#DailyDevotion So What Does Your Faith In Jesus Look Like?
Mark 5:24-34 24He went with him. A large crowd followed Him and pressed Him on all sides. 25There was a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years. 26She had suffered much under many doctors and had spent all she had. And she had not been helped at all but had actually gotten worse. 27Since she heard about Jesus, she came from behind in the crowd and touched His garment. 28“If I touch His clothes,” she said, “I’ll get well.” 29Immediately her blood stopped flowing, and she felt in her body that she had been healed from her suffering. 30 At that moment Jesus felt power had gone from Him. Turning around in the crowd, He asked, “Who touched My clothes?” 31“You see how the crowd is pressing you on all sides,” His disciples said to Him, “and You ask, “Who touched me?’” 32 But He was looking around to see her who had done this. 33The woman, trembling with fear because she knew what had been done to her, came, bowed down before Him, and told Him the whole truth. 34“Daughter,” He told her, “your faith made you well. Go in peace, be healed from your suffering.”
You can imagine I think being this woman if you have known anyone with a medical problem that will not go away and the doctors have no idea how to fix it. I think of friends with fibromyalgia who for them there seems no cure despite all the money they spend on doctors. This woman also had spent all her money on doctors looking for a cure. Now she had heard of Jesus and no doubt heard of his ability to heal people. Perhaps it was because of her particular disease, a flow of blood, which made her ritually unclean that she may have thought Jesus would not touch her to heal her. Jews usually did all they could to avoid becoming ritually unclean because they cut them off from the worship life of the community until they took care of it. Yet, she was willing to make Jesus ritually unclean if that meant she could be healed. She believed that could be healed by her if she just touched the hem of his garment. She just didn’t think he would be willing to heal her. But why would she think touching his hem would heal her? Someone has noticed that the hem would be actually the tassels all Jewish men had on the hem of their garments the tassels were on the edge or border, the extremity of Jesus’ garment. Ok…So? Well there was a prophesy in Malachi four which says, 2“But for you who respect My name there will rise the Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings.” Now the word for wings in Hebrew is Kanuph. That word can also mean fringe, extremity and the like. So it is possible she believed these words applied to Jesus’ tassels.
In any case, she had faith in his being. So she touched his tassels and she was healed. Jesus felt power go out from him. It is a power that faith taps into. The LORD knows when people have faith in him. It joins us to him and his redemptive power. The disciples couldn’t understand Jesus saying this with everyone crowding him but they were not looking to him with faith. Jesus told her that her faith had healed her. Jesus blessed that healing with his words, “Go in peace, be healed from your suffering.” So I guess the question is, do we go to faith in Jesus or just wishful thinking? Even if we do go to him with faith will we get what we want? John tells us if it is according to his will. Are we like this woman who thinks Jesus can but don’t believe he will do what we ask? I think we can tell from Jesus’ reaction he wants to have compassion on us. I don’t think he is ever willing that we suffer as we see from Lamentations 3. But sometimes that is what is best for us at the time.
Heavenly Father, grant us such faith in Jesus that we may at the resurrection be healed from our sinfulness and inherit the bodies you have made for us in Christ Jesus. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.