Go in Peace: Hope for Adventنموونە

Today our exploration of the phrase “Go in peace” turns the corner and heads from the Old Testament into the New Testament, where we have the first time it’s said by Jesus himself.

It comes at the end of one of the most famous stories of healing in all of scripture. You probably know it already: the woman who has been bleeding for years and years touches the edges of Jesus’ cloak in the middle of a busy throng of people and is healed.

Jesus knows something happened and asks who touched him, which seems a preposterous question in the middle of this sea of people, but he knew what he was doing.

The woman owns up to her hope-filled grasp and Jesus blesses her for it.

“Your faith has made you well,” he tells her. “Go in peace and be healed.”

Advent lasts only four weeks… this woman waited twelve YEARS for her healing. But it came.

Imagine how much darkness and despair she might have endured along the way to the time of her faithful reach. Just day after unending day of this condition sapping the very life from her, with no end in sight.

And yet she hoped. Jesus came by and she acted on that hope, and God moved heaven and earth on her behalf in an instant.

Things are dark until they aren’t. Sometimes the dawn comes slowly; sometimes it’s an instantly blinding light.

But however God moves, he does. We just have to hope. We just have to endure the darkness for as long as it lasts and trust that the light of Jesus will come.

Hope is on the way. Jesus is coming to heal the whole world. Go in peace today and look for your opportunity to reach out in faith. It may only look like the edge of a garment, but there could be a life-changing healing on the other side of it. Seize your hope. Go in peace.