Go In Peace Series

“Your faith has made you well. Go in peace.”

As always the question to begin:

Do you have the faith to believe God will perform a miracle in your life?

We continue in our series on Supernatural Springs, and this morning is our last sermon on The Supernatural Spring of Peace and Rest.

Today is also the fifth Sunday of the month so it is a Healing and Wholeness Service.

What I want us to do is consider together the blessing of peace that Jesus gave to a woman after she was miraculously healed of a condition that had plagued and afflicted her for twelve years.

A woman whose name is not even mentioned in the Bible but the miracle that occurred in her life is recorded as an example to us of the miracles that can happen by placing our faith and trust in Jesus for Healing and Wholeness.

Mark Chapter 5 and I’m reading from the New Living Translation:

25 A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding. 26 She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse.

27 She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind Him through the crowd and touched His robe. 28 For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch His robe, I will be healed.”

29 Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition.

30 Jesus realised at once that healing power had gone out from Him, so He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?”

31 His disciples said to him, “Look at this crowd pressing around you. How can you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”

32 But He kept on looking around to see who had done it.

33 Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realisation of what had happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of Him and told Him what she had done.

34 And Jesus said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.”

Mark 5:25-34 25

Here is a woman who has experienced internal bleeding for twelve years.

Guys, you don’t know how fortunate we are that we don’t have to experience a period each month.

Apparently for most ladies, the average bleed lasts for between three and five days each month.

But this woman had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding.

Jewish women were actually allowed a rest from daily duties during their period because according to the Written Laws found in Leviticus they were declared ceremonially unclean.

Leviticus 15:19 says “Whenever a woman has her period, she will be ceremonially unclean for seven days.”

and Leviticus 15:25-27 says “If a woman has a flow of blood for many days, unrelated to her period, or if the blood continues beyond the normal period, she is ceremonially unclean... the woman will be unclean as long as the discharge continues. Any bed she lies on and any object she sits on during that time will be unclean... If any of you touch these things, you will be ceremonially unclean. You must wash your clothes and bathe yourself in water, and you will remain unclean until evening.

This woman had two serious problems to contend with - the first was a medical condition that had probably made her anaemic and physically weak.

The second problem was that according to Jewish law she was not welcomed in society. She was unclean, defiled, and impure. And if she touched someone they also would become unclean, defiled, and impure.

Not a good place to be in. Not a place filled with joy and hope, not a place of rest and peace.

This is a woman who desperately needed physical and emotional healing in her life.

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In 1st Century Palestine there were places that were sort of like hospitals.

Unlike today there would have been no method of transfusion to replace loss blood supply.

Doctors, for lack of a better name, charged high prices for very sub-standard care.

A doctor would prescribe herbs, perform some basic surgery on external wounds but fixing internal bleeding would have been far beyond their ability.

Verse 26 tells us She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse.

Here was a woman who had, humanly speaking,

tried everything to get well,

maybe she had tried some seriously unpleasant treatments,

maybe she had tried every possible herbal remedy,

maybe she had even let some of the doctors experiment with strange and pointless surgical operations