“Healing - A Woman”

Scripture: Mark 5:21-34

For the next 4 weeks, we will be considering the power of Jesus that comes to us in the Lord’s healing. Healing is usually recognized as physical in nature, but there is far more to it than that, and we will be looking at several healings that Jesus was involved in – the circumstances of the people and the issues surrounding the healing of each. Another question that we may consider is why are so many of Jesus’ miracles centered on healing? Then, during worship on the 5th week, we will hold a healing service.
You may be wondering why we are going to take 4 weeks to examine healing before we have the healing service. I’ve never done it this way before, but I wanted to address the entire issue of healing in a new way, with the intent of bringing a new understanding of how and why Jesus touches us and works his way and glory in our lives.

Have you ever wondered why Jesus would even want to do such personal and powerful things for us? Why doesn’t he just come into us and give us the truth of God? Why would he come to earth in the form and appearance of one of us? Why doesn’t God just be God and give us the absolute truth for our lives? Have you ever thought about any of this? The truth is that the answers to most of our questions are just as mysterious as the process of his healing, and that is saying a lot! Most of the time, we have little, if any, understanding of what and how the Lord is working in our lives. For the most part, we are called to simply believe, and that should be enough.

There are 19 instances of physical healing attributed to Jesus – 20 if you count his own rising from the dead! – and this doesn’t include the many other reports of his power at work in other ways. But for now, we’ll consider physical healing to the extent that we can, and the various ramifications associated with it.

Read Mark 5: 21-24a

It didn’t take long for the people to begin searching for Jesus instead of simply waiting for him to visit their town. No matter where he went in the Galilee, he was met by huge crowds of people looking for healing or some other miracle. Word was constantly spreading about the things that he could do, and everyone had some need that they wanted Jesus to care for.
Some of these needs were real, some were contrived, and others were self-serving, but the Lord always seemed to know the difference – no one could take advantage of his power, and this fact also began to spread far and wide.

This story begins with a request by the leader of the local synagogue – his daughter was deathly ill, and was in desperate need of Jesus’ touch. Nothing else had helped and the Lord was the family’s last hope. But Jairus was a wealthy and influential man who would have been unaccustomed to asking others for anything, much less begging them for help. But Jairus, in his anxiety over his daughter’s condition, put everything aside, including his pride, and went to Jesus.

But Jairus and his daughter isn’t the main story for today – there is another person who is on the way to Jesus at this very moment, with an intensity of faith that is very possibly deeper than that of the religious ruler’s. Jesus would be side tracked before he could get to the man’s home by this second person who, apparently, was even more important than the first.

Read Mark 5:24b-29

This woman’s life was in the extreme opposite end of the social spectrum from Jairus. Jairus had prestige, the woman had none; we know his name, but not the woman’s; he had wealth and authority, the woman was poor; his daughter’s situation had begun recently, the woman’s had plagued her for 12 years; Jairus had enough self-confidence to approach Jesus face to face, but because of the woman’s issue of blood, she was “unclean”, and her only chance to come to the Lord was in as veiled a way as possible. This is the person our lesson is focused on today.

She had been hemorrhaging for 12 years, and is lucky to even be alive. She had spent everything she had on physicians who not only couldn’t cure her condition, but who had only made her problem worse. We read of no friends, no family, no one at all to help her or to care about her. She was alone in the world, and because of her condition, she was, for all practical purposes, a social and religious outcast.

But there is also a difference in the level of faith that these two people had. Jairus asks Jesus to lay hands on his child, as both a physical sign of healing and a personal recognition of his request. It is, without a doubt, a strong faith, but the woman’s faith was different. She never sought recognition or a sign – she had no need of physical contact, or that the right words would be spoken, or that Jesus would even see who she was and could tell others about her. Faith told her that all she needed to do was to touch the cloak that touched the clothes that touched him, and that would be sufficient to end her suffering.

Now that is faith. She had a faith that was so deep and so complete that conventional approaches to healing were unnecessary for her. She had heard of other healings by Jesus, and she had no doubt whatsoever that he was absolutely who he appeared to be, and could do everything that she needed him to do. Only God, only the long awaited Messiah, could do the things that were attributed to him … and she believed without hesitation.
So, as soon as she touched the coat that Jesus was wearing, the bleeding stopped, and her body was immediately made well, and she knew that a divine power had come into her life. And no one else knew that anything had happened, except for Jesus.

Read Mark 5:30-34

The Lord had felt something happen when the power was transferred from him to the woman. But not only did everyone else miss the miracle, they never even noticed the woman. Hundreds of people, and maybe even thousands, were clamoring to touch Jesus just as the woman had done, but apparently none of them had the depth of her faith. Even the disciples could only see the press of the masses – they could see the crowd, but missed the person. This is an example of a saying we use today – “they missed the forest for the trees”. It means that we see what we expect to see, we see the “ordinary” things of life, but we totally miss the beauty and glory that surrounds us.

This woman, who everyone else had missed, and who no one else cared about, would not be missed by Jesus. He looked through the crowd for whoever had received his power, but we are led to believe that he couldn’t identify her. Personally, though, if he had felt power leave him, then it is highly probable that he also knew where it went. But in his searching, he would be giving the woman the opportunity to step forward in public acknowledgement of what Jesus had done for her.

Scripture tells us that as she came, she was trembling with fear and fell at the Lord’s feet. Remember that the law identified her as an unclean and sinful woman, and she had just touched someone who was generally seen as a rabbi, but who she knew was much more. The unclean had just touched him, thereby transferring her uncleanliness, to the one who was perfectly clean. No wonder she was trembling with fear as she confessed to what she had just done and why and what had come of it.
But does Jesus chastise her for touching him? Or scold her for taking power that she had not been given? Or for being so bold as to reach out to touch a man who was not her husband? For Jesus, none of this mattered – he only saw the extreme faith that she exhibited which, in and of itself, proved without a doubt who he was. And he shares the credit for this miracle by declaring before all who were there, that it was her faith in him that had brought about this great work.

How deep is your faith? How much trust are you willing to place in our Lord Jesus Christ? And if your need isn’t cared for immediately, do you begin making excuses as to why God is ignoring you?
This woman wasn’t even considering the possibility of not being healed of her debilitating condition. She believed, she knew for certain, that if she could just touch the Lord’s clothing, that that would be enough to end her misery. She sought no recognition, no elevation in status, no praise from Jesus, no adoration from her neighbors and friends, nothing except the healing that the presence and power that Jesus can bring.

Is the name and truth of Jesus enough for you, too?