Put your tassels on.

We asked the students last this question: what do tassels have to do with Jesus. I'll say this-we got some creative answers. One group of girls even came pretty close to the "right" answer. So what do tassels have to do with Jesus?

Check out this series of connections in the Bible:

• Numbers 15: 37-41 God tells Moses to have the Israelites attach tassels to edge of their garments to remember to live by His commands.
• Malachi 4:2 A prophecy is made about the healing power of Jesus, specifically the healing in His wings.
• Luke 8:43-48 A woman touches the edge of Jesus' cloak and is healed.

Now if you are reading out of an English translation (which I'm sure everyone is) you probably won't see the connections. However, if you looked at the Hebrew and Greek you definitely would!

You see, the Hebrew word used for tassels was Kanaaf. This was also the Hebrew word used for wings. Check out Numbers and Malachi again. In Numbers, God tells Moses to put Kanaaf on the edge of his cloak; in Malachi it is prophesied that Jesus will have healing power in His Kanaaf. Then in Luke Jesus does have healing power in His Kanaaf. How do we know? Check out where the woman touched Jesus-the edge of His cloak. Where did God tell Moses the Kanaaf were to be placed? Oh, that's right-the edge of the cloak. Crazy connections indeed.

Check out the next thing though:

• Luke 8:48 Jesus tells the woman to go in peace.

This is crazy significant! That is, if we are defining peace the way it was intended to be defined. Every dictionary out there defines peace as the absense of conflict or a state of relaxation (this isn't verbatem, but whatever).

Rob Bell defines peace a bit differently though in his book Velvet Elvis. Now, this doesn't make it the right definition necessarily, but it does put Jesus' statement of "Go in peace." in a whole new light.

After reading his book this is how I'm going to sum up peace from now on:
Rather than the absense of something or a state or relaxation I'm going to define peace as the presense and goodness of God, living the way God made me to live, and the relentless pursuit of Christ. It puts "Go in peace." a whole new way for me.

Rather than Jesus saying to this woman, "Go and do not be in conflict with others." I feel like He was saying "Go, and live the way that God commands of you."

Remember what those tassels were to remind people of? They were meant to remind you to live the way that God commands. (Numbers 15) How's that? Knowing the presense of God, living the way He made you to be, and relentlessly pursuing Him.

Maybe Jesus was looking at that woman and telling her, "Put your tassels on."

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