Good Shepherd Lutheran

Don’t Miss Your Miracle
Mark 5:21-34
Sickness is the Great Interrupter of life. It enters without knocking, upsetting all our plans, mocking our idea of certainty, and diminishing our hope for the future. It creeps into our homes like a burglar, touching every part of our lives.
That was what happened to the woman we see in today’s scripture lesson. The lesson says she “was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years” (Mark 5:25). But she’d also suffered a loss of identity. Sick people become defined by their illness. You can see it in the fact that she isn’t even called by a name, but simply identified by her symptoms.
When you’re sick, everything becomes contingent on your condition. Vacations, work, daily activities. Everything. And prolonged illness also leads to a loss of your place in society. It puts a strain on relationships, on jobs, on hobbies, on families. And maybe the most chilling thing it does is how it brings about a loss of hope.
And that’s where this bleeding woman was. She was willing to try anything to bring healing to her body. She’d heard about Jesus who was known as a healer, and strangely she started to feel one last glimmer of hope. She believed in Jesus’ power. She knew in her heart that Jesus could heal her. So, she squeezed through the crowd, reached out to touch His garment, and slipped back into the crowd.
Instantly, however, Jesus sensed that healing power going out of Him. So, He turned around to see who’d touched Him. And when He found out who she was He tells her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease” (Mark 5:34)
While others merely bump into Jesus, she reached out and purposely touched Him to find healing. Like her, when we’re so desperate that we know we’ve got nothing left to lose, that’s when we’re willing to risk being brave enough to reach out to touch Jesus.
And like her, we need that. We need to touch Him. But most of us are just hanging around Him like the rest of the crowd because it’s easier to just hang out near the Lord without taking the risk of touching Him.
But the message of today’s miracle is that reaching out and touching Jesus is important. Just like this one woman who, at the end of her rope, had the courage to step outside of the bounds of social convention and find healing and hope, we can too. She touched the Lord of the Universe, and He stopped for her. And He’ll stop for us, too.
So, be brave. Reach out and touch Him. Don’t miss your miracle.