A Woman Named Somebody

By John Stallings


Somebody touched me....Luke 8:46


A man in New York City died at the age of 63 without ever having had a job.

He spent his entire adult life in college. During those years he acquired so many academic degrees that they "looked like the alphabet" behind his name.

Why did this man spend his entire life in college? When he was a child, a wealthy relative died who had named him as a beneficiary in his will. It stated that he was to be given enough money for his own support every year as long as he stayed in school, and it was to be discontinued when he had completed his education.

The man met the terms of the will, but by remaining in school indefinitely. He turned a technicality into a steady income for life-- something his benefactor never intended. Unfortunately, he spent thousands of hours listening to professors and reading books but never "doing." He acquired more and more knowledge but didn't put it into practice.

When we only listen to the promises of God, study the promises of God, hear sermons on the promises of God but never act on our faith in the promises of God, we are doing the same thing. We are just trying to keep from living in the real world where God intends us to live and we wall ourselves off studying or talking about faith. Justifying faith is an active, obedient faith.

A LITTLE FAITH AND A LOT OF OBEDIENCE

Galatians 3:6 says;

…Abraham believed God and it was accounted unto him as righteousness.
Abraham wasn’t all he could be in the righteousness department but he believed God and was so obedient to God that He put it down in the righteousness column.

Abraham’s faith was an active faith. When God first spoke to Abraham he was in the city of Ur of the Chaldees.

Gen 12:1-2 NKJV says- Now the LORD had said to Abram: "Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing.
Abraham didn’t just study about God's promises, he believed them. Abraham obeyed God and followed Him to a new country. He didn’t just talk about believing God; his faith caused him to follow God in terms of his promises.

FAITH COUPON

Faith is one of the most crucial components in the life of the Christian. Although we as Christians cannot see God, we nonetheless believe that He exists and that He is active in our lives. Faith is more than just a wistful optimism about life. It is the very substance of what a Christian does. It is a gift from God--the unshakable confidence that allows a Christian to navigate life.

Have you ever gone to the store with a coupon? Most of us have.

Let’s say you have a coupon for a two pound bag of flour. If you pay full price for one bag of flour, you can present the coupon for the purchase of another item. The coupon in that transaction is the same as cash.

This is the way God dealt with Abraham. Because he so literally believed and acted on his faith, God gave him a “faith coupon.”

The good news about faith is that we all have enough faith to be obedient to God.

A TOUCHING FAITH

Unfortunately the word faith has a blurred meaning. It is the most important knowledge you could ever acquire, but Satan is going to discourage your tapping into that. It’s not what we think faith means, it’s what the scriptures say.

The devil has always been against the scriptures. He tried to kill the Word of God- Jesus Christ himself. Then he tried to set up a system where you could only ask the priests for an interpretation of the scriptures. He tried to hide it in a hidden language and then he burned the Bibles because Satan doesn’t want us to become conversant with faith. Bibles are all around us and Satan wants to change the translations and the meanings of the words and how we use the words in our daily language.

We can learn much about faith by studying the actions of the woman with the issue of blood. Her story has captured the hearts of multiplied millions over the centuries. What we really have in the story is a miracle within a miracle. In all three accounts Matthew 9, Mark 5, Luke 8 this miracle takes place within the context of raising of Jairus’ daughter.

The unnamed woman in the story had heard about the Rabbi. A man claimed that he was once blind but could now see after the Rabbi from Galilee had touched his eyes. She had heard another man tell her that he had been paralyzed until the man named Jesus commanded him to walk.

Someone else showed her his hands and told her that they had been once been scared by leprosy. A friend told her that the Rabbi even cured an older woman of a fever and the woman’s son-in-law was now counted among his followers. Other reports from relatives and friends from Capernaum were always the same. This man had special powers; maybe just maybe he could cure her.

One day as Jesus was teaching in one of the villages along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, a man named Jairus came begging Jesus to come to his house and heal his 12 year old daughter who was desperately sick. As Jesus began to walk with Jairus toward his house, hundreds of people pressed in on him, many of them no doubt hoping for their own cure, many others listening to his every word, still others attracted by all the commotion.

A woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the hem of his cloak. Immediately her bleeding stopped.

“Who touched me?”

Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing around you.” But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know power has gone out from me.”

Then the woman, seeing that she couldn’t go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

If you visit the Holy Land, you’ll notice how narrow and crowded the streets are. In some places you can almost reach out and touch the buildings on both sides of the street. So we know the scene must have been chaotic and confusing–Jairus on one side of Jesus tugging at his sleeve– “Hurry, Lord, my daughter is dying"–the disciples forming a moving wave like bodyguards for a rock star, and hundreds of eager people pushing, milling, shouting, stretching out their arms to touch him as he passes by.

Meanwhile, totally unnoticed, a frail, stooped, sickly woman pushes her way through the throng. Her face is partially covered so no one will recognize her. Her arms are thin, her hands shake as she stretches them toward Jesus. Now she is only a few feet away. Now he is passing right by her. No one notices as she reaches out to touch the blue and white tassel on the corner of his cloak.

AN ISSUE OF BLOOD

The Bible is not very specific about her problem and the translators handle it in different ways. The King James Version says she had “an issue of blood” for 12 years. The modern translations speak of a hemorrhage of blood. Most commentators agree it was some kind of chronic uterine bleeding. Whether continually or periodic, it was not normal and in those days, and there was no cure for the condition.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. Leviticus 15:25-27 contained certain regulations for women with an uncontrollable flow of blood. It basically says that such women are to be considered unclean and defiled as long as the flow of blood continues. Furthermore, anyone who touched such a woman would themselves become unclean and defiled.

In a practical sense, this meant that this poor woman had become an outcast in her own village.
By the Law of Moses this woman wasn’t allowed to touch any human being. The law demanded that a woman suffering in this way should be segregated. For twelve years this woman had been excommunicated from the Temple and from the synagogue, and from every religious place of assembly. She was divorced from her husband, shut out from her family, ostracized by society, and treated as a pariah.

She had endured incurable illness, social isolation, constant pain, financial poverty and personal humiliation. It’s hard to imagine a more pitiful situation. She’d been among the “living dead” for twelve long years. Now at last, Jesus has come to her village.

DOCTOR, DOCTOR

In Mark’s version of this story, he includes one detail that Luke omits. Mark 5:26 notes that this woman “had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.” Why do you think Luke left that detail out? Luke was a doctor, and a member of the AMA of his day. Probably his motivation was -he didn’t want to make his own profession look bad!

They didn’t have any effective treatments for this kind of chronic hemorrhaging. As a matter of fact, the Talmud lists several “cures” for this problem: 1. Drinking a goblet of wine containing a powder composed of rubber, alum and garden crocuses. 2. Eating Persian onions cooked in wine administered with the words “Arise out of your flow of blood.” 3. Carrying the ash of an ostrich egg in a certain cloth.

With all those weird “cures” happening, it’s a wonder to me that they didn’t have a stricken woman to stand on her head and whistle “Yankee Doodle went to town”.

With “cures” like that, it’s no wonder this woman was not getting any better. It’s very likely that she’d started off wealthy because she’d spent a lot of money over more than a decade and gone broke trying to regain her health.

The doctors simply could not help her. For 12 years she had suffered from this “issue of blood.” Her prognosis was grim. Without a miracle, there was no hope.

TOUCHING THE TASSEL

Now at last Jesus has come to her village. The word spreads like wildfire–"He’s here.” “Who’s here?” “Jesus, that man from Nazareth who heals the sick. He just came to town and Jairus is talking to him.” With that, this poor woman makes the decision that somehow, some way she must get through to see Jesus. If only she could touch him. She obviously had “a touching faith.”

Perhaps there was a bit of superstition in her faith. Perhaps she thought there was some kind of “magic” in his clothing. Who knows? In her mind, she thinks, “If only I can reach out and touch the hem of his garment perhaps that will be enough.” In truth, her faith was immature and incomplete, but it was enough to make her risk public rejection… enough to make her reach out with a sickly hand to the Son of God.

But there’s something else at work here. She did not speak to Jesus because she was embarrassed and ashamed of her condition. After 12 years of public humiliation, she wouldn’t risk exposure and the taunts of the crowd. She wanted to simply touch him, receive her healing and then slip away unnoticed. After so many years, she was used to coping with life that way.

Now she reaches out and touches Jesus. The old versions speak of “the hem of his garment.” That’s certainly an acceptable translation, but the Greek word probably refers to one of the four tassels all Jewish men wore on their outer garments. Numbers 15:37-41 specified that tassels must be sewn on the four corners of the cloak and each must contain a blue thread. The tassels were visual reminders to obey God’s commandments. No matter the design of the cloak, at least one of the tassels would always hang from the back of the wearer. It was this tassel that the woman touched as Jesus walked by.

The story is very clear on what happened when she touched the tassel. Two different words are used. She was “immediately” and “instantly” healed. The text even specifies that at the moment she touched the tassel, the bleeding stopped. She didn’t need to get a handful of his garment, just touching the hem or tassel threw the switch and the power flowed.

It was a marvelous miracle. Jesus is going the other direction, Jairus tugging and talking and crying all at the same time. Meanwhile, the crowd is so tightly packed in the narrow alleyway that you could hardly breathe, much less move. The disciples are trying to do crowd control with little success. No one sees this wretched woman off to the side, no one notices as she elbows her way to the center, no one pays attention as she reaches out her hand, no one speaks to her and she speaks to no one.

Jesus doesn’t even notice this woman. As he passes by, her hand brushes his tassel. Something
like an electrical shock moves from her fingers through her hand, up her arm and into every part of her body. Only it is not an electrical shock, but the infusion of a mighty power with which she wasn’t familiar. In less time than it takes to tell it, her weary arteries, her shrunken veins, her diseased organs, her withered muscles, her shattered nerves were filled with health and life and strength. The disastrous decay of twelve years is instantly halted and then reversed.

She is well again! Healthy again! Whole again!

She turns to go, not ungrateful–no, not at all–but fearful lest she call attention to herself and respectful of the greater work Jesus must do. Also, she might be stoned for breaking the law and Jairus was just the man who could enforce it. She must not bother Jesus. With a smile on her face, the first real smile in a long, long time, she turns to go home.

“WHO TOUCHED ME?”

But just at that moment, Jesus stops, turns and surveying the crowd asks, “Who touched me?” It seemed to Peter and the other disciples like an absurd question. Hundreds of people milling around and he wants to know who touched him? Everybody was touching him. There were so many people crowded around Jesus it could have been anyone. Besides, what difference does it make? A touch is a touch is a touch.

But that’s not true. There’s the touch of hostility. Jesus certainly knew that touch. Then there’s the touch of curiosity. That’s the touch of the crowd milling around. Then there’s the touch of faith. That’s the touch of this poor woman. If the disciples couldn’t tell the difference, that’s O.K, Jesus could. He knew that someone had touched him in faith. He felt the faith in the passing brush of her fingers on his tassel.

Many times we go to church services and “elbow or jostle Jesus” but too often fail to touch him with the deliberate touch of faith that demands an answer. Many things could be said about this little lady but there’s one thing for sure, she didn’t just jostle or elbow Jesus. Her’s was a deliberate touch.

Jesus didn’t ask the question for his own benefit. He knew before he turned who had touched him. He’s the Son of God, after all. He asked not for his sake, but for her sake and for the sake of the crowd.

He asked for her sake so that he could raise the level of her faith. If she went away without a further word, she might actually believe there was some magic power in his clothing. There wasn’t any “abracadabra” going on. He wanted to assure her that it was her faith in him that made the difference. Furthermore, he wanted her to know that the healing would be permanent. Finally, he wanted to establish a personal relationship with her. To do all those things, she needed to identify herself to Jesus and to the crowd.

He also asked “Who touched me?” for the sake of the crowd. So that Jairus would know what Jesus could do, so that the curious onlookers would see his power fully displayed. And perhaps most importantly, he wanted the crowd to know that he wasn’t ashamed to be touched by an “untouchable.”

This woman had taken a real chance by touching Jesus. According to the law, her touch could make Jesus unclean. But because he was the Son of God, his power of healing overcame her uncleanness. But she did not know that when she touched him.

What a crucial point this is. Jesus was not ashamed to be touched by an “untouchable” and he was not embarrassed to be publicly identified with the outcasts of this world. He was at home with publicans and sinners, he ate supper with gluttons and drunkards, he welcomed the prostitutes, he touched the lepers and, in this story, he is not ashamed to be touched by an unclean person. Jesus had friends in “low places.”

Not ashamed? No, not at all. Delighted, and glad to identify himself with her. Delighted that she had the courage to reach out and glad that he could heal her. And he didn’t care who knew about it. No, that’s not strong enough. He wanted the whole crowd to know what he had done.
Why is this so important? Because with our Lord there are no “untouchable” people. In Jesus’ eyes, everyone is touchable. Thank God, there are no hopeless cases with him.
What does it mean to be a Christian if we only welcome the lovely, the clean, the pure and the safe? How can we even call ourselves Christian if we refuse to help people because they don’t meet up to our standard of cleanliness?

That’s not how Jesus lived his life. He wasn’t ashamed or embarrassed to eat with sinners, to embrace the shameful, to consort with the unclean and to touch the untouchable. It didn’t bother him that some people were bothered by his lifestyle. He just went ahead and loved everyone who crossed his path.

Let’s not talk about following in his steps or walking where Jesus walked until we are willing to do what he did and identify ourselves with the untouchables of this world.

“POWER HAS GONE OUT OF ME”

Notice his words. “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.” These strange words mean at least this much: That Jesus was conscious of God’s power flowing out from him into the body of the woman who touched his garment. Power that had been his passed from him to her. It resulted in her healing, but the power had to go out from him first.

There is a universal truth here. If you follow Jesus and get involved with the needy people of this world, you will be conscious of power flowing out from your life as well. By definition those in need lack the strength necessary to face the challenges of life. The only way they can get strength or power is from those who have more than they do. Ministering to such people means that power or strength or virtue will flow out from your life to theirs. It will cost you something that you will not easily replace–the very strength of your own life.

Some reading this will understand what I mean when I say ministry will sap you of physical as well as spiritual strength. There’s no addition of help to others, without the subtraction of power from us. If omnipotence cannot help others without depletion, how can we ever expect to bless the world without self-sacrifice?

At the risk of putting emphasis on the human side of what Jesus did at Calvary, this truth explains something that many people have puzzled over. When Jesus was finally crucified, why did he die so quickly? The Romans assumed that when they crucified someone it would take 24-48 hours for that person to die. But Jesus died after only six hours on the cross. Why?

It’s very possible that because he had spent his life giving himself for others and when he finally came to the end, he had given and given and given, and from a human point of view, he had given all that he had. Could that not be at least part of the explanation? Sometimes we say in a sentimental way, “He died of a broken heart.” There is at least this much truth in that statement- When he died, he was exhausted from giving himself for others.

If you follow Jesus, the same thing will happen to you. You will give and give and the power will go out from you. You can help people, but it will cost you something.

“GO IN PEACE”

When Jesus asks, “Who touched me?” the woman knows he is talking about her. Luke says that she came trembling and fell at Jesus’ feet. Then she publicly declared what Jesus had done for her and how she had been instantly healed. I imagine there was clapping and cheering all around and Jairus saying, “That’s good. Now come on, Jesus, my little girl needs you.”

But before they go on, Jesus looks at her and says, “Daughter, your faith has healed you.” The word for “daughter” is unusual. It’s the only time the gospels record Jesus using this particular word. It’s a term of affectionate endearment, something like “Maiden” or “Little girl” or even “Sweetheart.” Then he said, “Go in peace,” or literally “Go into peace,” meaning “Go from this place and walk in good health. You are healed forever of your disease.”

TWO ENDURING PICTURES

Let’s focus on two enduring pictures that remain from this story. They are images of Jesus and of this woman that encourage us along the way.

1. The Sensitivity of Jesus.

The most sensitive man in all history is Jesus Christ. No one ever cared about people like he did. No one ever gave of himself like he did. No one ever felt the pain of others like he did. He is–and was–and always will be–the most truly sensitive man to ever walk the face of the earth.
As he walked down a crowded street, hundreds of hands reached out to him. Yet he felt the thin, sickly hand of faith. He felt it! He felt her touch … He stopped … He turned … He spoke to her.

He was not offended or angry at her. Nor was he too busy or too tired to bother with her. Think of it. He whom all the forces of Hell could not stop was diverted by the touch of a sickly hand! This woman did by her touch what Satan himself could not do. She stopped Jesus in his tracks.

And he spoke to her as if she were the only person in the crowd. When he turned, it was just Jesus and her. No one else mattered.

He loves you as if there was only one person in the entire universe to love. He hears you as if you were the only one speaking to him. He attends to your needs as if yours were the only needs in all the world. What a Savior!

All that touches you touches him. If it is pain, then he feels the pain. If it is sorrow, then he feels the sorrow. If it is rejection, then he feels the rejection. If it is loss, then he feels the loss. If it is failure, then he feels the failure. Whatever it is that hurts you, he feels it. If it’s touching you, it’s touching him.

That’s what the writer to the Hebrews meant when he said,

For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities…..Hebrews 4:15

We don’t represent a cold, uncaring Christ. Nor do we offer this world a preoccupied Christ who is too busy to notice their problems. Thank God, we do not have an unemotional Christ who runs the universe like some high-powered businessman. No, we have a sensitive Jesus who feels our deepest need.

2. The Power of Feeble Faith.

This story shows us a second picture. In this poor woman we see the amazing power of feeble
faith. She didn’t have a huge amount of faith and what she had was partially misdirected. But she had a mustard seed and through it, God moved the mountain of her illness.

This story means that we don’t have to agonize over the “correct” way to come to God. You don’t have to worry about crossing all your “t’s” or dotting all your “i’s”. You don’t have to know the Bible before you come to God and you don’t have to have a degree in theology. You don’t even have to be a member of a church. Those things are good, but they aren’t the main thing. If you come to Jesus Christ in simple faith–even though your faith be as feeble as this woman’s was–he will not turn you away.

Do you ever feel as if your problems keep you from coming to God? Do you ever feel so dirty and unclean that you think Jesus would not have anything to do with you? Do not despair. Jesus is not offended by your problems. He’s seen it all before and He won’t turn you away.

Only a touch and this woman is healed. Not by her toiling, not by her promises to do better, not by an offer to do something for Jesus if he would do something for her. No deals here. She reached out a trembling hand and in an instant, she was healed. It happened so fast that it could only be called a miracle.

That’s what feeble faith can do. You and I should never look at the measure of our faith but
rather the measure of our God. The hardest part is reaching out with the hand of faith. If you want to touch Jesus, all you have to do is reach out to him.

REACH OUT AND TOUCH HIM

Maybe you are familiar with the song I wrote nearly forty years ago entitled,

“Touching Jesus.”

The chorus says,

“Touching Jesus is all that matters,
Then your life will never be the same,
There is only one way to touch him,
Just believe when you call on His name.”

Even feeble faith is powerful when it’s directed toward the right object. You don’t have to have strong faith. You can have weak faith so long as it is resting upon a strong object. And who could be stronger than Jesus Christ himself?

If you have the strength to stretch out your hand to him, his mighty power will flow into your life.

Just a touch and Jesus himself will enter your life.


Blessings,


John