Learning from Jesus - Pt. 6

 

And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” (Mark 5:24-34 ESV).

 

If you have ever visited the Village in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, you have experienced the crowds of people who wait in long lines to get a table at the Pancake Pantry. While Mary and I don’t eat there every visit, we do enjoy the experience when we do. It can be very crowded at the breakfast hour. People are typically patient and congenial as they wait, though it can get crowded enough that you might feel a bump or two from people trying to navigate through the crowd to the other shops. I suppose that’s one of the necessary inconveniences of a trip to such a heavily visited tourist destination.

 

This is something of what happened in our reading today. Jesus was well known in the region by this time. Great crowds of people gathered around him often to hear him teach, or hoping for a miracle. For the woman who had been sick for 12 years, she knew that her only hope would be to touch Jesus. She thought, “If I just touch his cloak, no one will notice, and yet it will be enough to make me well.” She had incredible faith.

 

Jesus knew when she touched him because he felt the healing power flow out from him. So he asked, “Who touched my clothes?” In the midst of our worst circumstances, when we have given up hope or tried everything, this story reminds us that reaching out to Jesus gets his attention. He is not asking us to get everything in our lives cleaned up first. He is present at all times. He knows each one of us, and even in a crowd he knows when we reach out for him. Go ahead… reach out to him today.