The Master and the Misses

What’s going on out there? she wondered. Just as she was finalizing the arrangements for her burial with her last piece of change, a distraction echoed from a town meeting on the village square and drew her attention away from her transaction with the mortician. Before she could finish her thought, the name Jesus again echoed through the town. The woman walked slowly to the window for a quick peek, only to see a large crowd. Master! The calling grew louder, as the crowd grew broader in the square. Finally, curiosity shoved her clean out the door of the funeral parlor and into the streets with the nasty, pressing crowd. Healer! Whether the cry came from the crowd, from around the corner, or from within herself, she could not tell. She didn’t care. While others continued crying out to the man in the middle of the square, she was already on hands and knees, crawling through the masses toward the man in the center of town. Suddenly, the congregation grew quiet and still, for they heard a cry from the one who was the center of their attention. “Who touched me?” shouted the Master. Bewildered by Jesus’ question, the disciples looked around. Curious about who had touched him, the Master looked around as well. Seeing that Jesus was surrounded by so many people, the crowd was as confused as the disciples. They quickly looked to each other for an explanation for such a stupid question. As the Master searched for the answer to his question, he looked down to find that his garment had come undone at the hem. Parting like the Red Sea, people slowly stepped aside. He started to trace the thread from his garment to the center of the square and the middle of the crowd. The people didn’t know exactly what he was doing, but that was okay, because he was the Master. All eyes gazed upon him as he patiently walked forward. A few steps farther into the press at the other end of the thread unraveled from his garment, like a fish on a line he found a woman on her knees. Her head was down, her hands were up, and she was worshipping from the depths of her soul. All were amazed and staring steadfastly at the hem of his garment, but the woman’s eyes were fastened shut, and a hymn was in her heart. She was unraveling glory from heaven and praising Jesus for the healing that God had done in her body. The good woman bowed down in the center of the town would not have known that she was now center of attention in the middle of the crowd, except for the shadow cast by the Son of God. With her head tilted back, she knelt under the shadow that now hovered over her, afraid that she had done something unacceptable. As the virtue from hem had gone into her, tears raced down each cheek to meet at the bottom of her face. The message in her tears was not clear, for she was fearful as well as overjoyed. Whatever the punishment for receiving this healing, she thought, no dungeon could not be worse than ditch Jesus has brought me out of. In spite of being afraid, she opening her eyes to face her fears. Much to her surprise, there hovered the shadow of love with dove-soft eyes. The Son gazed down upon her with a gentle smile filled with grace, staring into the crying eyes that embraced her grateful, humbled soul. Silently, with a touch as soft as cotton, he held her damp hand moistened by tears and lifted her up. She realized that, in spite of what she had done, he was the kind of master who picked servants up. In a moment of reverence, the woman resisted standing. Thanking him in any position other than bowing would not be just, she thought. As his feet and her head touched, she sobbed. “Master, I’m sorry about the hem,” she said. After kneeling to kiss his feet, she leaned back on her heels and looked up at him through the veil of the waterfall that ran down her face. She whispered, “But, Lord, thank you for the thread.” The Master’s tears anointed her head, and she knew not why he wept. But he was overjoyed that her health was no longer in a rut. Only after she’d left the place where they had met did she realize that Jesus had known, as she did, that where the hem of his gown had fallen, her wound had been healed. He that is made whole needs not a physician, but he that is ensnared in a hole should expect a visit from the Master. Unfortunately, the disobedience of the first Adam left us open to being snared by the nets of a worldwide web of predators: Ms. Fortune, Ms. Treated, Ms. Carry, and Ms. Used.” When we escape the tragedy of being brought down into the pit of one, two more are waiting around the next corner, with other issues that can get us all hemmed up. All types of problems are everywhere, because of one man’s disobedience. But thank God for the answer that came to deliver us out of them all. He has more in his hem to seal up our bleeding wounds and mend our broken hearts. He says that he has come to preach the gospel to the poor, to open blinded eyes and prison doors, and to bring prisoners out of the dark that they may see the Son. Anywhere Ms. Fortune and Ms. Carry are found, Jesus rescues those who are abused, mistreated, or misused, and his mission hasn’t changed.