Mark 5:21-34 "Touching the Garment of the King"

Introduction:

This morning we are looking at the second of the 3 deliverance miracles recorded in Mark 5. We see in verses 21-24 that one of the rulers of the synagogue by the name of Jarius came and appealed to Jesus on behalf of his dying 12 year old daughter.

So Jesus went with him and verse 24 tells us that a great crowd followed Him and thronged about Him.

The idea behind the term thronged in the original language denotes the idea that the crowd was so tight around Him that there was little room for movement.

Mark wants us to see this picture in our minds because it sets the stage for the second of the three miracles. And this second miracle is sandwiched in the middle of Jesus going to heal the daughter of Jarius.

Verses 25-29 reveals that there was a certain woman in the crowd and the text focuses in on her and her actions in her encounter with Jesus. We will look at her actions in bite size pieces. Notice that in verses 25-26 that her actions where motivated out of her desperation:

I. The Actions of the Woman (25-29).

A. Her Desperation (25-26).

She had a discharge of blood for 12 years. It was a perpetual discharge that was far beyond a normal menstrual cycle. Understand that under the Levitical law she would have been considered unclean for 12 years. She would have been an outcast and considered unclean in the religious and social order of the day (25).

She had exhausted all of her financial resources at the hands of doctors and all she did was get worse. Can you imagine a 12 year infirmity and all the human effort that you exerted did nothing for you. You only grew worse and all your finances were drained in the process. Not even to mention the religious and social stigma that was attached to you.

Needless to say she was a desperate woman in a desperate situation. But on this particular day she anticipated the possibility for something different. Look back at your text to verses 27-28.

B. Her Anticipation (27-28).

She anticipated the possibility for something different because she had already heard about Jesus and the miracles he was doing. These were all indicators of the Messianic Kingdom that was prophesied about in the Old Testament.

And she was willing in her desperation to go to great lengths to have an encounter with Jesus. She was weak and in such a crowd it would have been difficult for her to make her way to Jesus. She could have easily fallen under the pressure of the crowd.

She believed that all she needed to do to be healed was to just touch His garment and that is exactly what she did.

She heard about Jesus and she came to Jesus and she touched Jesus and this led to her transformation. Look back to verse 29:

C. Her Transformation (29).

Instantly she was healed. Now this is something that was profoundly different from other healing miracles that we have seen in Mark’s gospel. Jesus was speaking and healing in the active sense but here the woman is active but it appears that Jesus is passive in her transformation.

It is similar to the altar of sacrifice in Exodus 29:37 that once the altar was sanctified holy by God anyone who even touched it would be sanctified as holy.

This act of the woman tells us something profound about Jesus. He did not just come to heal as a Holy man of God but He is the catalyst by which the power of God works in and through in fulfillment of God’s purposes.

And Christian this is good news for us because from a spiritual context all of us were at one time just as hopeless. Bankrupt in our own efforts to be clean before God. We were bound up in our desperation and incapable of being delivered by the efforts of human performance.

This is one of the reasons that under the Levitical law physical infirmity is connected to being spiritually unclean. The Law reveals this in an attempt to connect the dots between sin and sickness. Sickness came into the world as a result of the fall.

And there are times that specific sickness is described as being a direct result of some sinful action. We know that the woman felt the weight of this because of the word used in verse 29 in the original language.

The term refers not just to a specific “disease” as it is translated in the ESV but it refers to the whole of her condition. The term in the literal sense denotes, “a flexible instrument used for lashing, like a whip” in the figurative sense it denotes a “condition of torment and suffering” (BAGD).

Mark wants us to know that she was healed not just from the disease but from all the stigma that went with it because she had touched Jesus.

And it is in Mark 5:30-34 that we see the reaction of Jesus in two ways. First in verses 30-32 we see His perception. Look back at your text:

II. The Reaction of Jesus (30-34).

A. His Perception (30-32).

Notice that the text says in verse 30 that He perceived that power had gone out from Him (30). The power that it took to heal the woman was not derived internally in her, it actually came from Jesus without prior awareness on His part. Jesus was fully God but at times gave up the use of His omniscience to live out His humanity.

He never gave up His divine attributes but only voluntarily gave up the use of those attributes at times. He was always full Deity in His divine nature. But God the Father and God the Holy Spirit were always at work through the Son of God and they were fully aware of the motives and actions of the woman.

Jesus being aware of a transmission of power immediately turns and said who touched my garments? And I love the response of His disciples in verse 31: You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’ ”

And Jesus was looking for who did it in verse 32 because He knew the difference than people touching Him in the physical sense and people touching Him in the spiritual sense. And there is a distinction between the two. And Jesus declares in verses 33-34 the distinctive nature of the woman's touch. Look back at your text:

B. His Declaration (33-34).

Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease (34).

Notice that He calls her “daughter” and not woman. Jesus uses the term that a parent uses for a female child to refer to the woman. He sets the context in one reflective of a covenant family union.

This is where I believe we see an interesting parallel between Jesus and the woman and Jarius and his daughter. And we see why this account is sandwiched in the middle of Jarius and his daughter.

Remember that the woman had the issue of a blood hemorrhage for 12 years and we find out later that the daughter of Jarius is 12 years old. Jarius is concerned about His daughter and seeks out Jesus and God the Father is concerned about His daughter and she seeks out Jesus. Both women were in dire straits when it came to death.

And Jesus calls her daughter to make the parallel. And He says, “your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease” (34).

Again the term disease is referring to the whole of the infirmity including the stigma that went with it under the law.

Christian it was her faith in God’s ability to work through Jesus to heal her. Her faith had an object and it was something outside of her and she was not able to find this from inside of her but outside of her.

And it wasn’t something that could come from the hands of men but it had to come from the hands of God.

Christian when we have nothing left in the world in the middle of our desperation that is when I feel the most vulnerable as a human being in the challenges of this world. But that is also when I find that being abandoned to God alone is the most secure place that I can be.

This is when the blessed truth of my union to God in covenant relationship as His child affirms the reality of the peace that I have with Him in the security of Christ provision of grace to my life. And I am reminded that the guilt and affliction of my sin in a sinful world has been paid in full and bore on my behalf upon the shoulders of Christ on the Cross.

Conclusion:

This text is telling us all about God’s covenant provision through Christ as children of God.

Unbeliever only the bankrupt and hopeless can touch Christ in faith. Hanging on to your own performance and attempts at being transformed of your own doing would be like, as Whitfield use to say, trying to climb to the moon on a rope of sand. You must be born again to touch Jesus in faith. Believe the gospel!

Believer

Let’s Pray!