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On the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is the familiar image of God’s hand reaching out and Adam’s hand stretched toward it, their fingers almost touching. That spark of life that marks the full creation of Adam is about to leap from God’s hand to his. The connection is creation. Very powerful. The scripture this morning from Mark’s Gospel is about how we connect with God’s outstretched hand.

The scripture is a rich and wonderful one. As has been pointed out, it is a healing story sandwiched into another healing story. Jesus is in the midst of responding to a cry for help from a distraught father on behalf of a sick child when a woman reaches out and touches his garments, receiving his healing power, connecting like God and Adam. While en route to heal one daughter, Jesus heals another as well. In each case, God’s outstretched hand of love was grasped.

The Sistine Chapel image is very much an expression of Renaissance spirituality. It is God reaching down and man reaching up, meeting God halfway, so to speak. What I would like to suggest here is that in this Bible story, the hand of God is grasped not by humans reaching up and meeting God half-way, but by humanity brought low and finding God’s outstretched hand in the very depths of suffering and danger.

If we look at these intertwined stories, we find that both involve someone falling down at the feet of Jesus. First there is Jairus, a ruler of a synagogue. This powerful man is in anguish because his daughter is at the point of death. The scripture says he fell at Jesus’ feet, beseeching him to come and lay hands upon her. Think for a moment about the status and stature of Jairus. Throughout the Gospels people of power and influence come to Jesus, some openly and some secretly, for his help. Jesus is essentially an unlettered and uncredentialed itinerant miracle worker and teacher. And this synagogue ruler, one used to ordering others around, has now come and fallen at Jesus’ feet – the ultimate posture of humility.

I had lunch last week with a friend of many years who seems to me to be among the most happy and self-fulfilled people I know. And she described some pretty tough times in the not so distant past. But she spoke with a wonderful radiance about how it always seemed to be at those moments of greatest need and distress that God became real. She described at one point being totally broke, in debt, and not sure where the next meal was coming from. Literally crumpled on the floor, she said to God, "I’m at the end of my rope. Please help me!" Brought low and humbled. And when the mail came that very day, she received the one and only dividend check she has ever gotten from her former employer. And everything turned around. It isn’t us reaching up to grasp God’s hand so much as it is accepting the mess we are in and recognizing that God’s outstretched hand has come all the way down to us, waiting for us to notice. The late Roman Catholic counselor and spiritual teacher, Anthony de Mello, says, in his characteristically blunt way, that the gospel won’t really connect with you until you realize that your life is a mess. You may be far more unhappy, frustrated, lost, frightened, bitter and helpless than you are letting on to yourself and to others. That’s where you start. "Amazing Grace" is the most popular hymn of the Christian Church. It, of course, contains the remarkable line, "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me." That word is frequently sung in such a way that you would never guess that the singers had ever experienced anything wretched at all. The words are not "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a more or less happy and successful guy like me." This is religion as icing on the cake of the good life. No, we are talking about being brought low.

What brings us low? You name it – serious illness, bad behavior, financial reversal, divorce or break-up, loss of any kind. Anything that leaves us out of control. But those moments are God’s opportunities. And in each crisis we face a choice. Either we shut down in anger and bitterness and face life with a clinched fist; or we open up and find that we are able to receive, that is with open hands. Is it necessary that we go through such dire extremes to be open to God’s outstretched hand? No. But does it usually work that way? You bet.

The teaching that we must humble ourselves (or be humbled) in order to be open to what God is offering us is a universal spiritual teaching. The founder of the ashram where Lois and I stayed in India was famous for his earthy aphorisms. Water is a universal symbol of God’s nurturing love. In India most clean water comes from a tap or a pump at waist level. Sivananda said, "If you want to drink from the tap, you must bend low."

Falling at Jesus’ feet. Bending low. Think for a moment about posture. I am standing here before you. You are sitting facing me, more or less physically upright in your pews (only a few slumped over in slumber). At the ashram I mentioned, Lois and I participated daily in morning worship in the Meditation Hall, beginning at 5:00 a.m. Though you were entirely free to do as you wished, most worshippers engaged in kneeling, bowing, and full prostration before God. After some internal resistance and routine protestant anti-authority feelings on my part, I decided to try worshipping in that way, that is, kneeling, bowing, and prostration – fully stretched out face down. It is a powerful experience, this posture of submission. Many of you visited the Ahmadiyyah mosque a while back and some yesterday. We were invited to observe their community at worship. The contrast between us sitting comfortably in our chairs, and the Muslim worshippers on their knees and bowing was very striking. Millions upon millions of Muslim worshippers the world over regularly prostrate themselves before God. In comparison, it is almost as if our worship patterns were designed to make such "falling at the feet" of Jesus an embarrassment to be avoided.

But Jairus, ruler of a synagogue, abjectly surrendered himself, "without one plea," and discovered God’s outstretched hand before him. The second person who falls at Jesus’ feet is the woman who had the courage to touch his garments and she was healed. The ancients believed that healers like Jesus just had this kind of power, like a kind of energy, like that which connects the God and Adam of Michaelangelo. . that goes forth. When he senses that power has gone forth from him he says, "Who touched my garments?" And the scripture says, "But the woman, knowing what had been done to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him, and told him the whole truth." In the case of Jairus, he fell at Jesus’ feet begging his help, believing in spite of his unbelief. In the case of this woman, she has experienced healing, and her response is to fall at Jesus feet. But what motivates her? At one level, of course, it has to be profound gratitude – after all Jesus has healed her of a terrible affliction. He solved her problem. But the scripture says that she came to him "in fear and trembling." Our response to the power of God’s love to heal, transform, and bring wholeness and new life is "fear and trembling." The woman realizes that this healing is a sign of something far more. It is like the women who find the tomb empty and are overcome with the power of God’s presence in the midst of God’s absence. It is amazement and awe. And when Jesus arrives at Jairus’ house and restores his twelve year-old daughter to life, those present were "immediately overcome by amazement." Simple gratitude, yes, but it is also an amazement that brings them to their knees. It is amazement at the power of the Resurrection and the power of Creation itself. And amazing grace. And whatever this power was, they found it the man of Nazareth. Amen.

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