Mark 5:28. Part 2- A Brief Encounter With a Covenant

… a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind and touched the hem of His garment. For she said to herself, “If I only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well.”

I want to look at the particular area of clothing that this woman touched. The Bible is quite careful to tell us what it was – the hem, so what is the reason for this?

Before we go further with this though – I want you to pay attention to the word touch. This implies gentleness – she didn’t pull or grab, she touched. It only takes the gentlest of touches with the Master for miracles to happen. The woman knew there would be enough power in that one touch to get what she needed. She didn’t want attention. She didn’t want the sermon. She didn’t want forcefulness. She just wanted to touch because that would be enough. This woman’s faith was very simple. It had simple needs.

People in the crowd were brushing against Jesus, even knocking Him. They were certainly “touching” Him. It was certainly a lot stronger than this lady. But a gentle touch of faith on the clothing of Jesus did more than all the much “stronger” touching of the others. Sometimes the delicacy of faith is the strongest thing that there is!

Sometime the gentlest of touches can be the strongest connection you can make.

You know when you have connected with the living God, because something happens, even if you are only in contact for a brief second, and it just seems as though you have touched His clothing and that is as close as you have got. For that split second, faith will cause cataclysmic changes to happen.

God is not holding back. He will respond to a gentle and speedy touch if it is in faith.

There is something about this gentle touch though that we need to note. It didn’t touch blindly. It knew where to go. If you only have a split second that you can be in contact with the power of God, you had better know where the best place to make that connection is.

This lady knew exactly where to get her brief contact. It was very specific – the hem of His garment. We can easily see that. But why?

At the hem of Jesus’ garment were hanging tassels. These tassels were put on the Jewish cloak to remind them of the Torah.

Numbers 15:37-41

37 Again the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,

38 “Speak to the children of Israel: Tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and put a blue thread in the tassels of the corners.

39 “And you shall have the tassel, that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them, and that you may not follow the harlotry to which your own heart and your own eyes are inclined,

40 “And that you may remember and do all My commandments, and be holy for your God.

41 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: I am the Lord your God.”

Matthew, who recorded the fact that the woman touched the hem of Jesus’ garment, also mentions this two other times:

Matt 14:36

36 and begged Him that they might only touch the hem of His garment. And as many as touched it were made perfectly well,

Matt 23:5

5 “But all their works they (the scribes and the Pharisees) do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments.

It is always interesting to do these side studies in the Scriptures. Now we have discovered that it wasn’t only the woman with the issue of blood that wanted to touch this particular part of the clothing, but many people did. And all those that touched the hem with made well, or perfectly well.

We can also ascertain that the teachers at the time ascribe great importance to this part of the garment, and they made theirs larger – to show men their “spirituality”.

We see from the passage in Numbers that the hem (or tassels) was to remind men of the commandments of God, and that God had delivered them from Egypt. I guess the scribes and Pharisees thought by making this part of the garment bigger, they were giving themselves a “bigger” reminder. They are like the Christians that by a huge Bible just to carry to church to show that they are a great Bible scholar – only they never read it. The hem of the garment was a symbol of the covenant that man had with God, and to remind them to do the will and commandments of God. It also seems that is serves as a public display of the covenant man has with God.

It not only reminded them to do the commandments of God, but also to avoid harlotry and to be holy unto God.

The word “holy” is an interesting word, and it is a wonderful subject to study. Holiness is a whole book in itself. To be holy is to be separated unto God. It is about giving your whole life over to God. This is easy to say, but much more difficult to do.

I can imagine that this lady with the issue of blood has finally made a decision that she was going to get healed by God, and not spend more money on doctors, or try any other way. She had decided that God was her route. She had consecrated her decision and her faith toward God and she became Holy.

It is an obvious extension to reach for the hem of the garment because them hem represented physically what she had decided spiritually.

The hem also represented that Jesus was a man who had dedicated to the will of God. Reaching for the hem of Jesus’ garment was a great point of contact to release her faith. It was the perfect thing to reach for.

This could also explain why many other people reached for the same hem and got healed. They reached for something that symbolised holiness and covenant with God.

It is always interesting to study these things out and not just read over them. I think that there was a real reason why the woman decided to touch this part. Everything this lady did had a reason and a purpose.

Faith is not aimless; it is very focused in on what it wants.

Neither is faith without reason. Touching the hem of the garment had a reason and purpose.

When you believe God for your miracle, don’t reach aimlessly. Don’t be unfocused. Be specific, because faith is.

And the best place to start? Remember the covenant that you have with Almighty God.

Mark 5:28 – Part 1: Different Ways of Worshipping

For she said, “If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well.”

For she said… The word for used here carries on from the previous verse. It will explain to us something, in this case, the particular action of touching His garment. So the reason she touched Jesus’ garment is because she said if only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well.

This is an important point. Don’t miss it!

It sounds really simple, but do you remember earlier where we looked at how your mouth indicates what level of faith is in your heart. Here we see exactly what the woman is believing, because of what she said. That faith caused her to do something. Her action was driven by her faith. Her faith caused her to press in and go beyond everyone else in the crowd.

Maybe no-one else thought about sneaking up behind Jesus. I am sure that everyone wanted to be around the front. This meant it may have been slightly easier to get behind Him. Still, her faith caused her to do something that no-one else had done (with the exception of Jairus). No-one else may have thought of approaching Jesus in the same way. But so what? She got there!

People worship in different ways to me. I may want to be a little more direct when it comes to entering into the presence of God. Others may be a little different; they may come up “from behind” as it were. It really doesn’t matter. I am always amazed how people want to mock the way other Christians worship just because they are different to them. So what? What does it matter? Their faith takes them a different route to you, but they still get there. Their faith still gets them in the presence of God, and if you watch them closely, it won’t be too long before you’ll see a miracle!

HDR image using Photomatix and Photoshop Video Tutorialp

To create this image of Liverpool Lime Street train station, I used the Photomatix software for the HDR (high dynamic range) conversion and then finished of in Photoshop. This short video tutorial shows you how I set up and converted the image in Photomatix and some of the things that had to be fixed in Photoshop. It is great if you want a quick look at HDR as well as Photomatix.