Lent 2026 Day 18: Tue 10 Mar
Mark 5:30-34
30 At once Jesus was aware that power had gone out from Him. Turning to the crowd, He asked, “Who touched My garments?” 31 His disciples answered, “You can see the crowd pressing in on You, and yet You ask, ‘Who touched Me?’” 32 But He kept looking around to see who had done this. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him trembling in fear, and she told Him the whole truth. 34 “Daughter,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be free of your affliction.”
She was busted! Jesus turned round. “Who touched me?” For a moment you are the person who gets to read this story in a Sunday service, and I’ll ask you, “How would you say those words of Jesus?” Was he angry? He could be, because someone had just misappropriated his healing power. Was he perturbed that something like this, out of his control, could actually happen? How dare someone steal my thunder! Was he simply bemused? The way you say it can turn the story round.
Our woman hadn’t thought beyond her own healing to consider that the miracle requires two people to make it happen. But then, why should she? Anyway, there’s the person who comes for healing, and there’s the one who brings the healing. Jesus needed at least as much faith to heal as she did. Even though he told the woman her faith had healed her, we know that Jesus healed her, otherwise he would have known nothing, and the woman would have slipped away.
For every healing that Jesus performed he had to believe that the person he was healing would be healed. If Jesus has no faith, you may as well go home. Those few who had not been healed had not brought their faith to the contract. You may argue that dead (or sleeping) people cannot bring faith, but those who plead on their behalf do.
A very frightened woman falls at Jesus’ feet, rumbled and banged to rights. She is shaking in fear. She has realised that Father God has heard her reasoning and affirmed her faith, releasing through Jesus the healing she needed. She realises that her plan to remain anonymous is not going to wash with the Almighty. She has to confess all to Jesus. After all, he has no idea what has been going on! Once it was all in the open Jesus confirmed her complete healing and blessed her with peace.
Do you pray for the unwell people listed in our weekly news sheet in faith-filled expectation of their healing?
Is there something you have learnt to live with rather than bring to Jesus?
How did Father God view the encounter?
Father God, things seemed so much simpler in Jesus’ day. It just took one touch for the woman to be healed. Things seem so different these days. Perhaps the wonder of modern medicine dulls my faith for healing. Would you kindle in me and in your churches a longing to see more healing and miracles? Amen.
Paul