Glistening Rain

I don't remember winters being so dark and rainy in Bellingham. This has been a strange winter in that way, in many ways it has been the best season of my life, and yet it is veiled in the grey haze of oppressive drizzle. Right now the rain is falling and the sun is shining, one of my favorite things. As I look out at the rain it is shimmering in the sunshine, as if the the sun is transforming the oppressive grey drops into the very spring of life. It feels vibrant, life giving, and invigorating. But its just rain. The same rain that has fallen on all of these grey days.

In Mark 5 a woman comes through the crowd to seek healing from Jesus. She has been bleeding for 12 years, suffering for 12 years, unclean for 12 years, ostracized for 12 years. Yet she appears perpetually propelled by hope. We see her sneak through the crowd filled with fear, pain, suffering, and hope as she tries to just touch Jesus. She gets to him, is healed, and then gets called out by Jesus only to receive a blessing instead of the judgmental outburst she was recoiling in anticipation of. He commends her for her faith.

This faith reminds me of the rain. Earlier Mark told us that she had sought healing in lots of places, put her faith in lots of others, even given up her money. Each time she risked faith and finances it only added insult to injury and left her further in the pit of despair. It always rains like that, the long cold grey rain of suffering. So many people find themselves in that place. There backs up against the wall, they lash out in hope. They go to doctors, to family to friends. They give their money to T.V. evangelists, to healers, and to their drug of choice. But as they scream out in faith, the echo only returns deeper pain. The dull grey persists.

Then one day everything changes for this woman in Mark. Same movement of faith she has made a million times, same risks, same hope. Did she close her eyes when she reached out and touched him? Did she say anything? Did she keep following or did she freeze? What did her body feel like? Did she immediately begin to celebrate what this stoppage of bleeding meant for her relationships with neighbors, friends, family, husband, and even God?

One thing we know is that she tried to get out of there without being noticed, she didn't want to get called out. She was expecting the crowd to react to her audacious actions with judgment and anger because she was an unclean person. But her rain finally glistened in the light of the Son and for the first time her fearful faith was transformed into healing. She was clean. Jesus changed everything.

The violence, sickness, and oppression in our world can bear down so heavy on the shoulders of anyone whose dreams have been transformed by the cross. Some days the news feels like that rain, the never ending drizzle of pain in our world. And it seems we apathetically accept it, so long as the rain isn't washing away our lives. Jesus compels me to want to see an end to war, and end to sickness, an end to violence, an end to hatred, an end to inequality. Some days that rain just keeps falling, but other days I find myself standing in the light of Jesus and His kingdom; the rain glistens with hope, and I am inspired what God is doing in and through people around the world.

This is just a season, summer is coming. But the glistening rain reminds me that summer is breaking in now. Hope is breaking in. And Jesus is meeting people at the intersection of pain, suffering, fear, hope, and faith. Jesus is making all things new. I would like to live in that intersection, to have the kind of love that reflects the transformative hope of resurrection.