With One Touch From Jesus

The good news is the Kingdom of Heaven came down to earth when Jesus walked the earth as a man. His kingdom is an eternal kingdom of equality and respect, truth and justice, peace and harmony, restoration and healing, freedom for the captives, and liberty for the oppressed.

With one touch from Jesus everything changes.

Luke 8:40-44 So it was, when Jesus returned, that the multitude welcomed Him, for they were all waiting for Him. And behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue. And he fell down at Jesus’ feet and begged Him to come to his house, for he had an only daughter about twelve years of age, and she was dying. But as He went, the multitudes thronged Him. Now a woman, having a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any, came from behind and touched the border of His garment. And immediately her flow of blood stopped.

So here we have a multitude of people, a community all thronging Jesus. We have an important man in the community. His name is Jairus and his daughter is dying. The whole community watches as this important man bows down at Jesus’ feet begging Him to come and heal his dying daughter.

We also have disciples who are journeying with Jesus and an outcaste woman. She is an outcaste from the community, has no place in the community, she has no voice and has been declared by the community as unclean because of her condition. She believes she is unworthy of love. She believes the lies said over her by the community, the world and the religious community of the time.

And then with one touch from Jesus, something happened.

Let us read verses 43-44. A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding, and she could find no cure. Coming up behind Jesus, she touched the fringe of his robe. Immediately, the bleeding stopped. (NLT).

Remember this woman was an outcast. She is unclean, has no identity, no place and no voice within the community. The complete opposite to Jairus who was a religious leader, a voice in the community, respected and admired.

This outcaste woman, with one touch from Jesus, received her physical healing.

I too received one touch from Jesus. I had a back condition where I could not stand. I could not walk. I could not sit.

I could not even support my own body weight. No doctor could heal me. My muscles and nerve endings were in complete shock. Day after day, after day, I lived in the fear of this pain. For 18 months I had this condition.

The religious community said you must believe, you must believe Jesus can heal you. I knew Jesus could heal me at anytime, so it was not a question of my faith. Yet, I believed and was not receiving my healing. I even stopped asking God for my healing. I decided, yet shall I praise Him, for He alone is praise worthy. One day, I raised my hands and just reached up to heaven and praised Him from the depths of my soul. That was the day I touched heaven. I felt, physically felt His healing power touch my fingertips; flow down through my arms and through my

body. That was the day I was set free. That was the day my physical condition was completely healed.

With one touch from Jesus physical healing.

Let us go back to the woman.

With one touch from Jesus the woman is healed of her physical condition, but that is only a small part of the miracle she received that day. Let us notice what Jesus says in verse 45. And Jesus said, “Who touched Me?”

Now Jesus is the Son of God. He knows who touched Him. He knows all things, by Him and through Him all things were created.

Jesus didn’t say, what touched me, He said WHO. By saying who in the presence of the whole community He was identifying this woman as a person. Remember the community considered her less than human because of her condition. Jesus declares over her she is a person, someone whose life is so valued that Jesus stops, turns and speaks. Remember He is on His way to healing a dying daughter. Jairus’ daughter is dying.

Yet this woman is just as important as Jairus. Not only has Jesus acknowledged the woman as a person, but now we have all the disciples discussing who touched Him. Instantly, Jesus with three words has restored the woman’s marred identity by declaring her a person. She is a person of equal value to Jairus. Jesus is demonstrating this not only by the words He speaks, but by giving her time.