The Strength That Empowers Us

Psalm 19 Mark 5: 24-34
March 15, 2009
Rev Alan Claassen

Did you know that going to church is good for your health? Faculty at Duke University did a study and they found that:
1) People who attend church regularly are hospitalized less often than people who never or rarely participate in church services
2) People who pray and read the Bible have lower blood pressure
3) People who attend religious services have stronger immune systems than their less religious counterparts.
So it’s healthy to come to church. Research proves it.
And there’s no Waiting Room.
So if you are looking to improve your health this morning, you’ve come to the right place.
The Gospel reading this morning tells of a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. “A long succession of physicians had treated her, and treated her badly, taking all her money and leaving her worse off than before…” (The Message, Eugene Peterson)
“She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in crowd and touched his cloak.”
Unlike Bartimaeus in our scripture reading from two weeks ago,
the blind beggar who called out from the crowd,
“Jesus, Son of David have mercy,”
this woman, whose name we do not know,
“moved toward Jesus silently, secretively, and in shame.
She had reason for her silence. As a bleeding person, she was considered by the orthodox to be unclean, contaminated, and untouchable.
For twelve years she had not been embraced or touched, even by her family.
As she walked down the street, people carefully moved aside, …” (Miracle, pg39 Wuellner)
Flora Wuellner, in her book, Miracle, sees in this woman a pain deeper than the chronic illness and loss of resources, namely, loneliness and a sense of shame. “It is hard not to internalize what others think of us. [The woman] probably thought of herself as unworthy and unclean.
How could she possibly believe that Jesus would deliberately touch her or encourage her to touch him?
If others saw her touching Jesus, they would consider him contaminated also, unfit to do God’s work until he had been purified. Jesus was on his way to the dying daughter of Jairus, an important man in the community.
If by her touch [the woman] prevented this, she would be blamed. She might be cast out of the community altogether.
Hers was a silent cry for a secret healing—a quick, shamed, touch on the outer garment. She hoped no one would notice, especially not Jesus.” (Miracle, pg 40, Wuellner)

This connection between the woman’s faith inspired by belief in Jesus fascinates me. When the woman reaches out to touch Jesus, he feels the spirit go out our him, he calls out who touched me, he sees the woman, hears her story, and says,
“Your faith has made you well.”
There are two active participants in this story, Jesus, a man who completely embodied the life-giving love of God and a woman who completely embodied desire for healing and faith that just the cloak of Jesus could heal her.

And even though I can only humbly approach this story at that level of mystery and grace, not really being able to understand it, I want to remember it.
I want us to remember for those in moments in our lives of not knowing where to turn.
When our own power is gone, when we feel like all eyes upon us a critical,
when we feel like everything in our lives is telling us to withdraw within ourselves
we have available to us the invitation to reach out to another source of power, the healing presence of God.
In that moment our prayer may simply be:
God, please send me guidance,
the open heart to receive it
and the courage to act upon it.

We may only be given the courage to move silently in the direction of silence. There are many good things that begin in silence. But don’t be surprised when healing comes and the light shines on the darkness. And don’t surprised in how good that will feel.

When the woman is brought out of her closet of shame by Jesus asking, “Who touched my cloak, the woman identifies herself. She became visible to the entire community.
The invisible takes center stage.
What will happen?
Her hemorrhaging has already been healed.
Then Jesus to woman, “Your faith has made you well.”
In that pronouncement she is restored with her community. She is different than she was. She is healed. She is no longer the untouchable that she was before. She is no longer to be seen.
She no longer assumes that she will be greeted with judgmental stares or rejection.
She receives more than just the healing of her illness; she is also reunited with her community.
Jesus restores her health and announces to the community that she is well.
This connection between healing and community is the one that I find compelling.
Because for a moment I take seriously the statement that we make about ourselves that we, the church, are the body of Christ.
I ask myself how we can live our lives as a faith community that would encourage someone to reach out to us in hopes of healing, friendship, and affirmation.


The woman who had been suffering physically and emotionally for twelve years needed more than bodily healing.
“She needed also to hear Jesus tell her openly,
in front of everyone,
that she was a worthy, faithful person.

[Jesus] called her daughter. Only in this particular story does Jesus refer to a woman as daughter. How deeply she must have needed that word of intimacy and respect. With his tenderness and peace, Jesus gave her not only bodily healing but also a deeper healing of her heart and spirit.

The community members need to see and to hear that God’s love excluded no one. They needed to learn that compassionate mercy matters for more than rules. They needed to hear that it is not God’s will that for anyone to remain sick, drained, lonely, uncomforted.

As Jesus challenged the ancient cruel laws he was revealing to them, to us, what God’s kin-dom really is.” (Miracle, pg 45, Wuellner)

This year, for this church’s observance of Lent, many of us wrote on pieces of cloth, the places in our own lives that are in need of healing, body, mind, and spirit. Those pieces of cloth, which we touched, our draped around the cross.
We touch the outer garment of Jesus’ cloak, and we wrap our places of need, brokenness, and separation, around the cross trusting that this is a place of healing, of strength beyond our own and yet within our reach.
What shall we reach out for?
The Holy Healing Spirit that was in Jesus and through Jesus for that woman who touched his cloak, is still within reach.
Somehow, in ways that no one can explain, we are able to touch the garment of the risen Christ, just as that woman touched the robe Jesus was wearing.
To make this seeming impossibility more real for us, Jesus gave us each other in this community of faith.
We bring ourselves, as we are, and as we want to become to this sacred place. We ask to be guided on the level path.
We asked to overcome fear and judgment and give ourselves to love. We are given an opportunity to be with Christ Jesus who knows our goodness and wants us to step forward, in love, for whatever life brings us next.

I said at the beginning of the sermon that church is good for your health.
Well rather than telling you take two aspirin and stay in bed,
I am going to give you one prayer and a way to remember it.
Say these words while doing the corresponding action:
God, please send me guidance, (Make eyeglasses over eyes)
the open heart to receive it (Place hands over heart, then open)
and the courage to act upon it. (Quickly extend hands directly forward)

Let the people, who love mercy and seek justice say,
Amen

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The Message, The New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs, Eugene Peterson, Navpress, Colorado Springs

Miracle, When Christ Touches Our Deepest Need, Flora Slosson Wuellner, Upper Room Books, Nashville