So many people are tired, strung out, and suffering from stress-related diseases and disorders. Even our children develop anxieties and then must formulate (either good or bad) coping mechanisms for dealing with their stress. The bridge from the 20th to the 21st Century has brought us tremendous leaps in our technology and increased our ability to reliably produce all kinds of things needed for everyday living, but we have yet to catch up to these "so-called" advances with the peace of mind to live heartily and healthily in today's world. Even in this medically advanced, food-rich economy, where we have such a wide range of choices for everything from our education to our toothpaste, we find ourselves suffocating under the pressure. Our health declines and we are, indeed, worse for the wear.

We need Jesus to heal us right now, maybe more so than ever before.

In this particular church's history alone, problems have been followed by conflicts that have torn the fabric of this congregation apart. Outreach to others has not been all that it could be because the focus has had to be on inward struggles. The pain of those struggles has left some still hurting and others concerned about trusting God or anyone else again. Then, it seemed just as some wounds were closing, several great pillars of this church fell due to age and death. Cancer, and Depression, and even Guillain-Barré Syndrome are words that have become common to our vocabulary. I suspect that erasing those memory banks by forgetting has become almost easier than actually forgiving, and I know that listening to someone else's pain can be a chore when our own pain is so close to the surface.

We need Jesus to heal us right now, maybe more so than ever before.

Someone today is contemplating suicide. Someone is going hungry. Someone is hurting their child. Someone is taking another drink. Someone found out they have cancer. Someone is feeling lonely. Someone got fired. Someone couldn't cry. Someone couldn't stop crying. Someone is worried about something dreadful happening. And someone can't take it anymore.

We need Jesus to heal us right now, maybe more so than ever before.

Jesus knows the worries that haunt our sleep. Jesus knows the demons that attack us or persuade us when we're awake. Jesus knows the pain that won't leave our gut alone. He knows because he has compassion - compassion for all of us in all of our situations.

In this glimpse of Jesus we get from Mark's gospel, we can see that Jesus was teaching this compassion to his disciples. Under his guidance, they had been offering a healing touch, a kind word, deep lessons in God's love to the crowds that followed them wherever they went. But they had grown hungry and tired. The crowds had not even given them enough leisure time to eat their lunch. Human care-givers wear out. We can't help it. Our nature gives out on giving. There's only so much we can do. So Jesus, having compassion on his disciples, sends them away to a deserted place alone where they can rest, and recharge, and get a bite to eat, for heaven's sake.

Jesus goes with them, but the crowds are drawn to him like moths to a light bulb. They follow him until, perhaps, he has no choice but to recognize them. Instead of telling them to go away or ignoring them altogether, the story tells the miraculous, Jesus has compassion on them and shows them mercy. Who could have such energy? Who could have such reserves of patience? Only Jesus could in my book. He looks at this wayfaring group who are hungry for his teaching and he offers them, scripture tells us, "many things."

This is one of those places where the lectionary is strange in that it leaves out the middle section of this text about Jesus getting his hungry worn-out disciples to feed this crowd of 5,000, and about how they saw him walking on water and were terrified - but it closes again with this reassurance, that Jesus seems never to tire of offering his healing presence to hurting people. In Gennesaret, the whole region drums up more business for him by telling others of his keen sense for knowing what's wrong with people and how to help them. People are drug on mats from their sick beds to touch even the fringes of his garment - and all, ALL who touched him were healed.

So today, whether you're hurting a little or a lot, whether you're totally organized or like a sheep without a shepherd, whether you think you don't need anything or know you need everything, we all need Jesus, now more so than ever before. We need his compassion. We need his mercy. We need his teaching so we can know how to care for each other and also know when we must care for ourselves. For me, it is about Jesus. And even though I might not be able to explain everything that goes with that - why some people are healed and others not, why life seems easy for some and not for others, why some get an abundance of resources while others starve - I do know that God, through the love of Jesus Christ, makes this ongoing promise to us to show compassion.

We certainly don't always deserve it. And we may not know how to deal with God's mercy if we do get it. But we continue to pray for it; we continue to crave the renewal that is so much a part of who Jesus is that people then were able to experience healing just from touching the fringes of his garment.

Today, I hope that you'll pray with me to be touched by the compassion of Jesus. We have gathered in our own little crowd to hear his word, but we rarely take the opportunity to be singled out and blessed by his name. Be reminded today that you are children of God, and God desires to show you mercy and bring healing into your life. Amen.

As we come to our time of prayer, there are a few options for you to choose how you might come to God in personal prayer. I will lead off the prayer and then station myself in the center aisle, and Jim will begin playing "Jesus Remember Me" on the organ. It can be found in the hymnal, #599. As we start singing together, some may want to come forward and make a prayer request either for themselves or for someone else to be healed. I will pray with those individuals including laying my hands on them - not that my hands are any more special than any other hands, but as a reminder that Jesus is not absent from our lives but present and as close as our human touch. If this is uncomfortable for you, you may choose to pray with your singing, or pray to sustain others by your singing. Please remember to keep singing until the prayer is closed, even if Jim fades out his playing. Also if you'd rather have some introspective prayer time, you may close your eyes and pray silently at your seat. This is not a test of anyone's faith. Similar prayer services are found in the history of the Presbyterian Church and in the most recent Book of Common Worship. God's healing touch is there for us anytime we ask, but we frequently fail to worship as though we believe that to be so.

Let us pray to be healed by the power of Jesus Christ.