Mark 5:30-34 (NIV): At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”
“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?'”
But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
When the woman with the issue of blood touched the edge of Jesus cloak and was healed, she figured that she could just get in and out without being noticed – a kind of “stealth healing.” But when she touched Jesus’ cloak in faith, it released power through Him, a release that He could sense (cf. Luke 8:46).
As the disciples pointed out, Jesus was moving through a jostling crowd, with numerous people bumping against Him constantly. But the woman’s touch was different; there was nothing causal or accidental about it. It was a touch of faith that released healing power through Jesus. And it wasn’t that Jesus felt weaker when she touched Him. He was never a cistern of power that had to be refilled from time to time. The Holy Spirit and God’s power flowed through Him continually (cf. John 7:38). He just sensed that someone had benefitted from God’s healing power by touching Him, and He wanted them to come forward.
Jesus kept looking for the person who had touched Him and released His healing power, not to chew her out, but so that she would be able to give glory to God and to Jesus by testifying about her healing. Of course, she thought that she was in trouble for two reasons: for sneaking up on Jesus and appropriating a healing, and for possibly making Jesus unclean when she touched Him when she herself was unclean from the issue of blood. When she finally stepped forward and threw herself at Jesus’ feet, she expected anger and recriminations. Instead, He affirmed her faith and her healing, and sent her on her way in peace.
Father, it may sound egotistical to some that You require that those who have received a miracle from You testify about it publicly. But we have to remember that You have a much larger agenda than just healing people or providing miracles. You want the whole world to come into a redemptive relationship with You, and that is much more likely to happen when we tell others about all that You have done for us. Lord, open our lips to speak boldly about what You have done in our lives, so that everybody can see clearly Your hand at work, and come to know You. Amen.