Healing the Issue of Blood
With Easter a few weeks past (but still on my mind) I’m remembering the Miracles that Jesus performed here while He was on this earth. Each miracle had a purpose in healing, but, with all of His parables lies additional truth for us to find.
In this story, this woman made great efforts to get close to the Savior for this healing. She didn’t just hope for healing, she sought Him out. We don’t really know her name, but Jesus knew her, calling her “Daughter.” Many times we feel forgotten, unknown, unloved or broken. Friends. He knows your name.
It began on the beach at Capernaum as Jesus came ashore, the people were waiting for him. Among them was a ruler of the synagogue there who fell at his feet and announced that his only daughter was at the point of death. “I pray thee,” he said “come and lay thy hands on her that she may be healed and she shall live.”
Jesus agreed to go, now thronged by a crowd anxious to see Jesus perform the miracles they’ve heard so much about.
Within the crowd there was a woman afflicted with an incurable blood disease; For 12 years she suffered with this disease, seeing many physicians but was still not cured, in fact, she was more sickly than ever.
Somehow, we don’t know when or where but she learned of the power of the great healer. Faith was awakened within her and she was determined to go to him; however, because of the nature of her illness, she was unclean and under the law, was ashamed to ask for the Savors help. As Jesus passed by her in the crowd, she said to herself “If I may but touch the hem of his garment I shall be whole.”
It must have taken considerable effort and faith especially for a weak and sickly woman to get through the crowd and reach Jesus. The woman had no time to dally or to waste with indecision. She pushed her way through and from behind touched the hem of the master’s robe.
Immediately there was a tangible surge of power that flowed throughout her body. She was fully healed from that very moment and she knew it.
Jesus stopped and said “Who touched my clothes?” Now Peter said to him in effect “There’s all these people around pushing and shoving and you asked who touched me? But her touch was different from everyone else. Her’s was a touch of faith and supplication that brought forth his divine power and he felt it. “I perceive,” Jesus said “that virtue or power is gone out of me.”
The woman knowing that she was discovered, came forward and fell at the master’s feet confessing before all what she had done. With intimate kindness and tenderness, Jesus commended her “Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole. Go in peace.”
Are we like this unnamed woman, afraid to go to the Savior with all of our imperfections and weaknesses? Friends. He’s calling us to him regardless of our sins with a name so endearing.. Daughter.
