St. Simons Community Church

“If I can just touch the hem of his garment, I will be healed.” This was said by a broken woman who was looking for healing. Bleeding for 12 years, she was considered an outcast. Due to her condition, she was not allowed into the temple nor was she allowed to touch another person. She felt cut off from God and from man. The doctors offered her no hope, but Jesus had come to town.

She believed that if she could just touch the hem of his garment that she would be healed. She did touch Jesus that day, and He touched her as well. He touched her more deeply than she had ever imagined. The scripture records, “Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering” (Mark 5:29).

She reached out to Jesus in faith, and she was rewarded with a divine release of power from the Son of God into her life. Her blood had been flowing out for 12 years. Blood is symbolic of life in the scripture. It was as if her life was flowing away, ebbing out of her. And then his life flowed in.

The same power of Christ is still available today. The power of Jesus still flows from Calvary’s cross. The apostle Paul referred to Jesus as a life giving spirit. He gives life to those who truly look to him in faith, for those who reach to him in faith. You can go ahead and ask him to give you his life even now.

Jesus didn’t just heal this woman physically though. She was freed from her suffering in her body, but Jesus wanted to touch her soul as well. The woman had snuck up behind Jesus in an anonymous fashion. As his power flowed into her body, Jesus knew something was going on. He stopped in the crowd having “realized that power had gone out from him” (Mark 5:30). Jesus turned to his disciples and said, “Who touched me?”

The disciples thought it was a ridiculous question. The crowd was so big and everyone was crowding around Jesus. They were thinking, “Who hasn’t touched you?” Jesus asked the question again though, “Who touched me?”

It wasn’t just the tug of a hand Jesus had felt. It was the tug of a heart. It was the tug of faith that he sensed. He knew someone had reached out to him in faith. Jesus scanned the crowd looking for who it was. He wasn’t about to let this woman just get lost in the crowd.

This woman came up to Jesus from behind. Jesus wanted her to come face to face with him though. He wasn’t satisfied just to be this lady’s healer. He didn’t want her to remain nameless and faceless. He wanted this woman to know that he knew… her. He wanted to become her God, her King, Her savior, Her lover, Her Heavenly Father.

This story lets us know that God always wants to make Himself personal to us. Jesus wanted a real relationship with this woman. He didn’t want to be just a mystical force who can touch and heal. He wanted to be a personal God who was real, loving and personal. He is not satisfied until we come face to face with him.

She finally fell at his feet, grateful for his touch, fearful of his rejection. Jesus said, “Daughter, your faith has healed you.” This woman had not heard tender words from a man in more than 12 years. She had the words unclean written on her heart. Just like that though, Jesus wrote a new name on her heart. Not content to just touch her physical body, He spoke love and acceptance in to her heart. Now she was healed, really healed and she would never be the same again. And that’s the Word.