"Take Heart, Daughter" - A Communion Meditation


A Communion Meditation Taken from Matthew 9.22

 Early on in Matthew, the story is recounted where Jesus was walking through a crowd, and a woman who had some kind of hemorrhaging for 12 years – a woman who would have been considered and treated as impure and unfit to enter God’s worship, who would have been cut off from much of the fellowship and festal feasting of God’s people; a woman who would have felt like she dwelt “in a dry and weary land where there is no water" (Psalm 63.1) – alone, cut off, kicked out. She saw Jesus and secretly came up behind Jesus thinking, “If I only touch his garment, I will be made well” (Matthew 9.21). She touched his robe in faith, and immediately “Jesus turned, and seeing her he said,"...He didn't say, "get away from me until you're clean enough!" Nor did he say, "Don't touch me until you have made yourself pure enough!" Instead,  “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well” (Matthew 9.22). 

 What does this have to do with communion? This is a beautiful and heartening description of exactly how we need to approach Jesus; seeking him; wanting him; believing him! Just as he did not rant and rave at the woman kicking her away, but instead welcomed her – so he welcomes us as well! And just as the woman came to Jesus for her remedy, and found his assurance - “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well”- so it is for us. If you believe in the Lord Jesus, want him better, long to hear him say “Take heart, daughter/son; your faith has made you well,” have received the sacrament of baptism and belong to his people…then I beckon you to participate with us.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“The Shift” - 2023 Movie. A Review

Image
  What do you get when you cross a dark dystopian storyline with sci-fi, alternative dimensions, theological and philosophical questions, and the biblical book of Job? You get The Shift , written and directed by Brock Heasley, produced by Ken Carpenter, and distributed by Angel Studios. This roughly one hour and 45 minute tale swirls around Kevin (Kristoffer Polaha) as he moves from one realm of life, with it’s happiness and heartbreak, to another dimension that is a dismal existence clearly governed by The Benefactor (masterfully played by Neal McDonough). A viewer will be asking questions all the way through, and picking up clues and answers that pull the story together bit-by-bit. The story bumps up against an infinite set of alternative possibilities, of time, space, and versions of one’s self that will likely stoke a viewer’s imagination. But the heart of the narrative - besides love, grief, loss, trust/distrust - is around the place of evil, specifically, personal or human evil.
Read more

"On Getting Out of Bed" by Alan Noble. A Review

Image
  When it comes to family members or friends going through a significant mental crisis, or suffering, we often can feel like we’re fumbling about to help them. Sometimes, we can become like Job’s friends, whom he had to call “miserable comforters” (Job 16:2). But very recently Alan Noble, assistant professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee Oklahoma, and cofounder and editor-in-chief of “Christ and Pop Culture” penned a deeply beautiful 120-page hardback that addresses mental affliction. “On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living” is written for those who struggle with mental affliction, but also pastors, teachers, parents, and loved ones, to “help them understand their loved one’s suffering. It is for anyone who ever struggles to get out of bed” (3). I finished this book earlier this week, and kept finding myself saying, “Finally! Someone gets it!” Eight chapters fill up this handy manual. They run through several subjects, like not sounding like Job’s f
Read more

Community?

Image
  (This is from my letter to my congregation I sent out today, 30 August 2023) As one of my elders was leading us through Carl Trueman’s Strange New World in our adult class , I appreciated Trueman’s emphasis on community. And our discussions, especially the last two Sundays, were very fruitful as we thought out loud together about this subject. Therefore, I thought I would share something from David Brooks, an Op-ed columnist that leans into this discussion.   Brooks published a book in 2019 titled, “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life”. In that work he was taking a gentle punch at destructive trends he has been seeing, and giving some helpful correctives. And so, he notes that “Individualism, taken too far, leads to tribalism” (34). He then shows how the loneliness and spiritual emptiness of individualism taken too far have become more prevalent in our time and the ways that they lead to very dark social consequences. These darker social consequences foster the need t
Read more