Mark 5:24-34: Reach Out and Touch the Lord

INTRODUCTION

Have you ever experienced the reality of God?—a time when God seemed as real as someone you could see with your eyes?

If you have experienced the reality of God, you crave that sense that God is always with you and you are with him—and that he will never let you go.

This is why we read the gospels—because in the gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—we meet Jesus. And it is in Jesus that we meet God.

As we read the gospels attentively, we see Jesus in our mind’s eye. We use our imagination to picture him as he touches the leper, stills the storm, gives sight to the blind, and tells the sinful woman that her sins are forgiven.

We want to walk through life with Jesus as our constant companion. We want to feel that he is there.

That is why prayer is so essential—prayer in the morning, prayer during the day, prayer in the evening—and if we awaken in the night, to pray then too.

But sometimes God seems far away. It’s distressing to feel that God has forsaken us—to feel abandoned in our troubles.

Sometimes when we feel really crummy we don’t feel close to God at all.

But sickness and trouble can also draw us closer to God.

I have a friend whose marriage has failed. She’s going through a painful and distressing divorce.

But she’s not turning away from God. She’s clinging all the more to God. She says that God is closer to her now than ever before.

It doesn’t take away the hurt, but it gives her hope.

I want to share a story with you about a woman who reached out and touched Jesus—quite literally—and what happened.

It happened in Capernaum, Jesus’s home town during much of his ministry.

Jesus was in the midst of a crowd. He was on this way to the house of a synagogue ruler who had asked his help.

Mark 5:24-34:

…And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. And there was a woman who had had a flow of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I shall be made well.” And immediately the hemorrhage ceased; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.

And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone forth from him, immediately turned about in the crowd, and said, “Who touched my garments?”

And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’”

And he looked around to see who had done it.

But the woman, knowing what had been done to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him, and told him the whole truth.

And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

I. Jesus had become a celebrity.

A. In the chapter leading up to this one we saw Jesus in a boat during a storm. The boat was sinking, but Jesus was asleep. His disciples awoke him in terror, and Jesus awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!”

And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

Then earlier in this same chapter we saw a tormented man who dwelt naked among the tombs. He was constantly crying out and cutting himself with stones, and no one could restrain him. He was convinced that he had within him an army of demons.

But Jesus cast out the demons, and when the people came out of the town to see what had happened, they found this man sitting with Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.

Because of these mighty deeds of power Jesus had become a celebrity. A crowd surrounded him, wherever he went.

Here we see him in the midst of a great crowd of people—thronging him, jostling him.

B. But Jesus was delayed. A woman crept up through the crowd and touched him—hoping for a miracle.

This woman had a disease that was worse than death—a discharge of blood that had afflicted her constantly, day and night, for twelve years.

We need to go back to the Old Testament book of Leviticus to see why this affliction was so terrible for her.

In Leviticus 15 we read that when a woman had a vaginal discharge, she was considered “unclean.”

According to this old law, whoever touched her was unclean. Whoever touched anything she had touched was unclean. Everything on which she lay was unclean. Whoever touched her had to wash his clothes and bathe in water, and be unclean until the evening.

Other women experienced this inconvenience each month during their periods.

But for this woman, the condition was permanent—and it had gone on for twelve years.

She couldn’t come to the synagogue or Temple to worship.

Can you imagine how lonely her life was?

Her disease had impoverished her because she had spent all her living on doctors—all the time, over the years, getting worse and worse.

Because of the loss of blood, she was always weak, always anxious.

But this poor, desperate woman had heard about Jesus, and she had come to believe that he could heal her, as he had healed so many others.

So on this day she crept up behind Jesus in the crowd and touched his garment.

She couldn’t come as others did and ask for healing. If she had owned up to her “uncleanness” the crowd would have been horrified.

She was embarrassed and afraid—but she was brave. Her faith gave her courage.

II. The woman crept up behind Jesus, reached out and touched his clothes, and her faith was rewarded with instantaneous healing. The flow of blood ceased, and she felt strength return to her body.

A. Then we read, “Jesus, perceiving that power had gone forth from him, immediately turned around and said, ‘Who touched my garments?’”

Some people think that Jesus—because he was God Incarnate—never asked an honest question.

But Jesus was not only God Incarnate; he was also completely human. He wasn’t simply God in disguise.

When Jesus felt the healing power go from him, he needed to know who had touched him with that expectant faith—and the grateful woman came forward and owned up to what she had done.

And now we come to the most important part—for us.

B. And Jesus said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you; go in peace and be healed of your disease.

I want to remind you that in Greek, the language of the New Testament, the word for “healed” and “saved” and “rescued” are the same word—sōzō.

But why did he tell her that her faith had saved her? Wasn’t it God’s power that healed her?

Of course, it was. But faith was the channel through which God’s power flowed into her body and into her life.

Our faith is powerless, but faith is the hand that reaches out to accept the gift from God. When we believe, we open our life to God, and his power flows into us.

That is why, when Jesus healed people or forgave them, he often told them, “Your faith has saved you.” He wanted them to know how necessary their faith was.

Jesus wanted to make sure that the happy woman knew that it wasn’t some kind of magic in his clothes that healed her, but it was her faith in reaching out and touching him that enabled God’s power to flow into her life and heal her.

C. I like it that Jesus addressed the woman as “daughter.”

Jesus tenderly called her “Daughter” to show that she had come into a relationship with himself. She had become a member of Jesus’s circle of friends. He would always be there for her.

Perhaps she became a disciple and followed Jesus with his other women disciples until the end of his time on earth. Perhaps she went back home to rejoin her family. But I have reason to believe that her healing was not only in her body but also in her soul.

D. So Jesus told her, “Go in peace.”

Peace—Shalom in Hebrew, and Eirēnē, in Greek—was a common term for “hello” and “good bye.” But Jesus is using the term in a more serious way here.

“Peace” in the Bible has a much broader meaning than it does in English.

“Peace” in the Bible means wholeness, well-being, prosperity, spiritual and physical health—and also salvation.

The Greek could just as well be translated, “Go into peace!”

Life would forever be different for this woman, because she had met Jesus with faith, and she had been made whole.

APPLICATION

This story, like all of Jesus’ miracles, is an acted-out parable. As needy people, we need a Savior. As we touch Jesus with faith, then healing and peace and salvation flow into our lives.

Many throng the Savior but few touch him.

We can sit in church and never touch Jesus. We can read the Bible and never touch Jesus.

To reach out and touch Jesus means to know our need, to see him as our Savior, and to give ourselves to him in faith and obedience.

When we touch Jesus, life is forever different.

St. Paul wrote, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away. Everything has become new!”

But to reach out and touch Jesus isn’t a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Every time we pray an honest prayer from our heart, we reach out and touch the Lord.

Our prayer can be as simple as, “Help me! Help me! Help me!” or, “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”

But we need to be serious about God. Casual, routine prayers don’t bring God into our lives.

In Psalm 62 the psalmist writes: “Trust in the Lord at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him.”

St. Paul wrote of wrestling in prayer (Colossians 4:12).
So whenever you pray with urgency, you reach out and touch the Lord.

And every time we read the Bible and consider its meaning for us, we reach out and touch Jesus.

Every time we do a kind or generous action, motivated by love for Jesus, we reach out and touch the Lord.

Have you reached out and touched Jesus? If you have, do it again and again. Do it every day.