Bumping Into Jesus

How often have you come home from a trip to WalMart and told someone, “Guess who I bumped into today?”  The game begins with the obvious choices, and usually ends in a name from the past.  It’s always fun to chat with someone you haven’t seen in a while, but for the most part, that’s all it is. The most we take away from the experience is gossip. However, a chance encounter can, on occasion, be life-changing.  Let’s go back to a time BC (before Corona) when people actually got together in large groups.  We can all relate to the days when crowds would gather at festive parties, sporting events, concerts, restaurants and even church.  Often, the proximity of bodies in a confined area meant that we would physically bump into each other.  No biggie, we’d apologize and that was that.  Most times it wouldn’t even amount to that.  In a big crowd, who knows who bumped you.  One of my favorite Bible stories is the Woman with the issue of blood, but let’s more aptly retitle it to, “I bumped into Jesus today”. “As Jesus went with him, he was surrounded by the crowds. 43A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding,g and she could find no cure. 44Coming up behind Jesus, she touched the fringe of his robe. Immediately, the bleeding stopped.45“Who touched me?” Jesus asked. Everyone denied it, and Peter said, “Master, this whole crowd is pressing up against you.”46But Jesus said, “Someone deliberately touched me, for I felt healing power go out from me.” 47When the woman realized that she could not stay hidden, she began to tremble and fell to her knees in front of him. The whole crowd heard her explain why she had touched him and that she had been immediately healed. 48“Daughter,” he said to her, “your faith has made you well. Go in peace.”” Luke 8:43-48.  At this point in his ministry, Jesus had quite a following.  The word on the cobbled streets was, that miraculous healings were taking place. Not just colds and headaches, but people with serious diseases and afflictions.  Long before social media, his works had gone viral among the masses. Let’s freeze this frame for a moment.  A desperate woman, a crowded city street, and the dusty fringe on a man’s robe. Let me interject that the physical desperation this unnamed woman experienced also affected her financially, and socially.  Her savings had been spent on quack doctors, to no avail, and because she was in a constant state of being “unclean”, according to Levitical law, she couldn’t interact with anyone, let alone touch them.  As the old saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures. She must have learned from someone that Jesus was coming through town, so she mustered all the strength she had, and entered the throng.  She was well aware of the violation, but it was her last chance for wholeness.  Finding a niche in the plastered alleyway, she waited for her opportunity.  Heart racing, palms sweating she knew her action would make Jesus unclean, so she decided to touch only the hem of his garment. As he approached, her trembling hand extended towards the precious target.  The pushing and shoving almost made her pull back, but hope sustained her until she felt the tassels on her skin. At once she knew she was healed. After suffering for so long, her spirit rejoiced. Now I can hug my grandchildren, she must have thought. No one even knows what I did, that is until Jesus stopped and asked who had touched him.  There was no where to hide, she had been found out, so she might as well fess up.  Instead of an angry rebuke, which she expected, Jesus lovingly confirmed her self-diagnosis.  I can even envision him embracing her as he helped her to her feet.  Talk about a good day!  Can you feel her joy, too?  We don’t hear about this woman again in scripture, but her testimony was bound to have made believers every where she went.  If I were that woman, I’d never tire of telling the story!  Oh wait, I am that woman, in a sense, so are we, every one of us who has bumped into the savior with a purpose, to receive His healing of our sin-sick lives. It will be a happy day when we can bump into people again in public, but the happiest is the day we bump into Jesus.