Mark 5:30-34 “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. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."
Have you ever noticed that sometimes Jesus is on a completely different wavelength from the people around Him? Here He is in the midst of a massive crowd with people pressing in to touch Him from all sides and yet He asks, “Who touched me?” His disciples are confused and amazed by this question. They know that His questions are always purposeful and yet the question does not seem to fit into the context. Could it be that perhaps the disciples are looking at the wrong context?
Throughout the Gospels there is a consistent pattern of Jesus redefining the context of the situation that He and the disciples are in the midst of. In Matthew 14 the disciples suggest that Jesus send the multitudes away so that they can find food but Jesus instead tells the disciples, “you give them something to eat”, knowing that they do not even have enough food to feed a small group. In Jn. 11:11 the Lazarus is dead but Jesus speaks of Him as only having fallen asleep. His response to their confusion in John 11:15 is “for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.” Everyone is focused completely upon Lazarus and their grief over his death except for Jesus. He is on a completely different channel of thought. “For your sake I am glad that I was not there…” Jesus is not grieved over the suffering of Lazarus. He is intently focused on the work of enlarging the disciple’s faith that will come through raising Lazarus from the dead. The context of this crisis is not really about Lazarus at all, but about the revelation of Jesus Christ as the resurrection and the life!
In Mark 5:30-34 there is a crowd gathered but Jesus recognizes something different going on. He discerns a different context of God’s activity taking place in the midst of a multitude. He recognizes that one person in the midst of this chaos has come with a different heart. Instead of pressing in to touch him like a multitude of groupies at a rock concert, one woman has pressed through with faith! One woman has pressed through and touched the divine nature inside of Him! She has touched Him in such a way that the life of God within Him is activated and power is released into her body!
Jesus persists in His search for that one person who has touched Him differently from all of the rest. Having received her miracle, this faith filled woman reveals herself to Jesus and the disciples in amazement, surprised by the fruit of her own faith. She tells her story to Jesus and He confirms that it was HER faith that resulted in her healing. This is such a powerful lesson for us as we approach God. Much of the divine activity that took place in the ministry of Jesus and His disciples was the fruit of the people’s faith. It is essential that we understand that OUR FAITH has a vital part to play in receiving from God.
Because this is true this story and many others like it should lead us to pursue the answer to the question, “how can I grow in faith?” If my faith can release miracles, how can I get more of it!? Place yourself in the path of those things that increase faith and you will see more of God. Seek out revelation that brings transformation. Set your heart in front of the fire of God’s word and spend your time with people who have experienced God so that your faith life will flourish!
Even as we pursue faith in the midst of circumstance we must equally remember to ask the second question raised by this passage. “Am I looking at this situation the way that Jesus is looking at it?” We must take the time to consider our point of view. Has an earthly mindedness caused us to miss the kingdom interpretation of our situation? In John 9:1-5 the disciples asked Jesus if the man’s blindness was the result of his sin or sins of his parents. They weren’t even asking the right question. They interpreted this situation out of religious error and therefore judged the man who was blind! How often do we judge people because we have wrongly interpreted the situation we are seeing? We must learn to see with kingdom eyes and interpret life from an eternal perspective. The more we can see our life situations from a kingdom point of view the more we will find the kingdom of God at work in the midst of the situations of our life!
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