Mark 5: 25-34 (NLT)
A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding. She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse. She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.” Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition. Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?” His disciples said to him, “Look at this crowd pressing around you. How can you ask, ‘Who touched me?’” But he kept on looking around to see who had done it. Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.”
Today, we will open with a question. Have you ever been left beaten down, bloodied, robbed of both money and dignity? I don’t assume to know much in this life, but I can say assuredly that we have all felt this way at some point. Some in a literal, physical way. More only spiritually, which can be infinitely worse. Years and years of hurting can go by with no healing. No nothing. We reach out for help, but there are so many crying for help, we get lost in the crowd. “Just one in a million faces,” as the band Kutless puts it.
Then we see hope in the distance. It (or in the story’s case, He) draws closer and closer. But again, there are so many desperate people that even if we stretch out and scream for relief and “face time“, we’re just a drop of water in an a wavy ocean. We hit the ground on all fours, we scratch and claw not to grab him necessarily, but simply the thing covering him. We don’t care how we get there. We don’t care who’s watching. We’re just that desperate for a healing. Or if we’ve already been healed and restored, we’re just as desperate for another touch by the Savior.
When we reach out in desperation to Jesus, whether it’s the first time or the millionth time, He does for us what He did for the bleeding woman. He stops. He parts the masses of people. He asks who is reaching out, crying out for Him. He calls us to Him. Then He touches us. He grants healing, wholeness, encouragement, strength, love, forgiveness, jobs, reconciliation with family and friends, and countless other things.
Let us not forget our first desperate cry to God. Now make it a daily occurrence.
