Mark 5:25-34
Stealing a Cure
I meet a lot of Veterans at the VA who are in chronic pain. Some of you are in chronic pain. You have hurt for so long you don’t remember what it is like NOT to hurt. Sometimes you allow that pain to drive you AWAY from God. “Why won’t you take this away? Why won’t you heal me?” I’m going to suggest today that you allow that pain to drive you TO God, not away from him. Let’s learn from the woman in today’s story. First, if you want to “steal a cure,”
1. Come as you are
This woman had been bleeding chronically for twelve long years. Her condition made her perpetually “unclean” in Jewish law. This meant that she couldn’t be around other people. She had to shop alone. She had to eat her meals alone. She couldn’t go to church or any other gathering. She had to stand at a distance from everyone else. If she was married, her husband could divorce her since she couldn’t have children. If she wasn’t yet married, no man would want her as his wife. She had to announce her unclean status whenever others approached. It was a terribly lonely state to be in, socially unacceptable, kind of like the walking dead.
Yet, she came as she was to Jesus. Verse 27 says, “When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak.” She violated Jewish law to be in the crowd in the first place. And to touch a holy man, a rabbi, that would render him unclean for the day as well, which could bring her a strong reprimand. She was taking a great risk here, a risk of rejection, which tells us something of her desperate state. She was absolutely desperate for a cure! And she got one.
Think about this: Jewish thinking of the time said if unclean meets clean, then unclean contaminates clean, and clean becomes unclean. That was why she was doomed to a life of quarantine, of excommunication. Yet, she came as she was to Jesus. And this time, when unclean met clean, clean made unclean ... CLEAN!
That is what Jesus does for each of us. Billy Graham’s autobiography is entitled, “Just as I am.” His consistent preaching message over time was, “You come to God just as you are. You don’t try to get cleaned up first. Why? Because none of us can get clean enough for God. We are all sinners. Our best hope, our only hope, is to come to him just as we are. Bring all your sin to him, all your needs to him, all your worries to him, and allow him to clean you: physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. The Apostle Paul described the interchange that happens when unclean meets clean in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” We who are unclean come to Clean, and Clean makes us clean.
Folks, let your desperation drive you TO God, not away from God. Throw yourself at the heels of Jesus. Reach out to the hem of his robe. Bring everything you have to the one who is our Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals. And allow him to purify you, body, mind, and soul. And when you come, like the lady in the story,
2. Believe the impossible
Catch her motivation. Why did she take such social and legal risks to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment? Verse 28 tells us: “Because she thought, ‘If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.’” And verse 29 gives us the result: “Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
This woman had tried it all! Every doctor, every cure, every mail-in magazine ad, every online promise, every prescription drug, every over-the-counter med, every herb and vitamin, every procedure, every exercise. And nothing had worked. In fact, she just got worse! You know, sometimes you can see the personality of the gospel writers behind the prose, how God used real people to preserve these accounts for us. This story is in all three gospels. If you look at Luke the doctor’s account, you notice that he is a little softer on the doctors. He leaves out the part about her just getting worse with their help! But some of you know that feeling: you do everything you’re told, and nothing improves; in fact, it just gets worse.
There is something about this woman’s faith that catches the eye. She just knew that all she had to do was touch Jesus. She didn’t need his attention. She didn’t need his touch on her. She didn’t need his time. She just needed to touch him, and that would be enough. The people back then had some supernatural beliefs about the touch of a holy man, what that touch could do. Just as people today are sometimes impressed with the touch of someone famous. Yet, there was more to this woman than superstition. Evidently, she realized that Jesus was the real deal. He was God’s man. And she knew, she just knew that God could heal her. And God did, evidently even without Jesus’ conscious participation.
Today’s story is sandwiched in between the story of Jairus’ daughter dying. Jairus, a big wig synagogue official and a true God-fearer, had asked for Jesus to come quickly to heal his very sick daughter, his 12-year-old daughter. (Notice the connection of twelves? Jairus’ daughter had been alive as long as the woman had been sick!) Even as Jesus pauses to find out who had drawn healing power out of him, Jairus’ daughter moves ever closer to the point of death. This probably accounts for the disciples’ agitation when they say, “What do you mean, who touched you? We’re in a crowd, for goodness sake!” They know delay could be fatal. Finally, as Jesus sends the woman on in peace, some of Jairus’ peeps come and say, “Don’t bother the Teacher any longer. It’s too late. Your daughter has died. All hope is lost.” Yet, what ties these two stories together is that, in both accounts, people are called to believe the impossible. Just as the woman with chronic bleeding believed in an impossible cure, Jesus now challenges Jairus to that same level of belief. “Don’t worry. Your daughter will live.”
What about in your case? Will you believe the impossible? I’m not talking about “blind faith,” where we put God to the test, restricting him to a healing or else: “Make me well or I’m giving up on you.” I’m talking about holding onto God when you have nothing else to hold onto. About believing that God can do what doesn’t otherwise seem humanly possible. God the healer. God the interceder. Lastly,
3. Receive Jesus’ healing
When you have experienced a miracle, the only proper response is to honor the one who did it. This woman knew immediately that she was well, not just recuperating, but completely well. And when Jesus called out to the crowd, she knew she had been found out. At first she’s embarrassed. She’s used to a life of shame, after all. But finally she comes forward, bowed low, and acknowledges all she had done, and all that God had done through Jesus.
And the next word out of Jesus’ mouth is vital: “Daughter.” To the one who has been cut off from society for twelve long years, Jesus uses a term that says, “You’re family. You’re dear to me and to Father God.” He says in verse 34, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
As with many other healing miracles, Jesus attributes the healing not to his supernatural strength, not to the all-powerful God, but to her own faith. He rightly points out, “This wasn’t superstition. This wasn’t magic. This was simply God choosing to reward your faith.” Not to say there is always a direct connection between our faith and God’s healing. Some people teach that. They say to the couple whose child is on the verge of death, “Your faith is just not strong enough!” No, that’s the wrong message. Death is part of life for now. This woman in today’s story would get sick again and die someday. Likewise, Jairus’ daughter would not live forever. Yet there is another form of life that is even greater than this human life we know.
When Jesus says, “Your faith has HEALED you,” did you know that the word for “healed” there is the same word we use for “saved” when it comes to our eternal salvation? One and the same in the Greek language. It carries the essence of “wholeness.” The woman is whole physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Her faith has not only healed her physically but it has also healed her spiritually. In coming to Jesus, she has found not only a second chance at physical life, but also eternal life, life that will last forever in her Lord and Savior.
Jesus gives the woman a double farewell: “Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” As she goes in peace, she has peace WITH God, which is the only way to really have the peace OF God. This is her spiritual healing. If you have been fretting about your physical condition, reach out to the God of miracles. Let your challenges drive you TO God, not away from God. Believe that with God, all things are possible. Then, regardless of the outcome, you will have peace WITH God, as you allow Jesus to be your Master. And that will give you the peace OF God, as you no longer have to worry about your fate. You can leave it in the Master’s hands.
Then Jesus says, “Be freed from your suffering.” He doesn’t tell her to go to a priest for an official blessing, as he once did with the man healed from leprosy. Her healing was private, hidden in the pressing of a large crowd. Yet, since her punishment has been very public—excluded from society—he now makes her healing very public, declaring to her and the crowd: “You are now free from all your past suffering. You are healed to live again, and to give glory to God as your society receives you back.” This is her physical and social healing. When God heals, he heals completely.
Jesus would not heal every sick person in the Bible. Scripture records 35 miracles Jesus did, and many more not mentioned specifically. Yet, Jesus didn’t heal everyone. Sickness and death are part of our world, for a time. But the good news is, someday God will eradicate them completely. Someday there will be a new heaven and a new earth, with no more tears, no more sadness, no more sickness and death. Until then, we throw ourselves at the hem of Jesus, prepared to steal a cure if God so grants, and choosing to worship the God who gives and takes away, regardless of the outcome. Let us pray:
Heavenly Father, thank you for this woman of extraordinary faith, a person who refused to let societal norms keep her away from you and your son and the miracle you wanted to happen that day. Help us to be like that woman, to trust you completely, knowing you can do the impossible. Like a man in another story said, “We believe. Help us in our unbelief!” Fill in the gaps where our faith stops short. Meet us where we are, in our mixture of faith and doubt, and help us to grow in trusting you. Until one day you take us to be with you forever and ever, and eradicate all sin and death for good. In the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord, we pray, amen.
