For many years as a professing Christian and attending church, I was ensnared in fearfulness and kept my faith in God largely to myself. Fear of man held me transfixed in unbelief and misplaced shame, preventing me from growing in Christ, and from expressing my gratefulness for Jesus’ sacrifice to pay the price for my sin. I kept uncomfortably silent for a while about Jesus, as did the woman with a chronic illness in today’s biblical story (Mark 5:24-34).
My self-consciousness when dwelling in worrying thoughts dampened down my ability to worship God. However, my heart called out to Christ for a profound release to adore God as we were created to do (Isaiah 43:21). Is this something you cry out and yearn for as well? We can be encouraged that each one of our cries come before Him and into His ears (Psalm 18:6) through our Mediator, Jesus:
“Heal me, O Lord, and I will be healed; save me, and I shall be saved, for you are my praise.” Jeremiah 17:14 My own freedom from bondage to fear started to break through when the untruths of fearfulness became clear, and in believing in the gospel above all things, as apostle Paul wrote: “I decided that while I was with you, I would forget about everything except Jesus Christ and his death on the cross” (1 Corinthians 2:2).
Let’s follow Jesus’ ministry to a lady of quiet and restrained faith who had been clothed in fearful shame and suffering over her life:
Seeing the gospel in scripture
“A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She 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” Mark 5:24-26 NIV
Our hearts ache to read of the struggles of this woman in the book of Mark who had suffered an intimate bleeding disease for twelve long years. She had been deeply hurt by many people in her life. Her religion had shunned her because her disease was considered unclean by Mosaic Law and she was required to socially distance herself from communal worship. People were considered ceremonially unclean if they touched her directly or by anything she had touched (Leviticus 15:19-31). Additional sin offerings of atonement were required by the priest when her bleeding had abated but her problems continued year after year.
She lived with permanent embarrassment, her eyes no doubt checking her environment constantly for fear of being found out, or of coming too close to others. The red stain of her shame was both internal in her heart and external in her body as her identity was tethered to the treatment she received from the people around her.
Socially and physically, the woman was repulsed by her society, impoverished in her soul by a lack of physical and caring touch from others when her disease was active. In this passage we see that both Jesus and the woman were crowded by the multitude of people who: “pressed Him from all sides [so as almost to suffocate Him] (Mark 5:24 AMPC), but few of these touches were of care and faith, but of urgency and unbelief.
The healing profession had also hurt this woman by promising cures and charging her cruelly for their unsuccessful advice until she “spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.” (Mark 5:26).
Question 1: Have you tried other forms of help for anxiety? What has been your experience?
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Friend, you are not alone if you have tried, like myself, to find cures to overcome oppressive anxiety from delving into our pasts, or through the world’s many therapies, or through self-reasoning and self-effort. Whilst these ways may have been helpful in some ways for a time, we may have been left wanting and desperate for enduring healing.
We will never be short-changed when we come to Jesus and recall that first day as non-believers when we knelt in front of the cross, suffering from the effects of our sin under the rule of the evil one and asked for forgiveness through the Savior’s blood. We felt appropriate redemptive shame for our wrongdoings and then we came away from that prayer with a new heart, with our sins forgiven and shame removed. We left our old heart, full of our condemnation and guilt, forever crucified in Christ and buried at Calvary.
Now, we come back and back to this same place at the feet of Jesus, and cry out to the “Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6) for all our needs as His righteous children.
Our spiritual past, centred on that one event of the cross, when we were made anew in Christ, is the past “of most importance” to us now as believers (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).
This Wonderful Counsellor yearns to touch our broken souls. Jesus was emptied completely at the cross for us in death, “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14), so that we might be restored and spiritually healed (Philippians 2:5-8).
The woman in this story had heard reports about Jesus’ ministry (Mark 5:27), no doubt stunning testimonies of deliverance from unclean spirits, leprosy, paralysis and a man healed of a withered hand. Each healing spoke of the incredible kindness and compassion of the Healer. She was encouraged in faith and hope by these stories to come to Jesus for physical healing.
For us all, God is the author of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). This is the same route by which our faith is built each day, which is to hear the truth about our atonement and justification through Christ’s work:
“So faith comes from hearing the Good News, and people hear the Good News when someone tells them about Christ.” Romans 10:17 NCV
“When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed”. Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.” Mark 5:27-29 NIV
This woman’s faith overcame the fear and shame she had carried for over a decade when she eventually saw Jesus ahead of her. Not engaging Him in the eye from the front nor making herself known to anyone, she quietly came up from behind her Lord, secretly under the cover of the throng of the crowd. She kept moving forward in faith, crying out believing prayers in her soul to the Healer, and she was amazingly “freed from her suffering” (Mark 5:29).
“At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” 31 “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ” 32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it.” Mark 5:30-32 NIV
Jesus’ question to publicly identify the person who had received healing may surprise us as it did the disciples, given His all-knowing nature and the many people He had healed, and the crushing flesh of the crowd around them.
Question 2: If Jesus had asked you this same question, “Who touched my clothes?” would you keep silent in the crowd, or respond reluctantly with fear thinking you had done something wrong, or with awe and love that the Lord wanted to see you and know you personally?
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Jesus “kept looking around” (Mark 5:32 NIV) to search for this suffering soul, to fully gaze upon her and draw her frightened eyes to His face.
It was the same look of loving full restoration from Jesus that Peter received after his three denials of Christ (Luke 22:54-62).
It was the same look of full recognition and acceptance that the Samaritan woman at the well was blessed with by her Messiah despite all her sins (John 4:4-26).
It was the same look of forgiveness and love that the sinful woman received when she anointed Jesus’ feet in adoration with her tears and perfume, hearing these cleansing words: “Your sins are forgiven” (Luke 7:48)
And it is the same look we receive each time we visit the cross to see Jesus.