STEALING A HEALING

MUSINGS - October 09 2018

STEALING A HEALING?

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Mark 5:25-34
In the crowd was a woman who had been suffering from chronic bleeding for twelve years. Although she had been under the care of many doctors and had spent all her money, she had not been helped at all. Actually, she had become worse. Since she had heard about Jesus, she came from behind in the crowd and touched his clothes. She said, "If I can just touch his clothes, I'll get well." Her bleeding stopped immediately. She felt cured from her illness. At that moment Jesus felt power had gone out of him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?" His disciples said to him, "How can you ask, 'Who touched me,' when you see the crowd pressing you on all sides?" But he kept looking around to see the woman who had done this. The woman trembled with fear. She knew what had happened to her. So she quickly bowed in front of him and told him the whole truth. Jesus told her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace! Be cured from your illness."

This story comes in the middle of, and indeed interrupts the story of Jesus restoring life to the young daughter of the synagogue Leander. Here is the setting, Jesus it's in the midst of a moving mob of people. He is on the way to save the life of the daughter of a synagogue leader. And then the unexpected happened.

He stopped. He stopped and looked around as if he'd lost something. His disciples were concerned and confused. They were on the way to save a life. Why did he stop? What was he looking for? And then he said the strangest thing, Who touched my clothes?"

The answer to that was, "Everybody!" This wasn't a stationary sit-on-the-hillside-and-teach situation. They were on the move. Everyone was follow him to Jairus's home to see him heal a child. And, if course, everyone wanted to be as close to the action as they could get. They were talk touching him.

However, one touch was different. One touch was with a purpose. One person wanted a healing, but on their own terms. They didn't want to beg for it nor did they want to be made a public spectacle like what was happening with Jairus's daughter. And it appeared to have worked because the bleeding stopped and she felt better.

That, however, wasn't enough for Jesus. He stopped this surging crowd and demanded to know who had touched him. In fear, she knelt before him and confessed. In love, he blessed her faith in him and then ... and only then, he said, "Be cured from your illness." The bleeding had stopped when she touched him, but the cure only came after coming face to face with the Master.

I gate to admit it, but I have at times been like this woman. I wanted a miracle on my terms. But it is only when you can say, "Not my will, not my way, but Yours, my Lord," that God is able to provide what I truly needed.

Have you come pleading with the Lord or have you come to take it without acknowledging his Kingship?

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