5/09/2005 07:57:00 AM|||Laura|||And a certain woman who had had an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and had not been bettered any, but rather came to worse, having heard about Jesus, she came in the press behind and touched His garment. For she said, If I may but touch only His clothes, I will be cured. And instantly the fountain of her blood dried up. And she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague. And knowing instantly within Himself that power had gone out of Him, Jesus turned Himself around in the press and said, Who touched My clothes? And His disciples said to Him, You see the crowd pressing on You, and do You say, Who touched Me? And He looked around to see her who had done this thing. But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had been done in her, came and fell down before Him and told Him all the truth. And He said to her, Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be whole from your plague.
(Mar 5:25-34 MKJV)
"If a woman has a discharge of blood for many days, not at the time of her menstrual impurity, or if she has a discharge beyond the time of her impurity, all the days of the discharge she shall continue in uncleanness. As in the days of her impurity, she shall be unclean. Every bed on which she lies, all the days of her discharge, shall be to her as the bed of her impurity. And everything on which she sits shall be unclean, as in the uncleanness of her menstrual impurity. And whoever touches these things shall be unclean, and shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening.
(Lev 15:25-27 ESV)
This woman had been segregated from her society for more than 12 years. If she was married, her husband kept to his own side of the tent. In addition to the symptoms of the illness, she was held to a higher hygenic standard than anybody else - for her and her husband, if he inadvertantly came in contact with her or anything she sat on. In other words, more laundry, and no Maytag to do it in. She spent everything she had on doctors and treatment, and things had only gotten worse. She was desperate enough to believe the rumors about this itinerant preacher were true. She was desperate enough to believe that just touching the fringe of his robe would cure her. And she was right.
Now, did Jesus really have to ask who had touched him and been cured? No. So why not let her slip away in obscurity? George Morrison explains it this way:
She would never have known the loving will of Christ; she would have thought her cure was automatic. And our Lord summoned her forth, and made her tell her story, that she might be lifted out of the realm of magic and brought into living relationship with Him. It seemed cruel, but it was really kind. It sent her home with loftier thoughts of Him. She would never talk of the wonder of the tassel; she would always talk of the wonder of the Lord. Permitted to steal away without confession, she would have said exultantly, "I've found a cure." Now the woman cried, "I've found a friend."
Then had she been allowed to steal away she never would have been quite sure of Jesus. She would have been haunted, to the last hour she lived, by the suspicion that she had done something wrong. You will notice that when the Savior summoned her she came to His blessed feet with fear and trembling. It was not her dread of the crowd that made her tremble; it was something deeper in her woman's breast. It was her fear that she had stolen something; that she had filched a cure and acted surreptitiously; that she was going to hear the accents of rebuke. Now suppose she had gone home again, without the swift compulsion of confession, cannot you see at a glance that all her life she would have been haunted by that chilling fear? That was why He insisted on confession; she must tell Him all and see His look of love; she must hear Him saying to her, "Daughter." She was the only woman to whom He ever gave that title. He never called anybody else His daughter. She would have missed all that if she had got her way. To learn it, she had to take the way of Christ. And always, if we want to learn His love, and to have done forever with our fear and trembling, like her we have to take the way of Christ.
Lastly, if He had let her have her way this woman would have been powerless for service. And nobody is healed just to be happy; we are saved that we may save. In a brief space of time He would be dead, and dead, where were His garments now? The garments were gone, their wearer had been crucified, and what testimony had she to bear for Christ to the children of disappointment and disease? She would have had no power for witness-bearing; she could never have spoken of the love of Jesus; she never could have cried to weary, broken people, "The Master looked on me, and called me daughter." And Christ was so eager she should be a witness-bearer, in places where His foot had never trod, that He imperiously insisted on confession. Had she stolen away she would have had her gift, but she never would have known the Giver. For that she had to stand forth and confess.
So what happened to this woman after this amazing, life-changing encounter with Christ? Eusebius reports that two statues were commissioned and displayed at her front door; one of a woman kneeling and reaching out in supplication to the other statue, of a robed man whose hand was stretched out to her. For as long as she lived, and through these statues even after her death, she told of the good news of Jesus Christ.|||111564719606232718|||Desperation7/14/2005 8:32 AM|||Rosemary|||I looked at your blog today. It is very good. I enjoy Bible study and I write poems based on the Bible.
If you would like to see my blog, go to
http://livinginlove.blogspot.com/