The incident described in Mark 5:25-34 could be called “A study in elbows and fingertips.” Jesus is in a huge crowd of people. Shoulders were bumping Him. Elbows were prodding Him as people pushed their way close enough to see Him, to hear Him, and perhaps even to see Him perform a miracle.
Suddenly, in the midst of all that milling, jostling throng, Jesus felt a soft touch at the hem of His garment. He felt power go out from His body. Turning around to the crowd, He asked, “Who touched my clothes?” His disciples thought He must be joking, for so many had rubbed elbows with him while walking down the street. Jesus kept looking into the faces of the people until He saw a woman standing nearby, embarrassed because the spotlight of attention was falling on her.
She knew she could not remain silent, so she spoke up, admitting that indeed it had been she who had touched His garment. Then, she went on to explain that she had been hemorrhaging and had lost a lot of blood. She had spent all of her money on doctor’s bills, but she was not getting any better. .Thinking, “If Jesus cannot help me, no one can,” she reached out and touched the hem of His garment.
I can imagine that many of the people who were in that crowd went home that day thinking, “I rubbed elbows with Jesus all the way down the street, and nothing happened to me. A very sick woman reached out from behind Him and touched just the hem of the garment, and she was healed. What made the difference in the way those in the crowd touched Jesus and the way she touched Him?” It is an important question:
First of all, the woman touched Jesus out of a sense of her need, while the crowd only rubbed elbows with Him as they walked down the street. She had been hemorrhaging for a long time. The Talmud (the Jewish Commentary on the Law) gives no fewer than eleven cures for the kind of trouble she had. Some of them were sheer superstitions like carrying the ashes of an ostrich egg in a linen rag in summer and in a cotton rag during the winter, or carrying around a grain of barley which had been found in the dung hill of a white female donkey. If she had been trying such absurd remedies, no wonder she was growing weaker and weaker. No wonder she felt that Jesus of Nazareth was her only hope to be healed.
Second, the woman touched Jesus in a spirit of reverence. Surely it was not out of a spirit of fear that she touched Him. If He were the Messiah, one would not rush unthinkingly into His presence. If one touched Him at all, it should be with an attitude of deep reverence. In many of our churches I fear we have lost our sense of reverence. Every time we enter into worship with our fellow Christians we should do so out of a sense of need and with reverence, strongly believing that God will bless us. This is vitally important because He is the One who judges our sins. He is the One whose forgiveness we seek.
Every time God’s people catch a vision of His glory through worship, He will make Himself strongly present. It is when we join others in sincere worship, expecting great things to happen, that God’s presence and power are felt and our lives are made whole. It happens because we, like the woman described in Mark 5:25-34, have reached out to touch the hem of Christ’s garment with the fingertips of faith.
The way to be healed of infirmities is to go to the source of healing — Jesus Christ. How about your life? Is it empty of meaning? If so, why not reach out to touch the hem of the Savior’s garment? It is the only way you can be healed, and forgiven, and cleansed, and transformed.
The Paper Pulpit 
Leave a Reply