This is the third post in a series on Matthew 9:18-22
Here’s the first: How to be a Disciple (spoiler alert: you already are one) Matthew 9:18
Here’s the second: How to Bring the Kingdom to your Community
Today we are going through the final verses of one of Jesus’s healings. Here are the preceding verses in case you forgot to memorize the book of Matthew (for shame!):
I’m that personality type where I want all my friends to be friends with each other. I don’t think compartmentalized friendships live up to their full potential. If we are friends, know that I have raved about you to my other friends, and I’m secretly scheming a happy hour where we will all meet and be friends forever and ever amen. I’m also that personality type that remembers names but not faces, and the type that takes all the personality type tests but never remembers the results. INFP? INTJ? ESPN? Literally no clue. Photo Credit: Cassi Werner
Every Thursday we gathered. The moms, the not-yet moms, the marrieds, the single, the divorced, the introverts, the extroverts. The artists and the type-As. The younger and the farther down the road.
It was beautiful and sacred and awkward and weird. Because we are all a mix of the beautiful, sacred, awkward, and weird. Many of us were meeting for the first time. There was always the agonizing question, “what if no one shows up?” but they did show up. And this Bible study was the highlight of my week, every week, for the entire summer.
If you’ve been on the look-out for community, these ancient and holy words are for you.
22 Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment.
Throughout the New Testament, a healing always precedes a conversion to discipleship. Jesus, and then the apostles throughout Acts, went around healing. Naturally conversions followed. This type of Christianity makes people lean in. It’s so beautiful and compelling. It truly is the Jesus-way. What a great reminder for us today. Want to grow someone as a Jesus-follower? Serve them. Serve them in such a way that their life is transformed. Do for them what they can’t do for themselves. It’s like Jesus did for me. He rescued me from a life of always searching. And then I found Him, and I discovered my purpose (OK it was way more complicated than I just explained). I couldn’t have found a compelling enough purpose without Him. And my purpose is so simple: to know Him and to make Him known. To use my gifts to point others to Him. Photo Credit: Joshua Lee Tolle
Take Heart.
Take heart, have courage, be encouraged, be of good comfort, cheer up. You’re Ok. No matter the translation, Jesus says to the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years, “you showed up, and I got this.”
You showed up to that Bible study where you knew no one. You made conversation with the parent behind you when you picked up your kid. You kept your phone in your pocket. You didn’t wait for someone to come to you; you put yourself out there, you brave, beautiful, and daring soul. Look at you take on the world. Waytago, kid.
For the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years, she did her part and showed up. Now Jesus would do His part. She didn’t expect Jesus to do His part without her doing her part first. And we can’t either. We need to show up.
My Daughter.
When Jesus heals her, He restores her to her community. For twelve years she had to stay away because she was considered unclean, but now she has the green-light to go in.
When Jesus heals her, He restores her to His Kingdom. He calls her His daughter. Take heart, my daughter. There are no more beautiful words written.
And the fibers of Jesus’s one measly tassel had the power to heal twelve years of bleeding and banishment. Twelve years of eking out an existence on the blacklist. The woman who had no community is now physically and relationally restored to her community and His Kingdom. How cool is that.
After this particular Thursday, we no longer were the moms, the not-yet moms, the marrieds, the single, the divorced, the introverts, the extroverts. The artists and the Type-As. We were all simply daughters. Photo Credit: Joshua Lee Tolle
Your Faith Has Healed You
It’s Jesus’s bread and butter to heal, but if you belong to Jesus, the power that’s in Him is in us, thanks to the Holy Spirit. And here’s what it looks like for us to be a salve to the soul:
Be for others what you need them to be for you. No one needs me to show up and sit by myself and stare at my phone and wait to be invited in to the conversation. So here is my commitment to you:
Truth 1: every best friend once started out as a stranger. Every stranger is a potential best friend. So I will talk to those I don’t know. I will say hello to the person who just walked in the door.
Truth 2: every friend needs to feel important: I will greet my friends in such a way that they know I’ve been looking forward to seeing them all day. Because they are unique and valued and add meaning and depth to my life. (When I started to do this with my students it was a total game-changer.)
Truth 3: we are multifaceted with others-serving passions. I will move beyond the small talk to discover your passions, what your heart breaks for, how God is moving in your life. We don’t need warm bodies; we need passionate souls.
My passion is for you to know how loved you are. You are loved by Love. Friend, may you know who you are and Whose you are.
Go into that community knowing that you are His daughter and are already restored.
Your showing up has restored you. Start a conversation, make a new friend, ask how someone is recovering since the untimely and too-early death of the Artist Formerly Known As Prince. Let them soak your shirt with their tears as they sob out butchered verses of Raspberry Beret.
May the way I live my life say to the women around me, “Courage, sister.”
Anything that belongs to Jesus possesses the power that hangs the stars and planets. And if you belong to Jesus, if you are His and He is yours, you have this power, too.
The power to resurrect and restore. Courage, sister.
Next week we are looking at the very practical ways we can participate in resurrection and restoration amidst holy inconveniences. How do we harness this restoration and resurrection power? Stay tuned, because you were created for such a love as this.