Insanity is Contagious ...

If you saw somebody do something crazy, and it worked, would you do it too?  The first time you try something new, some experience you have never had before; you are generally a little skeptical that what others may have shared with you, will also be what you personally think about it.  Take for instance the first time you try a new food.  Others may love it, but you cannot be sure you will, until you taste it.  Now the crazier the “idea” of the food, the more skeptical you may be.  Trying some exotic fruit for example, perhaps like a persimmon, or a pomegranate might not be so unusual.  But sampling some kind of cooked bug, just sounds nuts.  Depending on how adventurous, or perhaps how much you trust the person who recommends the new food, you may decide to taste it, or not.  But food is much easier a risk to take, than something more substantial.  Risking your reputation for example, is not something you can recover from if things go wrong, unlike food whose negative effects are at worst temporary.  Risking your health on some new form of treatment might likewise take even more courage to attempt.  But how about risking your reputation, your health, and your salvation … all at once … against the council of the professionals.

Imagine yourself with a lifelong disability, or perhaps an acute illness that has very limited treatment options.  Because of your condition, “normal” people are going to think less of you to begin with.  After all, the “healthy” cannot sympathize with something they do not suffer from.  And in times past, the first thought as to the cause of your condition, is that “you” must have done something to cause it.  Oh sure, it is easy to connect the dots between skateboarding and a broken arm, or smoking and lung cancer.  But it is much harder to connect the dots between breast cancer and its victim.  A great many conditions that impact our health can well be beyond our control.  Attempting to assign blame for something like breast cancer spans the gamut from genetics, to environment, to diet.  But the farther back in history we go, the higher the inclination to assign responsibility for the illness to its victim.  In the time of Christ, this practice had reached an all-time high.  When confronted with a sick person, the first thought or question in the mind, was usually … “who sinned” and what did they commit, that would lead to this condition.  So in His day, the sick already had one strike against their reputation to start with.

Then comes the importance of community, of belonging.  In addition to the normal societal need to be accepted in the groups in which we live, the Jewish community had interwoven its faith into the core of its societal structure.  Samaritans for example, were not admired, because they did not conform to the traditional thinking that valued only the temple in Jerusalem as the pinnacle of the place of worship.  Gentiles were even lower on the reputation scale than that.  Pagans even more despised.  And Romans scraped the bottom of the barrel.  For a Jew in the time of Christ to achieve the best social standing, they would have to maintain good relations with the temple system based in Jerusalem.  This included general acknowledgement and adherence to the rules laid out by the priests, rabbis, and of course the Sanhedrin.  To stray away from their collective direction, was to risk being ostracized by the faith itself.  Salvation itself would be denied because of this choice to disobey the voice of God as taught by his authorized servants.  So beyond being sick and having one strike against you, to seek healing from Jesus Christ, was sure to be enough to get you tossed out of polite society, and lumped in with the lost.

Now, when you are truly sick, and there is no other option you have ever heard of to get well, you might go ahead and take the risk of seeking Jesus.  How interesting that nothing seems to have changed in our day.  But even if you make this risky choice, you are likely to pursue doing it the traditional way that everyone is talking about how it works.  For example, Jesus is said to have made some mud, and recreated a missing eye.  When He interacts with the possessed He commands the demons to leave them, and they do.  He takes the lame by the hand and they are able to rise.  The short story, is that a personal encounter with Jesus appears to be enough to heal whatever problem you have (and nothing has changed today).  But then comes the crazy.

You will remember from our earlier study (titled “Bleeding and Dying no more [part two]”) there was once a woman who decided on her own, that she only needed to touch the hem of His garment to be made whole.  This level of insanity was a product of her own imagination.  It had never been done before.  And there was no proof it would even work.  But it did.  The story of her decision to live beyond the limitations we impose upon ourselves, had remained in open discussion across the region.  Everyone was talking about how this crazy lady tried the impossible with Christ, and it worked.  What is more, Jesus even called her “His daughter” during His discovery and revelation of her faith.  No matter what the doctors said, no matter what the priests, and rabbis were saying … for those that saw how deep their own need was, there was really only one choice, to seek Jesus.  And this insanity was highly contagious.

Peter recalls the impact of this one crazy lady to John Mark in his gospel in chapter six and picks up the story in verse 53 saying … “And when they had passed over, they came into the land of Gennesaret, and drew to the shore. [verse 54] And when they were come out of the ship, straightway they knew him,”  The fame of Jesus had spread far and wide in this region on the far side of the Sea of Galilee.  A demoniac had been freed from nearly 2000 demons in a single command, and while he had wished to follow Jesus right then and become the next disciple, Jesus had bid him to stay in this region and witness to these people about what Christ had freed him from.  And the man had been a faithful witness, for the entire region now knew who Jesus was, though none of us even know the name of the man who spread this witness.  In addition, the story of the crazy lady who sought only the touch of His garment to be made well, was still a topic fresh in the minds of the people.  It did not take long to connect the dots.

John Mark continues in verse 55 saying … “And ran through that whole region round about, and began to carry about in beds those that were sick, where they heard he was. [verse 56] And whithersoever he entered, into villages, or cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought him that they might touch if it were but the border of his garment: and as many as touched him were made whole.”  Entire populations of sick, disabled, crippled, and needy were brought to wherever Jesus was.  They were laid in the street, and Jesus was asked if He would just pass over His garment to make them well.  So great was the contagion of insanity in this area, that now everyone was convinced they only needed His clothing to make them well.  They did not want to trouble the Lord for a personal interaction, they had enough belief to “know” they would be cured if he just got close enough to them in passing, to drag his garment over them.  Forget what the professionals had to say, forget what ridicule other normal people may still harbor; those in need, need a savior.  Those in need will do what seems crazy in the eyes of others.  Those in need find their needs met ONLY in Jesus Christ.

And nothing has changed.  It is crazy to think, that a life of bad decisions, and addictive self-love can be changed by a power outside of our control.  It is crazy to think that the way to see a change in what we want, and what we love, can be performed in us, but not by us.  To be saved by Jesus, in spite of who we know we are today, is just a crazy premise … but it works.  It is not the Shroud of Turin we need to pass over us to make us whole now, it is only our choice to surrender to the “insanity” of being saved from ourselves by Jesus Christ.  The same professionals in our day echo the ridicule of the past, but what do they know?  The salvation of the crazy lady that pioneered this idea was not put at risk in doing so, it was instead cemented with her Lord.  The salvation of the wounded laid on city streets and country roads, was not put at risk in seeking Christ, it was affirmed by Him.  Our Creator is also capable of re-Creation as He proved over and over again.

This story could easily have been omitted in the gospel.  It is only a few verses at the end of an otherwise climactic chapter of miracles and greatness.  Compared with the other events in this chapter alone, the results of one crazy lady and the impact she had on an entire region seem inconsequential.  What difference does it make “how” people were healed by Jesus right?  The important point is that they were.  But I believe this story remains in the gospel, because it does matter “how” we can seek Jesus beyond the norms and conventions of what we have otherwise been taught.  A relationship with Christ is not confined to how others do it, what the professionals say, or how others have one; it is uniquely personal to you.  The faith of this woman who imagined her own healing in an unconventional way of seeking Jesus was rewarded.  In these verses her impact of doing so is recorded to have impacted an entire region.  Many found healing the same way she did, because they found the same faith she did. 

How you interact with Christ may be beyond the normal conventions that others do, and that is OK.  The lesson of this story is that there is no limitations God imposes on how He can interact with you, the only “limitations” that exist are the ones in your own mind that you have placed upon yourself and God.  To think differently is to find and believe that there are no limits on God, and therefore no limits to how He can truly impact your life.  The beauty of the gospel, is that once connected to Jesus, there is no limit to how much God can impact the lives of others, through you.  This is His favorite method of loving others, to love them through you.  It has the added blessing of bringing you joy and bliss in the process.  For to love others has always been the ultimate expression of who our God is.

True insanity, is not to seek Jesus.  True insanity, is to listen to those professionals that will never understand what it is like for you, to be made whole by Jesus Christ, even if that is only ever on a spiritual level.  The kind of “insanity” that seeks Christ beyond the limits of convention, of history, of tradition is the kind of insanity we need to embrace.  It may seem crazy to seek Jesus, but that is only ever the perspective of those who have not personally experienced what Jesus can do in a life.  Once you have tasted of the freedom Jesus can bring, the tables turn on the definition of what insanity is.  Once you know it works, the concept of who is truly the professional where it comes to salvation and how it works, begins to be understood entirely differently.  I would wish to be fully infected with the contagion of Jesus Christ, and if that looks crazy to you right now, just wait …