Beautifully Surrendered: God's Heart for His DaughtersSample

Read: Mark 5:25–34; Luke 8:40–48

SOAP: Mark 5:34

“He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

Into the text

Today, the woman in our reading made some incredibly bold choices before her healing occurred. She would have been an outcast because her medical condition made her ceremonially unclean. On top of over a decade of suffering that no doctor could solve, she would have been isolated from her community the entire time. After so many years of loneliness and sickness, it’s no wonder she was desperate to be healed by the only One who could do it.

Even though her years of isolation excluded her from her community and religious participation, she had great faith. We don’t know if she prayed for healing; all we are told is that she spent all her money on doctors and her condition only grew worse. We’re not even told her name, but we do know she had faith in the healing power of Jesus. She believed that by merely touching Him, she would be healed.

Being among the crowd was a great risk, given her condition. The woman shouldn’t have touched anyone, especially not someone as popular and important as Jesus. Yet she had such great faith that He would heal her, and she risked breaking the law to be healed. The woman believed with her whole heart that all it would take for her to be healed was to touch Jesus’ clothes.

Jesus was rejected by His brothers, as they did not fully understand who He was. Many Jews rejected Him, calling Him a liar and a false prophet, and many Gentiles feared Him. Not this woman. This woman, who had been socially isolated, excluded, and separated from her community, knew what Jesus could do. Her faith in His healing power changed her completely. In His great mercy and compassion, Jesus honored her faith by offering reassurance and praise, in addition to the miraculous physical healing that happened without Him ever saying a word.

We may find ourselves excluded, cut off, rejected, misunderstood, feared, isolated, or unable to participate in worship the way we most love but have faith! Jesus is near to you. You need only reach out.