the old ways, they were not bringing the miracle that he knew his dying daughter needed. It must have taken a lot of emotional energy to reach out, for in reaching out he was going into unfamiliar territory. It must have taken soul-wrenching energy to reach out as Mark says, repeatedly begging Jesus to turn things around.

If we can be healed, then we can find the faith, trust, and courage to reach out and embrace new ideas, new approaches, new possibilities.

Second, if we can be healed, then none of us is an outsider or unworthy of that healing and that love. Jesus= patience in this story is amazing. While on his way to help a very ill child who needs him quickly, his progress is interrupted by a woman who has been sick for twelve years, internally bleeding. We might suppose that after 12 years it would not matter if Jesus told her to wait until later, after he had taken care of the little girl on this urgent house call.

But not Jesus. He stops and turns to meet this woman.

He has time for her without any sense of being rushed.

As I reflect on this I wonder about our frenetic lives which leave little time for stopping and caring about people.

We become goal oriented. We develop tunnel vision.

All that matters is that we get to where we intend going.

There is no time for those on the side of the road.

I confess that as a pastor I have fallen into this trap at times. It is a sad thing that over-busy ministers are such a poor role model to their parishioners. I have felt rightly judged by events when it comes to light that a wonderful church member has carried, all alone, some painful load, because A I did not want to burden you with it, Pastor Steve. You are always so busy. You have so many people to care for.@ It should not be like this! God, have mercy.

In the midst of a thick crowd that made his progress slow, Jesus on the way to an urgent house call still had time for one neglected woman.

Sickness has a way of pushing us to the margins. When we are ill, sick in bed at home, life passes us by. Everyone is going places and doing things C everyone but us. We put our sick away in institutions. There they tend to languish far from active life. This woman moved from the margins to the center, toward Jesus, and she was affirmed in that action by Jesus.

He did not rebuke her or chastise her, but he embraced her. By doing so he restored her to community. In community, when we all find our place, our welcome, our acceptance, is where we find the love that brings true healing.

Another thing about sickness C sickness is losing control.

Suddenly we are in the hands, like this woman, of A diverse physicians.@ We become not a person, but a patient. We are forced to take off our clothes, to wear odd hospital garments. We go through the indignity of having our bodies poked at and prodded. Needles are stick in us, blood is drawn. We spend hours lying on a gurney, waiting for the doctor to come and give us a test. People come in and tell us to take this, drink that. We are out of control.

But, if we can be healed, then we shall regain a measure of control over our lives, through our relationship with God.

For healing, in its highest and best sense, is renewed relationship with God through a strengthened relationship with the living Christ. Sickness and healing are spiritual issues. The profoundest healing is not the unrealistic expectation that I will be cured of every illness or pain I suffer in life. Rather, it is discovering that no matter what I face I can cry with the full force of my soul to the source and center of all that is and I will be heard. Not only heard, but be sustained in ways that grant to me an indestructible value and dignity.

We live in a society that often defines healing as some sort of exchange that takes place between physicians, nurses, and patients. We give the hospital a lot of our money. The hospital gives us healing in exchange. But we as followers of Christ have a deeper understanding of healing. For us, the central image is not cure but care, not wellness but wholeness. Wholeness is not simply having a body that is no longer diseased. It is also to be at peace with God and neighbor, what the Hebrew scriptures called shalom C that all-embracing peace which means that we are at home in God.

This is our story. From what I can tell, there is a great deal of bleeding, much hemorrhaging going on in our lives, in our church, in our nation today. Life is ebbing away from us, day by day, and I am not just saying that because I have crossed the 50 yard line this year!

We, like the disciples, stand by far too much and watch people get pushed to the margins, relegated to hopeless situations, powerless, weak, and in pain. Too easily we say, A She is beyond all hope,@ or A You just have to adapt and accept your present situation.@

But here comes this pushy, intrusive woman, barging into our settled arrangement, reminding us that in Jesus the Christ, there is a power let lose in the world.

In whatever pain you suffer, however caught or trapped, will you reach out to that power? Will you let him speak to you?

Will you let the life that God intends for you, flow toward you?

Will you receive the love that brings healing and wholeness as God hugs you back to life?

Just imagine what is possible if we really can be healed!?!