My house shall be called a house of prayers: Matthew 21:13
Jakes sermon on healing: Jesus as the healer
Matthew 9:20-22
The woman is ill. Every part of her is aching. Her pulse is weak. Her body, trembling. She tries desperately to hide her pain. She is a woman whose trauma has become so all-consuming that she stands alone in the midst of a crow. Her problem are multiple, complex, and diverse. On one hand, she is impoverished. She has spent all she had on doctors. She is fresh out-outing of fiancé, out of friends and tragically with her blood flowing out of her almost out of time.
Even religion, as it were, has denied that women are healing. The rabbinical law had for bidden her to touch or to be touched. What can a woman do when her mutiny is within? When she lives with a roommate of pain in a house of despair? What can she do when there’s no friendly touch to serve as a sedative to ease her discomfort? When a woman is sick, her whole body wars against her.
Yet way down deep in the innermost part of her heart, a flickering flame defied the blowing wind disease and refused to be extinguished. A passion to live refuses to die. Oh yes she was sick and broken and lonely, but she was a long way from dead. She knew it wasn’t over. Her body didn’t know it. Her chambers of her being, down in the basement of her feminine spirit whispered a hope that none could hear: if I may touch the hem of his garment.
It is not what others say about her nor even what is said there that determines a woman, her destiny-but what she says about herself. And although an issue of blood was throbbing, her guts cramping, and she felt faint from an issue of blood, she kept whispering hope in the depths of her soul.
While death was stalking her, leering over her shoulder, it was the “if” that kept her alive. “If I may but touch…” No one dies as long as she‘s holding on to an if I believe, there may be a change. If picked up that bleeding woman and cause her to press through the crows, past the disdainful looks of prominent men. If gave her the courage to survive their stares and make her way towards the strangers called Jesus.
But when she got there, he wasn’t even look in her direction! What a woman to do when she’s in trouble and God is looking the other way? First of all, she refused to be discouraged. In spite of his distraction, she believed that just maybe she could still be made whole. What if Jesus decided to heal her? What if He changes her circumstances?
The waiting game was over. This was a woman who was taking charges of her life. No more standing around, hoping someone would get to her. She pressed through the crows, defying the social dictates of her day that said it wasn’t appropriate for a woman to touch Him, “She decided. And before they knew it, she had slipped around the system, and climbed over the pain and touched the hem of his garment.
Now it doesn’t matter how you touch Him. It doesn’t matter where you touch Him. It only matters that you touch Him. The scriptures say that we have not High Priest who cannot be touched by the feeling of our infirmities. And on this particular day, Jesus knew He had been touched. Touched by a woman the law had declared unclean.
She touched Him. Without need for recognition, status, or frame. With no ulterior motive, no personal agenda. All she needed was relief from her terrible pain. She was not looking for approval. She was not worried about women’s right. She wasn’t after a position on the board. All she sought was a position on her knees. And in response, His virtue came running down.
That virtue flowed down to her terrible secret and healed her. The bible says that she knew within herself that she was healed. Isn’t amazing that her deliverance happened inside? Herself, she had whispered, if I may but touch the hem of his garment”. And in that same part of her inner self, she knew the instant s he was healed.
But that’s not the end of the story. Jesus asked who touched me, now that woman could have kept quiet and never called attention to herself. She could have melted into the crows, clutching her healing to herself. But she decided to go to the public. Perhaps, if she told the secret-her embarrassing secret-some other woman who was all about over and bleeding could gather up the courage to let Jesus heal her.
Perhaps you are dealing with some issues that seem insurmountable. No matter how badly you are wounded, how lonely no matter how many other have pushed past you on the way to the top, keep moving on to ward Jesus, the Healer. And when He heals you, maybe you should go public and let the world know that an unclean woman-a woman without a dime in her pocked or a friend to her name-can touch a holy God. Let the world know you made it from disgrace to grace, carried to him on whispers of hope.
Source T.D. Jakes
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