My God and My Country

Word of God

But he replied and said, "It is written, 'It is not by bread alone that a man lives, except by every word that issues from the mouth of God

The Gospel According to Matthew 4:4

The Gospel According to Mark 5:25-34

All commentary and study notes are prefaced/edited by Dr. Riktor Von Zhades

25 And there was a certain woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, 26 And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and it availed her nothing, but she became much worse. 27 When she had heard of Jesus, she came in the press behind, and touched his garment. 28 For she said, if I may but touch his clothes, I shall be whole. 29 And straightway the course of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body, that she was healed of that plague. 30 And immediately when Jesus did know in himself the virtue that went out of him, he turned him round about in the press, and said, Who hath touched my clothes? 31 And his disciples said unto him, Thou seest the multitude throng thee, and sayest thou, Who did touch me? 32 And he looked round about, to see her that had done that. 33 And the woman feared and trembled: for she knew what was done in her, and she came and fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. 34 And he said to her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole: go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.

Brethren:

There is only one word that would suffice to say here; faith.

It is revealed to this writer that much of this chapter has the above word proven many times over as it is surely the way to a better understanding of the compassion of our Savior. In all three episodes within this chapter, we have seen the healing of two people and the resurrection of yet a third. Each of these were first convinced of the diety of Christ, without any uncertainty, they approached Him, (albeit the woman secretly at first), know full well His ability to make them whole.

My friends this is faith in action. If we, can have just even a small iota of such faith, we would no doubt be much better off in this world. Let us therefore resolve to daily believe more and more, read more, and be certain of our confession in Him to save, and our faith will makes us complete and whole. - Dr. RVZ

“in the crowd there is another desperate case, she has no dignity to lose. Unlike him, she approaches Jesus secretly. This woman has been living with continuous menstruation for twelve years. She herself can never approach the presence of God, can never enter the Temple courts to pray, she is a permanent outcast. Is it any wonder, then, that she simply creeps up through the dense, jostling crowd to reach out and touch Jesus’ clothes? How could she dare to appear openly? Perhaps there is an element of superstition in her idea that she need only touch the healer’s robe to be healed; but there is a lot of faith as well. It has cost her so much even to emerge from her home and do this! Immediately she does, she is healed; somehow she knows it. Perhaps there has been constant pain, and it’s suddenly ceased; more likely it’s not just that the bleeding has stopped, but that all her weakness has been restored to strength. She feels complete again, strong again, as she has not felt for twelve long and miserable years. But her story is not quite finished. Jesus too knows something has happened: the touch may have been unconscious, but there has been a cost – he ‘realized that power had gone out from him’. This does not mean that he now has less power than he had before, but there has been a transaction. She has touched him, by faith. Finally she emerges and, just as Jairus did, falls at his feet and fearfully tells him the whole story.

She [now] has peace after the torment she has known. Once more, Jesus brings in the outsider. Jesus is never bothered about becoming ritually unclean by contact with leprosy, or blood, or even death, because his touch makes everything clean. After her years as an outcast, barred from access to God, he calls her ‘daughter’. Think what that means to her! Daughter, because you have put your faith in me, you are healed, you have peace, you can go.” - From a “Ransom for Many”