For weeks I’ve been thinking of the woman with the issue of blood… can you imagine bleeding for 12 long years? Women, including myself struggle to cope with 5 to 7 days of our monthly cycle… I simply can’t imagine bleeding for 12 years! Yet this is what this woman endured. She spent everything she had and explored every option she knew of. I’m also sure that by that time she had a reputation and most persons looking on had an opinion.
Then somehow, she heard that Jesus was in town, so she decided she would give him a try. There was a thick crowd around Jesus, yet she was determined that she must at least touch the hem of his garment so she can be healed. I can only imagine her telling herself over and over and over again ‘if I can just touch the hem of his garment, I will be healed’.
Can you imagine seeing this woman, just talking to herself, who already had a reputation? Yet she didn’t allow any of that to stop her. She pressed through the thick crowd and touched Jesus clothes. Alas! She was HEALED!
Jesus, having felt healing left his body asked, who touched me? The disciples were puzzled, they couldn’t understand how could Jesus be asking such a question in a thick crowd. What they didn’t understand was, Jesus was really asking, whose faith touched me?
The woman feeling obviously ashamed, indicated that she’s the one who touched Jesus. Jesus then responded; your faith has made you whole!
Can you imagine, she touched Jesus with her faith and was healed! Jesus didn’t give her healing, she took her faith in the presence of Jesus and touched only his clothes. His power then transformed into healing without Jesus doing or saying a thing!
That leads me to ask myself some questions, how will I use my faith? Where will I take my faith? Will I be willingly to be misunderstood and judged, yet keep going? Will I press through a thick crowd to access the power of God?
I pray we will all use our faith. Amen.
A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”
31 “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”
32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
Mark 5: 24-34 NIV
Awesome