Touch The Hem Of His Garment

Note: Notes used from Max Lucado's book "He still moves stones"

Title: Touching the Hem of His Garment

Theme: To show what it means to take “risky faith”

Text: Luke 5:22 - 34

Jesus was His was to Jairus’ house. Jairus was ruler in the synagogue. He was a religious leader. Normally they would had nothing to do with Jesus but this man had fallen on desperate times. His daughter had fallen sick and she was going to die except for divine intervention.

She needed the touch from the master. So Jesus makes His way to Jairus house.

The Bible says, “a great multitude followed Him”. He could hardly move through the streets. We see this often as people would crowd around Him. Maybe waiting on Him to heal them. Maybe trying to see what He was going to say. Either way they crowded Him or “thronged Him”.

In verse 25 we are introduced to “a certain woman”. We are not told her name or where she was from. We are only told of her desperate condition. We are told three things 1. She has been bleeding for 12 years, 2. She had spent all that she had 3. She was getting worse.

“But for a Jewess, nothing could be worse. No part of her life was left unaffected.

Sexually ... she could not touch her husband.

Maternally ... she could not bear children.

Domestically ... anything she touched was considered unclean. No washing dishes. No sweeping floors.

Spiritually ... she was not allowed to enter the temple.

She was physically exhausted and socially ostracized.

She had sought help “under the care of many doctors” (v. 26 NIV).

The Talmud gives no fewer than eleven cures for such a condition. No doubt she had tried them all. Some were legitimate treatments. Others, such as carrying the ashes of an ostrich egg in a linen cloth, were hollow superstitions.

She “had spent all she had” (v. 26 NIV). To dump financial strain on top of the physical strain is to add insult to injury.

“Instead of getting better she grew worse” (v. 26 niv). “ – Max Lucado “He Still Moves Stones”

Truth of the matter is she is down to her last prayer. She has lost everything. For us it is hard to understand this unless you have been at the bottom. All you are do is just hanging on to a thread of hope and it seems that could be cut at any moment.

Maybe she was coming back from this last doctor as she noticed the crowds. There is no doubt that she had heard of Jesus but could just as easily passed it off as another superstition. Another “Miracle Cure” that would fall through.

Risky Faith

Something stirred inside her. Something told her that this was not the same. Something spoke to her and said just reach out and touch him. The crowds were there.

Vs. 28 describes her thoughts, “"If only I may touch the hem of His garment, I shall be made well."

There was a risk here: I love the way Max Lucado puts it in He Still Moves Stones

“To touch him, she will have to touch the people. If one of them recognizes her ... hello rebuke, good-bye

cure.

But what choice does she have? She has no money, no clout, no friends, no solutions. All she has is a crazy hunch that Jesus can help and a high hope that he will.

Maybe that’s all you have: a crazy hunch and a high hope. You have nothing to give. But you are hurting. And all you have to offer him is your hurt. Maybe that has kept you from coming to God. Oh, you’ve

taken a step or two in his direction. But then you saw the other people around him. They seemed so clean, so neat, so trim and fit in their faith. And when you saw them, they blocked your

view of him. So you stepped back. If that describes you, note carefully, only one person was

commended that day for having faith. It wasn’t a wealthy giver. It wasn’t a loyal follower. It wasn’t an acclaimed teacher. It was a shame-struck, penniless outcast who clutched onto her

hunch that he could and her hope that he would.

Which, by the way, isn’t a bad definition of faith: A conviction that he can and a hope that he will. Sounds similar to the definition of faith given by the Bible. “Without faith no one can please God. Anyone who comes to God must believe that he is real and that he rewards those who truly want to find

him” (Heb. 11:6).

And she took at risk of faith. She moved through the crowds and stretched out her had and with a lunge touched the hem of His garment. Or as some has noted to tassel of his prayer shaw.