The Myth And The Magic, The Moment And The Master

Mark 5:24-34

The Myth and the Magic, The Moment and the Master

Objective:- Show congregation that Christianity is more than a religion or a magical solution to their problems, it is a relationship.

Introduction

The story of the woman who reached through the crowd and touched the hem of His garment is a beautiful and encouraging one.

For all of us who are going through tough times, we can gain hope and encouragement here

The are 3 points in this talk

The Myth and the Magic, The Moment and the Master.

1) The Myth & Magic

a) Humanity

In the time of Jesus, miracle workers and magicians were rife

They would be paid for their demonstrations of power and they had been around for centuries.

In the story of Moses we read about the miracle workers of Egypt who matched many of the miracles that had been manifested through Moses

The difference between their magic and the miracles of God was that it was external and anonymous, whereas the Miracles of Moses were meant to bring the people into relationship with God.

We live in a world that promises instant solutions

Power is the world’s currency and the leader with the strongest voice has the attention of the world

b) Head

In Mark 5 and verse 24 we read the story about the woman who reached out to Jesus

Through the crowd and touched the hem of His garment

She had heard about Jesus, she had seen what he had done, so she decided to go and

find him herself

- Like the world, she looked at Jesus from the outside and believed that she could go and get what she wanted anonymously, without any personal engagement, believing she could just touch the hem of his garment and ‘steal his power’

- What she did not count on was a personal encounter with Jesus

- When we don’t understand Jesus, we treat Christianity like a religion.

- We may join the crowd and go to Church, but we never reach through the crowd to touch Him, so our hearts are never touched.

c) Heart

- Verse 25 tells us that this woman had suffered terribly.

-Physically, she lived with the humiliation of a constant issue of blood. This was a heavy stream of blood.

- The Scriptures tell us that she touched His cloak and she noticed straight away that the bleeding stopped, so it must have been a constant steady stream.

-This woman was lonely and isolated. She was ritually unclean and unable to have contact with friends, relatives, and society in general

-She was completely broke. The scriptures seem to suggest that she had a lot of money to spend on extended medical treatments- so she was probably a woman of some standing before she got the disease

-And she had spent all her money on promising treatments and she had probably tried them all

-She was broken, dispirited, her self esteem was shattered, so much so that she only felt worthy to press through the crowd to touch the hem of His garment

- Yet in spite of all this, as she reached through the crowd she demonstrated a faith that was enough for Jesus

2) The Moment

a) Faith

- Although the woman’s understanding of Jesus was incomplete and distant, she had great faith

- In verse 34, Jesus said to her, your faith has made you well

- What kind of faith is it that Jesus is looking for?

- Paul wrote to the Corinthians in Chapter 8 of 2 Corinthians and verse 8 “I am not laying down any rules. But by showing how eager others are to help, I am trying to find out how real your love is”

- The problems that this woman was facing were very real

- The problems and the grief and hurt that many people are facing today in this congregation are very real

- We spoke about the disciples last week when they were in the boat with Jesus and the wind whipped up and they faced a very real problem

- The challenge that many of life’s difficulties bring to us is the question ‘How real is your love? How real is your faith?

b) Feeling

- The woman touched his garment and her bleeding stopped at once

- Verse 29 says that she felt inside that her troubled had stopped

What a feeling this must have been!

- Faith is an objective thing, but it is also a thing of great and wonderful joy!

- Many of us are from streams of faith that are more than a little suspicious of expressions of joy, to the point where we discourage them

- We like our religion with a good dose of sobriety.

- We may be tempted to look down on some denominations that may be more exuberant in their worship experience