daily java

Daily Java:

As Jesus went with him, he was surrounded by the crowds. A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding, and she could find no cure. Coming up behind Jesus, she touched the fringe of his robe. Immediately, the bleeding stopped. “Who touched me?” Jesus asked. Everyone denied it, and Peter said, “Master, this whole crowd is pressing up against you.” But Jesus said, “Someone deliberately touched me, for I felt healing power go out from me.” When the woman realized that she could not stay hidden, she began to tremble and fell to her knees in front of him. The whole crowd heard her explain why she had touched him and that she had been immediately healed. “Daughter,” he said to her, “your faith has made you well. Go in peace.” (Luke 8:42-48)

Jesus is surrounded by a couple of thousand people. They are pressing in on him from all sides. The dust is heavy. He and the apostles almost have trouble breathing at times for all the people pressing in on him.

Suddenly, he stops and says, “Who touched me?” A lot of them thought for a moment he was irritated at the press of the crowd and drew back from him so they weren’t touching him.

Peter said, “Well, Master, we are in a crowd of people.” Again Jesus said, “Someone deliberately touched me, for I felt healing power go out from me.”

You can imagine Peter and the rest looking sternly at the crowd. “All right. Who touched the Master.” They probably felt foolish. They felt they were supposed to protect him anyway.

Jesus and the apostles looked around for the “toucher.” Jesus knew someone had touched him in a way that was different than anyone else. He had felt power go out of him and into that person. He wanted to know who it was.

Several layers of the crowd back was a woman who felt good for the first time in years. She felt good. Full of health. Clean. But now, everyone was looking for her. Had she done something wrong?

For several years, she had bled, a twelve year menstrual period. According to the law, she was unclean. No one would have anything to do with her, no one would even touch her.

She figured that it would be better if she could just touch Jesus, not involve him in anyway. He very likely could be angry when she touched him, because it would make him unclean too. But she also knew that he had the power to heal her. She was caught in a quandary. What would she do?

So she quietly touched him and was healed.

Jesus, on the other hand, didn’t want people quietly touching him and being healed. First off, he wanted to know who they were and second, he wanted an interactive relationship with people. His healing power was not just to heal, but to bring people to a knowledge of the power of God.

She came forward in tears, miserable. Would he take it back because she was quiet about it? Would he scold her in front of everybody? What would he do?

What he did was to tell her why she had been healed. It was not because he had a magic robe. It was because she had believed she could. She had accepted the power of God working through him and that was what saved her.

The point? Christianity is personal but it is not private. It is to be shared, not quietly done in the middle of the night or in the middle of the crowd.

The crowd heard her problem and heard his power. Then they heard about faith in him.

Jesus didn’t come to heal. He came to save. The healing was nothing more than a physical demonstration of that spiritual power. He showed them his power over the spiritual by his power over the physical.

Not only was the woman saved, she knew why. And so did everybody else.