Tzitzit

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

In the book of Numbers, God tells Moses to speak to the Israelites and tell them to make fringes on the corners of their garments throughout their generations and to put a blue cord on the fringe at each corner.  This was so they would remember and do God’s commandments and doing God’s commandments would make them holy.  These are the fringes that the people begged to touch on Jesus’ robe in today’s Gospel.  The fringes were reminders of the Commandments… a physical, visible reminder that the path to healing, holiness and wholeness was paved with love of God and love of neighbor. 

What must it have been like to be one of the crowd reaching with all of their being for the fringe of Jesus’ robe in this story?  Over the last year and a half it has felt like we’ve been reaching with all of our being to make it through the pandemic.  Does our experience give us a clue how those people felt?  All of us have been clawing our way toward that one moment of hope, just like that crowd clawed towards theirs… toward the moment when the tips of our fingers met the fringe which meant healing, holiness and wholeness.  And as I wondered this week if their experience had any relation to ours, here’s what else I wondered… I wondered if when those people in the crowd finally got to touch the fringe of Jesus’ robe, did they get the healing they were expecting?  The text says they were healed and I believe it.  But did they get the healing they expected, or maybe did some of them get healed in ways they they did not expect, couldn’t immediately see, or even recognize, or embrace?  Did they get to that moment they had been reaching for and end up finding that things were not the way they expected them to be?

I wonder about that because over the past year and a half I have reached out with all my being… with every ounce of physical, emotional, and spiritual energy just KNOWING the whole time that the day the pandemic ended… the day I finally got to my version of touching the very fringe of Jesus’ robe, I… we… would experience the healing, holiness and wholeness we all so desperately needed.  And for a year and a half I’ve been certain of exactly what that healing moment would look like!  It would be a glorious festival celebration on our first Sunday back!  The pews would be filled to overflowing.  The passing of the peace would go on for an hour and coffee hour would stretch long into the afternoon!   As I fought and clawed and wrestled through the pandemic, in perhaps a similar way the crowd fought and clawed and wrestled to get to Jesus… I just KNEW that when I finally got there… when, like the people in that crowd, I finally managed to touch, even just the fringes of Jesus’ robe… and we made it to the end of the pandemic… THAT would be what it looked like.  Except… it didn’t.   

Instead, as it turns out, it looks and feels nothing like I expected.  I still trust the promise that I have been healed, but to be honest I haven’t yet been able to discover where that healing, holiness and wholeness is happening.  Coming out of this pandemic being so very different than I had imagined it would be has been really hard this last month and I know I’m not alone.  We’re all in one way or another still trying to figure out what this side looks like.  What should just stay on Zoom?  What works on live stream just as well as in person?  What can we do without having to get on an airplane to do it?  AND what are the things that just DEMAND a physical reaching out and touch... like the people did reaching for Jesus' blue cords… what simply can’t be replaced by anything other than seeing each other face to face and not through a screen.  What still absolutely demands a fully connected skin to skin handshake?  What can we get by with on line and what just can't be done by anything other than a loving embrace?  

That’s where I am these days.  We have made it to the other side.  We’ve stretched with every once we had, reached and finally... we've touched the fringe of Jesus’ robe.  We’ve been healed, made holy and made whole… AND it feels nothing like what I thought it would.  It's all much harder than I expected.  It’s made me sad, fearful about my future, and more depressed than I’ve been in a very long time.  Maybe some in that crowd felt that way after touching the fringe of Jesus’ robe when the healing they received was not as they had imagined it would be.   

There is no way to know how that crowd felt of course but I think it’s good for us to share with each other how we are feeling these days.  Broken?  Healed?  Somewhere in between?  Regardless of where you find yourself today after reaching for a year and a half through this pandemic toward healing, holiness, and wholeness, I think this lesson leaves us all with the same advise...  We are never done reaching for that thin blue cord on the fringe of Jesus’ robe.  We must keep reaching and walking and stretching toward the Promise of God’s Covenant… that it is in the actions we do in loving God and loving neighbor that we find the healing, holiness, and wholeness we've been given.  It is in the DOING of love that the healing we’ve already been Divinely given slowly becomes clear.  May we continue to care for one another, be gentle with one another, and hold each other up as each of us walks each day more deeply into the healing, holiness, and wholeness God has given us.  Amen.