Who Touched Me?
Mark 5:21-43
June 28, 2015[1]
“Immediately aware that power had gone forth
from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?”
(Mark 5:30)
[Jesus]
“said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be
healed of your disease.” (Mark 5:34)
In
the middle of responding to one crisis, and surrounded by the crowds, Jesus is
confronted with another crisis. A woman who had
been hemorrhaging for 12 years touches the hem of Jesus' garment.
Healing energy flows, such that Jesus notices, stops, and asks, "Who
touched my clothes?"
Let’s
think for just a moment the obstacles that separated this woman from Jesus.
· There was a large crowd following Jesus.
· Jesus was busy; He was occupied in a matter of life
and death for a leader of the synagogue.
· There was the issue of gender diversity. Jesus was a man; she was not. In Jewish culture, that fact alone should
have been enough to keep distance between them.
· She was hemorrhaging.
That meant two things:
o
She was sick and
tired. We know today what they did not
know about the role that blood plays in life.
To be hemorrhaging for twelve years is almost beyond comprehension.
o
Her bleeding made
her ritually unclean under the law. You
can read in Leviticus 15 the strict codes that restricted the lives of
women. They could not be touched, their
clothing could not be touched, the cushions on which they sat could not be
touched—not until the eighth day after they had stopped bleeding and the women
were required to deliver two turtle doves or two pigeons to the priest, who
would “offer one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering … to make atonement on her behalf before the Lord for her bodily discharge.” (Leviticus
15:30).
There
were lots of things separating her from Jesus and from His healing touch.
Hemorrhaging
can be literal; but there are lots of ways to bleed to death. The past couple of weeks have been
tough. We have seen tragedies—as local
as a father and grandfather, who had survived military service overseas and had
been recovering from PTSD, being snuffed out in an automobile accident. As tragic as a Bible Study being invaded by a
young man filled with hatred, and leaving nine bodies plus his own soul in the
rubble. And then we see values that we
have cherished being called into question by Supreme Court decisions. We get upset, and we look to sources outside
ourselves as the problem. We point
fingers, whether literally, verbally, or just in our heads. And we wonder, where is God in all this?
But
the hemorrhaging in our world can be found not only in the front-page headlines
that grab our attention. Hemorrhaging
can be found in a story on the inside pages of today’s New York Times, in a story about a 24
year-old girl named Alex, a baby sitter, Presbyterian Sunday School teacher,
living with her grandparents in the middle of nowhere, still suffering from the
effects of fetal alcohol syndrome, which has left her with trembling hands, a
persistent lack of maturity and poor judgment.
All of which has left her lonely, and turning to on-line friends she had
never known as a source of friendship.[2]
Alex suffers from bleeding of a more
quiet sort. I am discovering that people
like Alex are all around us.
So
the woman reaches out to touch Jesus. To
her amazement, something happens.
In
the Gospel story, the woman was part of a crowd. Don’t you think that the crowd must have been
filled with broken people? People who
suffered from countless illnesses—both physical and emotional? I don’t think
their brokenness stopped there. I
suspect that the crowd was filled with people who were suffering from broken
relationships--from guilt, from anxiety about decisions to be made, from worry
about the direction their world, their government, their religious leaders, and
their culture were heading. Among all of
these, one woman determined to reach out and touch Jesus, to seek His healing.
Maybe
some of the others thought that their problems were too small for Jesus. Perhaps they failed to recognize how
seemingly little problems can quickly escalate into huge ones.
Quaker
pastor and spiritual writer Philip Gulley wrote a book on Living the Quaker Way.
Gulley speaks about a creek near his home that swells with water each
spring—sometimes so much that it sweeps away large sycamore trees that line the
banks of the creek. One day, Gulley
travelled upstream to examine the source of the creek—situated on a farm five
miles to the north. What gives rise to
that creek that undermines and topples sycamore trees? A tiny, insignificant culvert. It doesn’t look like much; but under certain
conditions, it gives birth to a torrent that wreaks havoc.
Gulley
writes that “every war ever fought, every tyrannical government ever to rule,
every system of oppression ever devised, every clash between neighbors, every
divorce, and every schism has had as its source the slightest trickle of a
broken soul … What must be healed is the
hateful thought, the intolerant rhetoric, the laws that demean.”[3]
But
the woman was healed. Her hemorrhaging
stopped. We actually see a couple
different words used here. The NIV
translation that we have in our pews says, “Daughter, your faith has healed
you. Go in peace and be freed
from your suffering.” There is cure from
the physical condition, but there also is freedom. Sometimes freedom comes as a result of a
cure; sometimes we discover freedom in the midst of illness—freedom of spirit,
enabling us to sing, despite our external circumstances, that “It is well with
my soul.”[4]
Our
Gospel Lesson affirms to us the truth that God’s healing power surrounds us and
is always accessible and available to us.
Maybe not always in the way would like to receive it; but it is there
nonetheless.
But
God’s healing grace is not just some fuzzy idea that is “out there” like
gravity or magnetic force. God’s healing
force is something that God experiences, just as we do.
In
our Gospel Lesson, we read that when the woman touched Jesus, “at once Jesus
realized that power had gone out from him.
He turned around in the crowd and asked, “who touched my clothes?” (Mark
5:30). When we reach out to touch Jesus, He notices. Not just in a literal, seeing way; but the
faith connection is something that both we and Jesus notice and experience. What does it mean to you when you realize
that Jesus experiences what is going on in our lives?
This
week, we have had a lot to talk about in the news. There is a lot of
distraction in our world. In the middle of all the noise and clamor,
I need to connect with Jesus!
Healing
doesn’t always come in the way that I want it.
Healing doesn’t necessarily mean that Jesus will change our exterior
circumstances, although He might. Jesus’
way of healing doesn’t necessarily mean that He will cure our physical
illnesses, although He might. His way of
healing doesn’t necessarily mean that today or tomorrow or even next week, He
will change everyone else who is causing our problems, although He might. The healing that Jesus offers us this morning
is a healing of the human heart, healing the fear and brokenness that we suffer
inside because of the broken world around us and in us.
We
need that kind of healing today. Is
there anyone here who is suffering from a broken heart that needs healing? I invite you to reach out to Jesus this
morning to touch the hem of his garment.
How do we do this? We touch Jesus
by reaching out in prayer—connecting with Him by faith. Not looking for magic; just looking to
connect with His love and His grace, knowing that Jesus has promised us that He
is even more anxious to reach out to us than we are to touch Him!
Some
people find it helpful to reach out as part of the community. We will give you an opportunity, if you
desire, to come forward while we sing our Hymn of Response, receive anointing
with oil and pray with me. As we pray
together, I ask that the entire congregation lift you up in prayer, as
well. You can continue your prayer at
the altar rail and return to your seat as you are ready.
The
oil is not a magic potion; its power comes as a symbol of God’s healing grace,
grace which is available to all.
Jesus
said to the woman, “your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of
your disease.” (v. 34). He offers the same to each of us today. Won’t you reach out in faith, touch him, and
be healed?
[1]
Preached at Cunningham United Methodist Church in Palmyra, Virginia on the
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost.
[2]
jSee Rukmini Callimachi, “ISIS and the Lonely
Young American,” viewed on the Internet on June 28, 2015 at
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/world/americas/isis-online-recruiting-american.html?emc=edit_th_20150628&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=53645499&_r=0.
[3]
Philip Gulley, Living the Quaker Way
(New York: Random House, 2013), 85.
[4]
Horatios Spafford, “It Is Well with My Soul,” in The United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville: The United Methodist
Publishing House, 1989), 377.
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