God's Healing Embrace

The carpet was soaked with the fluid draining from his blisters. Everywhere that he walked or laid there was a stain and a stench.


After completing an evaluation of his wounds and mobility problems, I left his home with the odor still fresh in my nostrils. The stench would not leave my clothing until there had been a thorough cleaning.


Even after, everything that I had touched became defiled by the odor of those rancid fluids.


So when I read of the Lord laying hold of a man with 'dropsy', I can identify a little with the revulsion that any who watched Him do this may have had. 


This is especially true for the fastidious Pharisees who were deeply concerned about defilements of every kind.


Would you embrace a man with bloated limbs, weeping wounds and a foul odor?


I can imagine that there are few who would. What would be the point or the benefit? Who could know what kind of infectious organisms might be passed on by simple contact?


Luke, chapter 14 tells us that a man with 'dropsy' (water retention or edema) was brought to Jesus in the house of a Pharisee - at meal time no less. This is strange behavior indeed for a Pharisee. What was he trying to prove? Was the Pharisee showing compassion to this poor man?


We understand that quite the opposite was true. The Pharisee was risking defilement in order to prove that Jesus was not of God. It was the Sabbath and no work is to be done on the Sabbath. Even a miraculous healing of a man would be considered by the Pharisees as the devil's doing if it were done on the Sabbath.


So, we see that this poor man with the dropsy was an outcast of Jewish society. He was considered to be a sinner; an obvious example of God's judgment for sin and yet he was worthy of being used by the elites of Jewish society to maintain their power and position as Scriptural authorities.


There are many in our world who have likewise been used by the religious. While providing a show of compassion, the only motive of the religious man or woman is to advance their own standing and prestige.


These are the 'politically religious' who presume to set the standard for everyone else to follow while hiding behind a veneer of righteousness.


Many of this type today hide behind the name of Jesus to cover their sin. Others portray themselves as champions of the little guy or the 'Righteous enemies of social evils'. Many names could come to mind of false teachers and politicians who have used others to gain prestige and riches only to be exposed as a sham.


The Lord Jesus exposes the hypocrisy of our hearts. As He did during His sojourn on earth, so He does today through the application of His Word by His Spirit to our hearts. None are exempt from His searching gaze.


What I really love about this story is how the Lord shatters every perception of Himself by His remarkable healing embrace. He goes directly to the outcast and without a word 'takes hold' of him. In an instant, all that had set this man with the dropsy apart as a sinner was changed. 


His foul, soiled, bloated flesh and clothing were made whole again. Sabbath or no Sabbath, this was an undeniable work of God.


This is the same work that applies to any and all of us who come to Him in simple faith. We acknowledge that 'all our righteous deeds are as filthy rags'. We are nothing but prideful, bloated, rancid smelling flesh. 


By our pride we have become the abused and the abusers of others.


We may be convinced that God would have nothing to do with the likes of us. The truth is that He longs to 'take hold' of us that we may be instantly and forever healed.


Have you allowed Him to 'take hold' of you, dear reader?
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