The Crowds

My Dad and I went to our 11th Indy 500 last month. I was mesmerized by the crowds. 300,000 people packed the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with hundreds lining the ‘Red Carpet’ area as pictured. So-called celebrities (I hadn’t heard of many of them) posed for pictures and signed autographs as fans clamored for their attention. It was crazy.

The Crowds Near Jesus

It made me think of what it must have been like when Jesus was walking this earth. Picture the scene in Mark 5:24-30

Jesus went with him, and all the people followed, crowding around him. A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding. She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse. She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.” Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition. Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?”

How did Jesus handle the crowd with such poise and love? There were so many needy people who wanted his help, his attention.

How does He handle it today? The same way. The same powerful love that emanated from Him then, still reaches out to us today.

We have to be like the woman and do all we can to get close to Jesus. e need to reach out to Him, as if He’s our only hope for healing.

The reality is, He is our only hope to be healed and restored.