GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 5:29
When The Spiritual Becomes Physical
The spiritual encompasses the spiritual person. The nonphysical even surrounds the naturalist, which he calls the laws of nature. The laws of nature are not physical in themselves. No one can reach out and grab a handful of the laws of nature, put them in a test tube, and examine them under a microscope, yet they are continuously becoming physical. Oh, sure, one physical law may override another physical law, but then the superior law becomes physical.
In another realm, an ideal becomes physical. The idea of a building becomes an actual building. It may be possible to explain the juxtaposition of neural cells when an idea is born, but the idea itself is not the arrangement of neural cells. No one can capture an idea and examine it; that is, until it becomes, say, a building. An idea may be described and evaluated, but that does not make it physical.
For the spiritual person, therefore, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” (John 1:14), or, “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” (Gen. 1:3)
St. Mark recorded another example of the spiritual becoming physical. In the evangelist’s account, after a boat ride, Jesus and his followers arrived in Capernaum, where a crowd surrounded them. One member of the crowd, a prominent citizen, begged Jesus to come and pray for his little daughter, who was dying. On the way, a woman, who had suffered for years from a serious malady, heard about Jesus, determined to get close enough through the crowd to touch his garment, she did, “And immediately the flow of her blood was dried up, and she knew in her body that she had been healed from the affliction.” (Mark 5:29)
Laying aside many questions about this incident for the moment, this woman’s faith became physical. For this individual, the faith staunched not just the flow of her blood, but the source of the malady—“she knew in her body” that the condition changed. Faith cannot be captured, crammed into a test tube, and examined under a microscope, but it nonetheless—as in the case of this anonymous woman—becomes physical.
What occurred for the woman in Mark’s gospel, and for countless believers before and after, still occurs—faith becomes physical.
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