Reflecting on Mark 6:53-56“They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak…” (Mark 6:56)
As a Jesus follower, I trust in Jesus, not in His clothes.
I don’t think that these people were actually trusting Jesus’s clothes.
Their request was an act of humility, and a way of honouring Jesus.
They were affirming that He was holy, set apart by God.
They didn’t want to sully His honour by touching Him, making Him unclean.
And for Jews, cleanliness was next to godliness (based on Leviticus).
We will see this again in Mark 7:1-23.
These people were admitting their unworthiness, compared to Jesus.
It was not the cloak that healed these people, but God through Jesus.
Jesus became human to join us – touch us – in our human condition.
In a sense, through Jesus the holy God touches us, becomes unclean with us.
But instead of God becoming unclean (unholy), we become clean by His touch.
Jesus is not afraid to touch us, eat with us, be identified with us.
For this is how we are restored as God’s children.
Yet for some reason, christians often fall back into religious superstition.
Through history christians have shifted their focus to holy relics.
This was really bad in the medieval church, which used relics to inspire faith, and make money.
Objects supposedly tied to Jesus, that He touched or touched Him.
Fragments of the cross, or the crown of thorns, or Mary’s breast milk.
“What lies there are about relics! One claims to have a feather from the wing of the angel Gabriel, and the Bishop of Mainz has a flame from Moses’ burning bush. And how does it happen that eighteen apostles are buried in Germany when Christ had only twelve?”— Martin Luther
In 2024, I was able to visit the Scala Sancta in Rome.
“According to Catholic Church tradition, the Holy Stairs were the steps leading up to the praetorium of Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem on which Jesus Christ stepped on his way to trial during his Passion. The Stairs reputedly were brought to Rome by Saint Helena in the fourth century. In the Middle Ages they were known as Scala Pilati (‘the Stairs of Pilate’) — Wikipedia.
People kneel and pray on every step, as they ascend to a painting of Jesus.
The stone stairs, worn down from centuries of prayer, are now covered with wood.
But in an opening on each step, you can reach in to touch the stone.
To touch the very stone that Jesus stepped on!!!
I saw people doing this last year, eager to connect with Jesus.
Today’s reading shows how people were healed by touching Jesus’s cloak.
I won’t say that touching those stairs is useless… God may use it.
But it is so unnecessary; Jesus is touching us, and we are touching Him.
His humanity makes us one with Him, and He with us!
God can work through our misguided or weak faith.
But there is a danger when we focus on the things, not on Jesus.
The danger is when the cloak, or stairs, becomes the object of our faith.
Or how about the bible, or the church sanctuary, or the pastor/priest?
When we set them apart as ‘more holy’ than other people, places, things?
We can be critical of others for their devotion to holy things.
But what are the holy things we focus on, instead of Jesus?
For me for the longest time it was the wooden cross that I wore.
Jesus is one with us, and truly with us by the Spirit.
We are connected to Him, and He knows us, our heart, our weakness, our sin.
Being with Him does expose our own lack of love and goodness.
But it does not require that we avoid Him, not touch Him, or use a mediator.
You do not need a holy person, place or thing to connect with Jesus.
All creation is holy, set apart unto God, loved by God, restored by God.
My bed, my clothes, the grass I cut, the living room in my home.
The church treasurer, the compost container, the toilet plunger.
To quote Paul, who quotes Epimenides of Cnossos, a Cretan philosopher,
“For in him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28)
Wherever we are, whatever we touch, God is in it, and with us.
Jesus is ‘God with us’, we do not need to pull back as unworthy.
God stoops down to our weakness, and our misguided devotion to things.
God helps us, even when touch cloaks or stairs or bibles or crosses.
But God wants us to reach out to Jesus, to know that God’s love directly.
Reach out to Jesus, He is reaching out to you!
PRAYER
Lord Jesus, forgive me for putting people, places and things before You. I want a relationship with You, not a cloak or cross or church building.
Give me a sense that wherever I am, whatever I touch, I am living and moving and having my being in You.