I was walking back from my piano lesson, enjoying the summer day. Unlike the walk to the lesson, where I had been speed walking due to not leaving enough time, I was able to dawdle, pick flowers, and smile at passersby. I was halfway home when two boys, around eight years old, came zipping by on their bikes, one with a huge smile. As they passed, the one who was smiling waved and happily said, “Hi! It’s you again!”
For a moment, I was puzzled. I didn’t recognize either of the boys, I certainly didn’t know them from anywhere. In fact, I didn’t think I’d seen them in my life before. And then it hit me; I must have passed by them on the way to my piano lesson. While I had been distracted with not having enough time, I didn’t even remember walking by them. And that’s when a curious thought hit me; how many other people had I passed by? How many other people--each with talents, heartbreaking moments, joy, and struggles--had I only given a quick smile to, not even sketching their faces into my memory?
Mark 5:24b-34 says, “A large crowd followed and pressed 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.’ Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around 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.’”
In this passage, Jesus is following Jairus, a synagogue leader who has begged Jesus to heal his dying daughter. A huge crowd is following after them, pressing against everyone. You can just imagine the chaos of the moment; people chattering away, some expressing confidence in Jesus’s healing powers and others doubting, children pressed against their mother, town folk itching for a chance to see a miracle performed. And yet, throughout all of it, Jesus stopped. He took time for a single woman, one who was hurting and broken. Even when his disciples told him to move on, thinking he was crazy for wondering who touched his clothes, Jesus stopped. He kept looking around to see who had touched Him. And He didn’t stop until He found her.
Jesus does the same for us. We aren’t random strangers who come and go. He knows our struggles--He’s right along side us through it. He knows our heartbreaks--He’s comforting us through them. He knows we’re sinful and messed up--He died for that. To anybody else, you might be a stranger passing by on the street, a face that will be forgotten in an hour. To the King of the universe, you were worth dying for.
Kayla Joy
