I wonder if Jesus, as he was wandering through the desert and contemplating his future, was thinking about the three big challenges up ahead him.

The first challenge was that he needed to gather up a small group of impassioned apostles, persuade them to drop everything and become followers and then ultimately, for most of them, lose their lives in service to his mission. For Christ, this must have been a tall order.

Now, I’m sure that the Resurrection helped because many of them eventually directly experienced the risen Christ.

Second, Jesus needed to convince those who were more peripherally involved, who were in the area and had heard about this man from Nazareth and all that he was teaching and doing. He needed to create a full-scale movement and for this to happen, it required a great deal of teaching, healing, and mercy. For Christ, this too must have been a tall order.

I’m sure that the Resurrection helped. Many of these folks heard directly from the apostles and other eyewitnesses that it was true… true that the man with the big claims and who had been dramatically put to death was back. And alive.

And finally, third, Jesus needed to move and motivate millions upon millions of people across the globe and through many coming centuries of time. And, he needed to move and motivate… you and I… who are living some two thousand years later. This may be Christ’s tallest order of all… compelling, captivating, and changing… you and I.

The Resurrection helps… but that was a long time ago.

My mom just turned 98. She is living in a nursing home and, as we have come to expect, she has good days and bad days. On the good days, she is a lot like my mom of 20 plus years ago – she is sharp, funny, inquisitive, and our visits on those days are great. On the bad days, she is confused, muddled, sleepy… and those visits are not so great. But this is what I have learned. On the bad days, simply sitting there and holding her hand while she sleeps or meanders through statements I don’t completely understand is a very powerful thing. Simply sitting there, holding her hand. There’s great meaning and potency to the human touch.

I think this is why hands are so prominently depicted in art and fiction as instruments of strength and effect. Think of the gift of life given by God as depicted in Michelangelo’s masterpiece on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. In Star Wars, powerful forces emanate from a hand pointed toward an adversary… and there is great symbolism to the scenes where a hand is violently removed. In The Lord of the Rings, there are moments when a hand reaches down to save one of the characters from grave peril and it’s no coincidence that a ring placed upon a hand gives it enormous power, but also imprisons it to the will of evil. Or how about the Marvel superhero movies? A gauntlet with mystical stones placed upon a hand becomes the single greatest force of power in the universe. And then, salvation comes in the form of a superhero’s snap of his fingers, though at great personal cost.

Which brings us to today’s Gospel?

In it, Jairus asked Jesus to place his hands upon his dying daughter. In the same reading, a hemorrhaging woman reaches out her hand to touch Jesus’ cloak in the only miracle of his in all of scripture that he himself did not initiate.

I think it’s worth pointing out that both main characters in this story took a great risk. Jairus was a ranking synagogue official with much to lose by associating with Jesus. The woman was an outcast and because of her condition was strictly forbidden from touching anyone.

Jesus, the Son of God, physically touched Jairus’ now dead daughter and the unclean woman. No Jew in their right mind would do either in that time and place, but Jesus did. He responded with mercy. He reached across a gap and forcefully closed it through the power of a touch.

In our time and in our place, all these many years later, you and I are Christ’s biggest challenge, his tallest order. Like Jairus, we must invite him into our homes, into our lives, and into our chaos. This requires faith, trust, and hope.

But, like the hemorrhaging women, perhaps our quest will require some reaching, some grasping ourselves. Perhaps our tallest order is to find it within ourselves to embrace the cloak of Christ across a two thousand year gap and to have just enough audacity to actually believe in the power of that touch.

There is something else that the woman and Jairus shared… and that is suffering. Both were suffering immensely – Jairus over the pain and likely loss of his daughter and the woman over her years of rejection, humiliation, and complete isolation. Both were overwrought, despairing, and at their wits end. In keeping with the theme of some of our recent Sunday gospels, we are confronted by the question of how suffering plays a role in our own lives.

Of course, we don’t want to suffer and would never choose to suffer, but consider Jairus and the woman from the Gospel. What would have become of them had they not? Do you ever wonder if the same could be true for…

… you and I all these many years later?

Jesus gave us a written word. He gave us descendants of those first followers in the form of a Church. He sent messengers and inspiration in the form of saints. He gave us sacraments and personal encounters through prayer…. and he gave us a Resurrection, which surely does help.

But…

… he also gave us today the constant need to reach out towards him, to grasp in desperate hope… whenever we suffer.

To grasp.

It’s the grasping that changes us.

And if we are changed, then we are saved.