Miracles of Our Lord | Page 8

a kind of passing aberration, that the soul is thereby sustained, even as
sometimes in a weary dream the man is comforted by telling himself it
is but a dream, and that waking is sure. God would have us reasonable
and strong. Every effort of his children to rise above the invasion of
evil in body or in mind is a pleasure to him. Few, I suppose, attain to
this; but there is a better thing which to many, I trust, is easier--to say,
Thy will be done.
But now let us look at the miracle as received by the woman.
She had "a great fever." She was tossing from side to side in vain
attempts to ease a nameless misery. Her head ached, and forms dreary,
even in their terror, kept rising before her in miserable and aimless
dreams; senseless words went on repeating themselves ill her very
brain was sick of them; she was destitute, afflicted, tormented; now the
centre for the convergence of innumerable atoms, now driven along in
an uproar of hideous globes; faces grinned and mocked at her; her mind
ever strove to recover itself, and was ever borne away in the rush of
invading fancies; but through it all was the nameless unrest, not an
aching, nor a burning, nor a stinging, but a bodily grief, dark, drear, and
nameless. How could they have borne such before He had come?
A sudden ceasing of motions uncontrolled; a coolness gliding through
the burning skin; a sense of waking into repose; a consciousness of
all-pervading well-being, of strength conquering weakness, of light
displacing darkness, of urging life at the heart; and behold! she is
sitting up in her bed, a hand clasping hers, a face looking in hers. He
has judged the evil thing, and it is gone. He has saved her out of her
distresses. They fold away from off her like the cerements of death. She
is new-born--new-made--all things are new-born with her--and he who
makes all things new is there. From him, she knows, has the healing
flowed. He has given of his life to her. Away, afar behind her floats the
cloud of her suffering. She almost forgets it in her grateful joy. She is
herself now. She rises. The sun is shining. It had been shining all the
time--waiting for her. The lake of Galilee is glittering joyously. That
too sets forth the law of life. But the fulfilling of the law is love: she

rises and ministers.
I am tempted to remark in passing, although I shall have better
opportunity of dealing with the matter involved, that there is no sign of
those whom our Lord cures desiring to retain the privileges of the
invalid. The joy of health is labour. He who is restored must be
fellow-worker with God. This woman, lifted out of the whelming sand
of the fever and set upon her feet, hastens to her ministrations. She has
been used to hard work. It is all right now; she must to it again.
But who was he who had thus lifted her up? She saw a young man by
her side. Is it the young man, Jesus, of whom she has heard? for
Capernaum is not far from Nazareth, and the report of his wisdom and
goodness must have spread, for he had grown in favour with man as
well as with God. Is it he, to whom God has given such power, or is it
John, of whom she has also heard? Whether he was a prophet or a son
of the prophets, whether he was Jesus or John, she waits not to question;
for here are guests; here is something to be done. Questions will keep;
work must be despatched. It is the day, and the night is at hand. She
rose and ministered unto them.
But if we ask who he is, this is the answer: He is the Son of God come
to do the works of his Father. Where, then, is the healing of the Father?
All the world over, in every man's life and knowledge, almost in every
man's personal experience, although it may be unrecognized as such.
For just as in certain moods of selfishness our hearts are insensible to
the tenderest love of our surrounding families, so the degrading spirit of
the commonplace enables us to live in the midst of ministrations, so far
from knowing them as such, that it is hard for us to believe that the
very heart of God would care to do that which his hand alone can do
and is doing every moment. I remind my reader that I have taken it for
granted that he confesses there is a God, or at least hopes there may be
a God. If any one