DESPERATE PEOPLE DO DESPERATE THINGS (PART VI)

“Who Touched Me?”

By Akin Ojumu

Spiritually hungry folks will chase after anyone who promises them spiritual nourishment. When the soul is famished, people will eat any food they are offered in the hope that it would quench their appetite. In their desperation, folks who find themselves in dire straits are open to accepting any advice from anyone. It’s often the case that when people are at their wits end, they’ll go in any direction they are told to go.

Charlatans understand this about desperate people. Impostors have an uncanny ability at sniffing out spiritually hungry people. Being the wolves in sheep’s clothing that they are, they exploit the vulnerabilities of their victims. Capitalizing on their desperation, they fleece their prey for their own gain.

False teachers offer spiritually hungry people food that poisons their soul. The road to which charlatans guide the spiritually desperate only leads to eternal destruction. Vulnerable people who seek succor from wolves in sheep’s clothing become their prey.

This was the case with the woman with the issue of blood. In her desperation for a solution to her infirmity, she fell into the hands of charlatans who exploited her situation and drained her of all her resources. Even after exhausting all she had, not only did she not get better, she in fact got worse.

Mark 5:26

“She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse.”

Then news must have filtered down her of a new Rabbi in town who was reported to have the power to heal all kinds of diseases. Even as an outcast with limited contact with the society, she managed to hear about this Jesus who was restoring sight to the blind, making the lame walk, and giving the deaf and dumb the ability to hear and talk again.

Given her past experience in the hands of the quacks and charlatans, it’s conceivable that she initially had her doubts about these stories she was hearing about Jesus. She must have wondered whether this was legit or if Jesus was just another one in a long line of all bark and no bite physicians she had encountered. In the end, though, she became persuaded that Jesus was the real deal.

By the time we read about her in the account of her story, she was a firm believer in Jesus’s ability to heal her infirmity. When she was introduced in the Bible, she was a woman who was determined to touch the hem of Jesus’s garment, at all costs, because she believed was going to get healed.

Mark 5:28

“For she said, “If I touch even His garments, I will be made well.””

With clenched jaws and steely nerves, she forced her way through the crowd, probably on her knees, just to reach Jesus. Lips quivering, hands trembling, palms sweating, she reached out her hand and grabbed the fringes of Jesus’s garment. 

Then, time stood still for her.

Right that moment, the Lord Jesus felt power going out of Him. He sensed the avalanche of dunamis leaving His body and pouring into the woman. He could feel the life force oozing from Himself into the infirmed woman, renewing, repairing, and replacing the diseased body parts with a brand-new organ system.

Then suddenly, the Lord Jesus stopped in His tracks, turned around, and with His piercing eyes scanning the crowd, He asked:

Luke 8:45

“Who touched me?”

You must understand that the Lord Jesus was not asking a question to which He did not know the answer. This was not a question to ascertain information. He had a different purpose in mind for asking this question. While the purpose may not be immediately obvious from the text, nevertheless, it can be inferred from what happened immediately after He asked the question.

One reason the Lord Jesus asked the question, “Who touched my garments?” was because of the woman who just received her healing. This woman had faith in Jesus’s ability to heal her infirmity. And because of her faith, she did indeed receive her healing. However, it was in the shadows and out of sight of everyone when she received her healing. So, the Lord decided to bring her out of the shadows of her obscurity into the open. 

Firstly, bringing her out of the shadows into the open was so that the Lord Jesus could commend and affirm her to the crowd who had rejected her for twelve years. He wanted the crowd to know that this woman who was ceremonially unclean and defiled for those terrible twelve years had now been made completely pure and whole. This He did so that He could reverse her status as a pariah and outcast in the eyes of the crowd. Jesus relieved her of the burden of having to prove her health. He announced her healing to the crowd so that everyone would know.

Secondly, the Lord brought the woman out into the open to let her know that not only had she been healed from her bodily infirmity, but that she had also received healing for her spiritual infirmity. Because, for twelve years, this woman understood that her issue of blood was not only an impurity of her physical body but also a symbol of her spiritual impurity, she needed to be told that she had now been made pure. 

The Lord Jesus brought her out of the shadows into the open to tell her that she was pure spirit, soul, and body. And to drive home this truth, He told her to go in peace. 

Mark 5:34

“Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

As a Jew, she understood what that meant. Peace is the station in life when a man is right with God. Because of her faith in the Lord Jesus, this woman was restored back to health and a right relationship with God.

Romans 5:1

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Next time, we’ll examine the second reason Jesus asked the question, “Who touched me?”