Daily Bread Mark 5
Daily Bread Mark 5
A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 25And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26She 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. 27When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." 29Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
30At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"
31"You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?' "
32But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed
you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."
Observation:
Today, we see three more healings. In each case: the demon possessed man, the woman subject to bleeding for 12 years, and the synagogue ruler; all come and approach Jesus and ask him to consider their case. The demons ask to not be sent out of the area, the ruler asks for Jesus to heal his daughter who was deathly sick, and the woman who had been bleeding asks him by touching his cloak.
In each case the person(s) believed in Jesus, and Jesus honored their faith and gave them what they wanted. Even the demons, who recognized Jesus was the Son of the Most High God. Jesus even had mercy on the demons and didn’t seal their fate.
Incredibly the woman who had been bleeding merely touched the hem of his garment and she was healed. You talk about a power encounter! We also see that Jesus was not unaware of his power, as he noticed it had gone out from him.
Application:
Do we have this kind of faith today? Do we see Jesus as this powerful? So often I think we accept things in our lives and say, “Well this must be my lot in life.” We fail to see that just one touch from Jesus will heal us.
Now the danger in this is that we go to other extreme and say if I pray and Jesus doesn’t answer my prayer in ways like this, than I do not have enough faith, or worse yet Jesus doesn’t care about me. This is challenging, especially with all of the bad things that happen to good people in our society.
I struggle with the reality that I see fine Christian men and women with cancer and other diseases, who are prayed for and pray for themselves, and are not healed, at least not right away. Some even die. But I have also seen and prayed for those who have been cured of serious diseases. How do I reconcile all of this? Easy answer, I can’t and I don’t even try, I am not God.
Passages like this inspire me to want to pray more fervently and expectantly that as we call on Jesus, he will act powerfully in our church today. Passages like this help me to encourage others to reach out for the hem of Jesus’ garment. Passages like this remind me that the greatest healing that ever happened was when Jesus rose from the dead on Easter morn.
Prayer: God of healing, work in our midst to show your power to those who need it the most. Give us faith to believe you can even raise the dead, as you were raised in the power of the Spirit. Amen.
A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 25And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26She 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. 27When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." 29Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
30At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"
31"You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?' "
32But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed
you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."
Observation:
Today, we see three more healings. In each case: the demon possessed man, the woman subject to bleeding for 12 years, and the synagogue ruler; all come and approach Jesus and ask him to consider their case. The demons ask to not be sent out of the area, the ruler asks for Jesus to heal his daughter who was deathly sick, and the woman who had been bleeding asks him by touching his cloak.
In each case the person(s) believed in Jesus, and Jesus honored their faith and gave them what they wanted. Even the demons, who recognized Jesus was the Son of the Most High God. Jesus even had mercy on the demons and didn’t seal their fate.
Incredibly the woman who had been bleeding merely touched the hem of his garment and she was healed. You talk about a power encounter! We also see that Jesus was not unaware of his power, as he noticed it had gone out from him.
Application:
Do we have this kind of faith today? Do we see Jesus as this powerful? So often I think we accept things in our lives and say, “Well this must be my lot in life.” We fail to see that just one touch from Jesus will heal us.
Now the danger in this is that we go to other extreme and say if I pray and Jesus doesn’t answer my prayer in ways like this, than I do not have enough faith, or worse yet Jesus doesn’t care about me. This is challenging, especially with all of the bad things that happen to good people in our society.
I struggle with the reality that I see fine Christian men and women with cancer and other diseases, who are prayed for and pray for themselves, and are not healed, at least not right away. Some even die. But I have also seen and prayed for those who have been cured of serious diseases. How do I reconcile all of this? Easy answer, I can’t and I don’t even try, I am not God.
Passages like this inspire me to want to pray more fervently and expectantly that as we call on Jesus, he will act powerfully in our church today. Passages like this help me to encourage others to reach out for the hem of Jesus’ garment. Passages like this remind me that the greatest healing that ever happened was when Jesus rose from the dead on Easter morn.
Prayer: God of healing, work in our midst to show your power to those who need it the most. Give us faith to believe you can even raise the dead, as you were raised in the power of the Spirit. Amen.
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