Touching or Touched

One of my favourite clubbing artists is an outfit called Faithless. As the name hints, they often drop into spiritual themes with their music, their most famous being God is a DJ. They also do a song called 'hem of his garment.' When I first heard it, I was surprised how orthodox the song was, taking the phrase directly from the gospels. However, as I listened more closely I realised there was a major shift from the original text.

In the song, the writer was waiting and wishing to be touched the divine. In the gospel, the woman with the haemorraging moved forward in order to touch the divine. Passive faith versus active faith. Could it be that Faithless are more true to their name in this song than they realise?

There are examples of people being reached by Jesus who seemed to do nothing to help. However, the majority of the gospel recipients of salvation make a definite move towards Jesus. Does our faith move us towards Jesus or are we waiting for the swish of his garment to sweep by where we are sitting?

Getting to the Other Side

Life is meant to be lived on purpose. It is so easy to drift through, taking days as they come with no plan or overall direction. You will no doubt be familiar with the saying “If you don’t know where you are going any road will do.”

Jesus did not live in this way as he always seemed to know where he was headed. In today’s gospel, we read that he wanted to cross to the other side of the lake. He announced this to the disciples, got in the boat and went to sleep. What he did not tell the disciples that it would be an adventure getting there.

Where has Jesus directed your life to be lead? Where is your ‘other side of the lake?’ What about us as churches? We need God’s destination. When the storms break and the ship seems about to sink, we need the destination. We need to know that God is on our side to get there. More than that, Jesus is in the boat - so don’t panic!

Holy Communion

One of the ‘mystery men’ of the Old Testament is Melchizedek. We encounter him in 3 brief verses of Genesis and he gets a reference in Ps 110. In the New Testament, we get a whole chapter of comment in the book of Hebrews. Who was he?

1) King of ‘Salem’ = King of Peace
2) King of Righteousness
3) King of Jerusalem
4) Blesser of Father Abraham
5) Blesser of God Most High
6) Receiver of the tithe
7) Priest of the Most High God

This man looks very like a person who lived some 2,000 years after Abraham, who is known as Prince of Peace, King of Righteousness, Blesser of all peoples who believe, High Priest and Son of God.

What’s more, he comes to Abraham with bread and wine to confer his blessing... Just who is this man of mystery?

Personal Mystery

Jesus really messed up the Jewish view of God! The standard line was God is One - no infinite varities of national and personal gods. Jesus called God 'Father' and identified himself as His 'son'. He forgave sins and called himself 'I Am'. He was born of a virgin and claimed to exist before Abraham. The Pharisees killed him because of blasphemy and he rose from the dead.

Jesus is a true mystery of divine humanity. But to make things yet more interesting, Jesus talked about another Helper - the Holy Spirit. All that Jesus did in his human life, he did in the power of the Holy Spirit for his Father. There are three players in this God equation all on the stage at the same time.

We are invited to be immersed into this reality which is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.