For Power Went Out of Him

 

 

 

I’m back!

 

Sabbatical was fantastic. It was renewing, restful and a lot of fun. More on that in the next several blogs. 

 

I can’t believe it’s been since February since I wrote a Cowboy Jesus Blog post! I’ve got to get to my writing. But since February people have still been reading Cowboy Jesus. Here’s some fun news. Cowboy Jesus as eclipsed the 85,000-reader mark. That’s right, 85,000 people have read the blog over the years. While this might not be a lot for some popular bloggers, but for little ol’ me at Columbine United Church, sitting and writing about all kinds of crazy stuff, I’ll take it and celebrate it! Thank you for being one of the 85,000!

 

One of the things I did on sabbatical was read a lot of scripture. Huge swaths of it. Many times, passages just jumped out at me and grabbed my imagination. 

 

I was particularly moved in Luke’s Gospel where Jesus is healing people. Everywhere Jesus goes he heals people. He heals people who are blind, disabled, diseased ridden, leprosy, he casts out demons, he has compassion on people, and he touches them and heals them. 

 

One passage in particular spoke to me, 

 

            “And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And everyone in the crowd were trying to touch him for power came out of him and healed them all.” 

 

I love that, “power came out of him.”

 

 What did that look like? Was there a certain glow, a radiant heat, something like lightening? Was it like when you touch someone after you’ve been walking on a rug and a static spark jumps out of you, only that but much larger? 

 

What would it have been like to be on the receiving end of that power and be healed? Was the healing instantaneous? Did you feel bones knitted together just like that? What about those with unclean spirits – whatever that is.  Was there a spiritual whooshing sound as the spirits left them? 

 

Then Luke says that everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him. It had to have been a mob scene. It’s easy to think that people were all good Presbyterians, and they were lined up decently and orderly waiting their turn. But I don’t think so; I imagine it was craziness. 

 

When I was in Rome, I was with ten thousand of my closest friends waiting to see Pope Francis. After hours of waiting in the hot sun, he finally emerges driving his pope mobile along lanes set up by fences and guards. If it weren’t for that security detail, he would have been mobbed. People were screaming out his name, reaching out, just wanting to touch him. He didn’t heal anybody, but people were out of their spiritual brain. 

 

Imagine what would happen if Jesus came back today and started healing people? It would be a riot! People would be grabbing at him, thousands of people following him everywhere he went. Everyone reaching out to touch him.

 

Think about this . . . for power came out of him. 

 

Where do you need this power in your life? Where do you need to be healed? Is this just a story in the Bible - or is something real that you can feel today? 

 

Would you have the courage to reach out and touch him? Do you need to feel a static spark like power coming out and touching your soul?

 

May you feel the power of God reaching across the cosmos and healing your life. 

 

It’s great to be back!