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Who Touched Me? (Mark 5:21-34)
There will always be those who insist "it can't be that
simple". Who object that you are twisting the gospel when you quote:
If you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord,"
and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will
be saved…Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Ro.10:9,13).
"There just has to be more to it than that", they say.
This story illustrates very well how simply believing Jesus brings wholeness. There are three steps to bring us to this point of believing and receiving wholeness.
Facing the Problem
The woman in this story had a problem and knew it. She had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. One of the most fundamental obstacles to saving faith today is our failure to recognise we have a problem. In Romans Paul wrote:
There is no one righteous, not even one;
There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.
All have turned away, they have altogether become worthless;
There is no one who does good, not even one (Ro.3:10-12)
I spoke to a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses who insisted that God called
the apostle Paul because he "saw Paul's potential" as a Christian leader.
Ironic in light of Paul's own estimation of himself as "the
chief of sinners" (1 Tim.1:15), let alone his own words just
quoted from Romans 3.
It appeals to our pride to think that God calls people according to the "potential" he sees in them. It means he must have seen something in me if I am in his service today. But Scripture declares:
All have sinned and fall short of the glory
of God (Ro.3:23)
We must recognise the desperate nature of the problem we have. We are sinners in need of a saviour, not someone with potential in need of a life coach.
Seeking the Answer
The woman in the story "had suffered a great
deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead
of getting better she grew worse".
This is the story of so many. They recognise there is a problem and, like Pilgrim at the beginning of Pilgrim's Progress, they are distracted by it. They read the books, go along to all the seminars, join this group and that and try all sorts of things from self-help programmes to religious movements. They invest themselves - and their money - into goodness knows what in an effort to solve the problem they have identified. Maybe they have heard of Jesus but they have bought into the lie that "it can't be that simple" and are convinced "there must be more to it than that". Some people seem to need to come to the very end of themselves and their self-sufficiency before they get to where this woman found herself, in a crowd looking for Jesus.
Simple Faith
When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind
him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, "If I just
touch his clothes, I will be healed".
This is such simple faith. The kind of faith so many find difficult to exercise because it is so simple - because it is all about Jesus and not about me. However, when someone realises that it is all about Jesus that person will fight through the crowd, go against the flow, make every effort to get to the object of their faith. This is the simple faith that saves. Jesus' words to the woman are wonderful words:
Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace
and be freed from your suffering.
He wants to say the same today to anyone that turns and calls on him.
Remember, Everyone who calls on the name of
the Lord will be saved (Ro.10:13).
Who Touched Me?
One last point I want to make. Jesus asked, "Who
touched my clothes?"
His disciples thought this a dumb question, You see the people crowding against you, and yet you can ask, "Who touched my clothes?"
No matter how many seem to crowd around Jesus he always knows when someone
has reached out to him in faith. When the woman touched Jesus "At
once [he] realised that power had gone out from him".
Paul could hardly contain himself as he wrote to the Ephesian believers:
I pray also that the eyes of your heart may
be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called
you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his
incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like
the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when
he raised him from the dead…(Eph.1:18-20)
The power of Jesus is saving power, resurrection power, and he knows when we have trusted him for it. He knows his own and is known by them (John 10:14). May you know that power this week. May you be known by him as one who has reached out in simple, uncluttered, faith.