Contact with Jesus heals.

 Luke 6:19

Jesus is here the center of a great crowd from all parts of Palestine. They have heard of him, and they flock to him. His words and deeds attract them. He has what they want; so they gather round him. The scene teaches us such lessons as the following:

I. There is health in Jesus. He came from heaven with all the health of heaven in him; health, like sunshine, flowing out irrepressibly; health of every kind; health without measure; health inexhaustible. The balm of the mountains of Gilead might wither down and die out; this heavenly balm could not; it was like the leaves of the tree of life, never falling, ever growing and evergreen. The physicians of Gilead died, until none was left; this physician dies not. He is the everlasting Christ, the Son of God. All health, and skill, and kindness are to be found in him; for not only is He perfect man, but very God; no, and the fullness of the healing Spirit without measure dwells in him.

II. There is sickness in us. We are sick, near unto death; sick in body, sick in soul; the whole head sick, the whole heart faint; our wound incurable by man; our hurt grievous. It is sickness pervading our whole system; sickness accompanied with pain and weakness; with sorrow, and sadness, and heaviness of spirit. It prostrates the body and clouds the mind. We may cover it over, but it is still there. We may soothe with anodynes and administer sleeping draughts, but the disease is unremoved. We may deaden or drown the pain in worldliness, or business, or vanity, or lust, but the mortal malady is still working in every part. O deadly disease of sin! what a world have you made here—what an hospital, a lazar-house, a city of the plague! O pains of earth, not temporary or occasional, but constant and abiding; fore-runners of the eternal pain, the eternal sickness, the eternal agony and woe.

III. Contact with Jesus heals. The medicine must be taken; the physician's hand must touch us; we must in some way or other come within the circle where the divine virtue is flowing out. It is indeed the Holy Spirit that applies the remedy; but he does so by bringing us within this healing circle, by making us touch Him who is the divine treasure house of health. There was no healing for Israel without looking at the brazen serpent; so there is no healing for us without the look, the touch that brings us into contact with Jesus. It is not a clasping or embracing, but a touching; a touching even the hem of his garment; a touching his shadow, as in the case of Peter. Such is the resistless efficacy, the irrepressible virtue that is lodged in Him. And as we are healed by touching, so our health is continued by our continuing to touch. It is to be a constant touching; a lifetime's contact; no, an eternal contact.

Thus is our new health begun and prolonged. Does this seem a hard thing? A hard thing to be always in communication with Jesus; to be always under the shadow of the tree of life; to be always on the brink of the crystal river of the New Jerusalem. If some think it hard, they show that all is yet wrong with them; and that it is sheer necessity and force that is bringing them to entertain the thought of contact with Jesus at all. Should we call it a hard thing to be daily obliged to breathe the fresh air and bask in the glorious sunshine? Is it a hard thing to be obliged to eat that we may be fed, or to sleep that we may be refreshed? Is it a hard thing for the friend to be in company with the friend, or the parent with the child? Is there not among multitudes who call Jesus, Savior, a feeling that they would rather only use Him in times of great necessity, but at other times have the fellowship of others in preference to Him? But the disease which brings us to Him keeps us at his side. There is no health away from Him; neither is there joy. We come for the cure of our pain, but we find this only a small part of what we obtain from Him. We find all in Him; and so we hold Him fast, and will not let Him go. It is our very life, our very joy to remain in contact with Him.

IV. This health and this contact are free to us. There is no fence around Him to keep us off; no guard to forbid or warn us away. Anyone, everyone may come at once to be healed. It is the sick, not the whole, which He invites. It is the leper, the palsied, the fevered, the blind, the lame, the deaf, the devil-possessed, which He bids welcome to. On every side we may approach Him. At any time, and in any way, we may come. Whatever be the duration or the deadliness of our disease, we may come. The Physician is divinely skillful; the medicine is free, the cure is certain.

Health for sin-sick humanity! Medicine for a diseased world! A Physician for a dying race! Such are the messages which we bring. All of them overflowing with God's great love to sinners; to sinners simply as such. The depths of divine compassion are infinite. So are its heights. God's pitying love takes in the worst sinner that ever breathed the air of earth. Wide as earth; wide as the bounds of sin; wide as the evil of human hearts wide as heaven; wide as His own infinite heart; such is the pitying love of God.