Be Freed from Your Suffering

Mark 5:24-34
Gregory Broderick | Sunday, April 19, 2020
Copyright © 2020, Gregory Broderick

A large crowd followed and pressed around Him.  And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years.  She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.  When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind Him in the crowd and touched His cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch His clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from Him.  He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched My clothes?”

“You see the people crowding against You,” His disciples answered, “and yet You can ask, ‘Who touched Me?’ ”

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it.  Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at His feet and, trembling with fear, told Him the whole truth.  He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you.  Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

Mark 5:24b–34 

 

After miraculously curing a demoniac of a legion of demons, the Lord Jesus crosses back over the lake, and He is met by a large crowd.  He sees the synagogue ruler, Jairus, and He goes with him to heal Jairus’ dying daughter.

Jesus indeed raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead, much to the astonishment of the mockers in the crowd who were there.  And yet on His way to perform this outstanding miracle, our Lord is interrupted by a sick woman.  She suffers from bleeding.  She is miserable.  She is broke.  She is out of options.  And yet she hears about Jesus and she goes to Him and she is healed and she is saved.  Her terrible affliction turned out to be a great blessing.  She was not only cured of her disease, but she was also saved forever.  First, then, let us look at her miserable condition.

The Woman’s Miserable Condition

We see that, indeed, this woman was in a miserable condition.  We see that she is in bad shape.  It says in verse 25 that she had been subject to bleeding for twelve long years.  These must have been long, long years indeed.  She was tired.  She was afflicted.  She could not see any end in sight to this suffering.  She went to doctor after doctor, we are told, with no answer.  She spent all the money but she got no relief.  She was desperate to be rid of this disease.  She tried everything but nothing worked.

Moreover, it says she experienced great suffering.  This no doubt refers to the frustration, to the hopelessness, of an elusive and uncurable disease.  So certainly there is some of that going on.  But it also just plain hurt.  It was plain uncomfortable, unpleasant, and painful.  It plain wore her out.  She suffered a great deal from this affliction, both physically and emotionally.

Not only that, she was also likely excluded from religious life in Israel.  Her hemorrhaging, her bleeding, made her ceremonially unclean, according to Leviticus 15.  Being unclean is a big problem in Old Testament Israel.  To emphasize God’s purity, to emphasize His holiness, to emphasize the difference between the people of Israel and the rest of the nations, to emphasize them as being set apart, they were not to come into God’s presence in an unclean way, in a ceremonially unclean way (Deut. 7:6).  Lev. 15:31 explains that if you come into God’s presence in an unclean way, you defile His dwelling place and you die.

This was not only true in the time of Moses in the desert, but it remained true in Jesus’ time.   Recall that in John 18, the Jewish leaders are eager to rid themselves of Jesus.  They are eager to bind Him and hand Him over to Pilate.  And yet they will not go into the palace, which would have made them unclean and unable to eat the Passover.  So we can see that even in Jesus’ time, they were still very serious about the clean and unclean distinction.

So she was not only sick and suffering, but because of her ceremonial uncleanness, she is also excluded.  Indeed, it is likely that no one wanted to get near her.  She is not only left out of the temple, but also no one wants to get near her, because if you touch her, you become ceremonially unclean.  If you touch her bed or her couch or anything she sits on, you become ceremonially unclean until evening (Lev. 15:27).

She is most likely a pariah.  She is most likely an outcast.  She does not appear to have any husband either (at least we are not told that in the Bible).  Perhaps she was a widow by this time.  Perhaps she never married at all.  Or perhaps she married a man, but he abandoned her, not wanting to be saddled with an unclean wife, so he divorced her.  Or perhaps he existed but he simply stayed at home, sick of searching for the cure that was not coming.  No matter what the reason, we see that she was all alone.  No husband, no friends to go with her, no doctors, no money.  We see that she was excluded from social life and from the worship of God.  She is all alone.

Worse still, she is out of options.  She tried all the doctors; it did not work.  Verse 26 said she had been under the care of many doctors.  We can imagine she went from place to place, searching for a cure.  Probably they tried every treatment.  But verse 26 says nothing worked.  And verse 26 also tells us she spent all the money she had, perhaps even considerable wealth.  We do not know.  But she spent all the money she had.  She tried everything, but it did not work.

In fact, verse 26 tells us that despite all these efforts, instead of getting better, she grew even worse.  All her efforts were for naught.  This must have been very dispiriting, and she must have been very desperate and very helpless.  Sick and suffering, out of money, out of medical options, excluded from social and religious life and all alone.  She is a nobody with no connections.  Indeed, she is a pariah.  Like they would say to a leper, people would tell her, “Keep away from me. Don’t make me ceremonially unclean so that I cannot go and worship.”

She Heard about Jesus

This woman is in a bad state.  But she heard about Jesus.  In her low condition—sick, suffering, alone—she hears about a man, but He is not just any man.  She hears about the God-man, Jesus Christ.  Someone told her that John the Baptist prophesied about the Messiah, and the Holy Spirit came down on Jesus in bodily form at His baptism, and that Jesus drove away the demons in the synagogue.  He was not like others; He spoke and taught with authority.  He healed all the sick people in a town and cured a leper, who went and told all about it.  He healed a paralytic who was lowered down through the roof.  Right there, in front of everyone, the paralytic got up, took up his mat, and walked out, and everyone was amazed.  Surely, everyone talked about it.  They said, “We have never seen anything like it.” Perhaps this woman heard about that.

Or perhaps she heard about the man Jesus healed, the man who with a shriveled hand.  He healed that man right in the synagogue, despite the fact that it was a Sabbath.  And unlike the Pharisees and teachers of the law who loaded people down with burdens, this man Jesus, this God-man, cares for God’s people.  He is for God’s people.  He cures God’s people.  He says, “Man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man.” He says, “It is lawful on the Sabbath to do what is good—to save life.” He is different.  He does not cross the street to avoid the unclean person.  No, He crosses the lake to save His chosen people.

Even the evil spirits cry out to Jesus, testifying that He is the Son of God.  So when she heard of Him, the woman may have thought, “This man Jesus is different.  Could this be Him?  Could this be the long-awaited Messiah?  Would He touch me and cure me, as He did for others?”

So she goes to Jesus.  Now, maybe it was a short journey, or maybe it was a long journey.  We do not know.  But she goes.  She probably took the last of her food, the last of the few coins that she had.  Remember, she had spent all her money.  She took whatever she had and set out.  She probably had to search for Jesus before she found Him.  He moved from place to place.  He did not have a regular schedule.  He did not have an announcement as to where He was going next, and He moved around the countryside.  She probably had to go and look for Him here and there, hearing the rumors: “He went over there and He did this,” or, “He went over there and He did that.”

So she sets out with the last of her belongings to go and seek Jesus.  Notice, this is a one-way ticket.  She is out of money.  She is out of friends.  She is out of time.  She does not have any other option.  She puts all her eggs in one basket to go and seek Jesus.

We can imagine that as she goes along searching for Jesus, as she goes to find where He is, she hears more and more.  She hears what He taught in the parable of the sower.  She hears about a lamp on a stand, and about a mustard seed.  She hears about the demoniac on the other side of the lake, and perhaps she hears how Jesus calmed the great storm in going over there.  How He calmed the great squall by His sovereign word.  She hears that whoever does God’s will is His brother and sister and mother.  She hears the good news.  She hears the gospel.  She hears that God has fulfilled His promise to His people, how He sent His Messiah to rescue them, heal them, and save them.

Finally, she comes and encounters the Lord Jesus.  She is there.  She sees Him standing there.

The Moment of Truth

The woman made it to Jesus.  We can imagine He has come from the other side of the lake.  There He is, with a large crowd gathered around.  The synagogue ruler is standing there also, and the synagogue ruler is there on important business.  The synagogue ruler is a big man, and he has a big problem.  His little daughter is sick and dying.

The woman finally makes it to see Jesus, and yet He is there dealing with a big emergency for a big shot.  A timid person, a faithless person, might have used this as an excuse to quit, to give up.  “I tried,” she might say.  “I went all the way here.  I gave it my best shot.  But Jesus was busy.  Jesus was surrounded by a crowd.  Jesus was helping an important man with a bigger problem than I have.  Jairus’ daughter is dying.  Jesus is helping that important man, and I am just a nobody.  I will just go home and stay in my miserable condition.”

A lesser person might have said these things.  Think about the rich young ruler, for example.  A lesser person, a no-faith person, might have given up and given in.  But not our heroine.  She is a believer.  She is a mighty woman of mighty faith.  She is born again, regenerated by the Holy Spirit.  She does not let the obstacles stop her.  No, she is a super-conqueror.  Nothing will stop her—not plague, not pandemic, not poverty, not medical impossibility, not a large crowd, and not a synagogue ruler.  No, nothing will stop her.  She is bold.  She has faith to go.  She has faith to go to her Savior and to touch her Savior.  To touch her God, and to be healed.

She is bold because she is a child of God, a child of the King.  Nothing will stop her or stand in her way.  She is convinced that “neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, nor the present nor the future nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to keep [her] from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38–39).

She is a child of King Jesus, and so she will go to Him in her time of trouble.  Verse 27 says that she went up to Him from behind.  She touched His cloak, the fringe of His garment, we are told in parallel passages, and she was healed.  She was healed immediately, and she was freed from her suffering.  In fact, she was freed forever.  Hallelujah.

Her Good Confession

It is interesting that after the woman touched Him and melted away into the crowd, Jesus asks, “Who touched Me?”  The ever-practical disciples ask incredulously, “We are surrounded by people on every side.  We are surrounded and being jostled every which way, and yet You ask, ‘Who touched Me?’”  Probably lots of people touched Him.  But this touching was different.  This time, the power went out from Him.  It was a different touching, a miraculous touching, a healing touching, a touching of faith.

Opinions may differ, and we could at this point delve into whether Jesus really knew or did not know, and what were the expressions of His divine nature while He was in human form.  We could do that, but we are not going to because that is not what the text is emphasizing here.  The emphasis at this point is on her testimony, her confession.

Seeing that she could not slink away into the crowd, seeing the eye of the Lord Jesus on her, this woman comes forward and falls at His feet.  She trembles with fear and she tells the whole truth (v. 33).  She tells that Jesus Christ is Lord.  He is not a mere man or a mere healer or a mere guru.  He is very God and very man, infinite, eternal, and sovereign God.  You do not fall at the feet of a mere guru, a mere shaman, a mere healer.  You do not tremble at the feet of a mere prophet.  No, you fall down and tremble at the feet of God.

This is a holy fear, a reverent fear, a humble fear, a thankful and grateful fear.  For she knows that her Savior has healed her.  It is not the fear and terror of man; it is the pure fear of the Lord (Ps. 19:9).  It is the reverent fear, the awe-filled fear, the fear that keeps us from sinning.

So she testifies.  It says she tells “the whole truth.” We are not given the content, but it says the whole truth, so we can imagine what she testifies: “I was sick, I was unclean, and I bled for twelve long years.  I suffered greatly in my body and in my spirit.  I saw all the doctors.  I got worse and worse.  I spent all the money, but it did not help.  I was all alone.  I was a nobody with no hope.  Indeed, I was a slave to sickness, sin, and Satan.  But Jesus called me.  Jesus healed me.  Jesus saved me.  Hallelujah! Glory to God!”

We see that Jesus verified her claim.  He verified her faith.  He says in verse 34, “Daughter, your faith has healed you; go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” Now, it should be obvious here that Jesus is not merely speaking about healing her bleeding.  He is speaking about an eternal healing, about having peace with God.  After all, if He merely healed her bleeding, it would very nice, but it would be of no enduring value, for she would have to die.  And she, in fact, did die.  She is not around now, so she died, at some point.  If she were merely healed in body but still sick in her soul, if she were no longer subject of bleeding but still a subject of Satan, what would it matter that she was healed?  What good would it do?  A few years of temporary relief before an eternity in hell?  How meaningless would that kind of healing be!

No, more went on here than just a physical healing.  More went on here than just some outward sign—an outward healing—although she was certainly healed physically and outwardly too.  No, more went on here.  She was saved by faith in Jesus Christ, not just healed.

The evidence for this is all over the chapter.  First, she has faith to come to Jesus.  Second, she has faith to touch Him.  Third, it says, as soon as she touched Him, she felt that she was freed from her suffering (v. 30).  She knew what had happened to her (v. 32).  (GTB). And, of course, Jesus Himself said, “Your faith has healed you.” She had faith alone in Christ alone and she was saved.  She was free from her suffering in the body and free from the threat of suffering in eternal hell. And because she was freed, because she was saved, she was bold to testify about Jesus.  She was bold to testify before the crowd and tell the whole truth.

The Blessing of Affliction

Let us stop for a moment and observe a great but perhaps subtle truth in this text.  The bleeding, the sickness, and the twelve long years of suffering—all this was the best thing that ever happened to this woman.  It was not the most pleasant thing, but it was the best thing.  It was the best because it drove her to Christ.  It stripped away everything else in her life, so that only Christ remained—no husband, no friends, no money, no doctors, no hope, no self-reliance.

You see, despite all the woman’s worldly efforts, her situation simply got worse.  Only when all these other things were stripped away, including her hope, did she turn to Christ.  Only when she was her wits’ end did she look to the Lord Jesus.

God loves us enough to take everything else away.  He loves us enough to strip us of the fool’s gold of this world—money, power, looks, health, family, or whatever else it is.  He loves us enough to strip all those false hopes away.  Otherwise, we might remain content with those things and we might slide contently to agony in eternal hell, floating on a bed of ease all the way to hell.

No, our God loves us too much for that.  He will do whatever it takes to bring His children to Him eternally.  God indeed disciplines those He loves for our good (Heb. 12:6; Prov. 3:12).  He disciplines us as a loving father, not giving us the easy thing that we want, but giving us the hard thing that we need.  That is for our eternal good.

Twelve years of bleeding was very unpleasant.  It says she suffered greatly.  But to be brought to Christ and saved eternally?  Twelve years in exchange for eternity?  That’s a bargain! That is a great bargain.  You see, she is right now this day praising God in heaven for that bleeding which brought her to Jesus and led her to eternal salvation.

Application

The application here is obvious.  We are all just like this woman.  We are all sick with sin.  We are all suffering greatly in one way or another—some physically, some emotionally, some spiritually.  Whatever it is, we are all suffering greatly if we are outside of Christ.  Like her, no one and nothing else can help us.  Our hearts are restless until they find rest in God.  Self-help will not help us.  Family will not ultimately help us.  Money and doctors and whatever else will not ultimately help us.  Nothing else can solve our sin problem except for Christ.

Like her, we have all sinned against eternal God, and we are all due His eternal wrath.  Like her, we are all excluded from His presence to bless us.  We are all excluded from acceptable worship until we confess Christ and are saved.  Like her, we are all out of options.  Nothing else will work.  We see men all over the world trying various different ways to save themselves, through good works, through money, through whatever it is.  But none of those things will work.  We are all out of options.  There is only one option.

Like her, we must all hear about Jesus.  We must all believe in Jesus.  We must all go to see Jesus.  We must all fall down before Jesus.  We must all put our faith in Jesus.  And we can all be freed from our suffering.  We can all have peace with God.  We must all tremble before Master Jesus, not in abject fear or terror, but we must tremble in fear and walk humbly in obedience to Him as His redeemed people.

Like He saved this woman, Jesus will save you too.  He promises that He will do it.  In John 6:37 Jesus says, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.” Jesus said so, and He tells us why.  In verse 40 He says, “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” Jesus promises it, and the Father wills it.  If you come to Him, you will be saved.  If you confess Jesus Christ as Lord, if you put your faith in Him, you will be saved.

Our God loves sinners.  He loves us enough to save us from our sins.  He loved us enough to send His Son—the eternal Son, the God-man Jesus Christ—to pay our infinite debt for sin, to pay the ultimate price, to suffer the wrath of God on the cross and to die in our place.  He sent Him to suffer His infinite wrath on the cross so that we could be saved.  So that we could have peace with God.  So that we could have fellowship with the eternal God.  So that we could fulfill our God-ordained purpose to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.  God loves sinners indeed.

Notice also that Jesus cares about you.  He loves you.  He offers salvation to you for free; by grace through faith.  It is true that you might be a nobody.  You might be a sick, old, unclean woman.  You might be poor.  You might be unconnected.  You might be out of money.  You might have no other options.  But He loves you anyway.  In fact, Jesus loves the little people, the zeroes.  He loves the ones who see their need for Him.  The rich people, the big people often do not see their need.  But God loves the zeroes, for they see their need for Jesus and cry out to Him.  As Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 1:26, “Not many of you were wise by human standards,; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.” If you are not wise, if you are not influential, if you are not of noble birth, that is good news for you.  That is who He chose—the zeroes.  He chose them to show His glory, to show His mercy, to show His great love, and to shame the so-called wise, the so-called rich, the so-called powerful, the so-called somebodies.  To shame them so that even a few of them might look to Jesus and be saved.

Notice, He loves the woman to save her, but He also cares for her practical problem.  I said He did not just cure her bleeding, but He did indeed cure her bleeding.  She could be restored to worship in the synagogue and the temple.  She could now have fellowship with other people.  She could be restored to social life, no longer an outcast.  She could be restored to work and perhaps to marriage, and so on.

What great love is this, that the eternal and all-powerful God stops what He is doing to help this woman!  He tells the synagogue ruler with the dying daughter, “You must wait.” Jairus is a big man with a big problem, an urgent problem; indeed, his daughter is dying.  But Jesus says, “You wait.  My daughter is here.  My daughter is suffering.  She came in faith, so, everyone, stop.  I am going to solve her problem, for she is my daughter by faith, and I, eternal God, care for my children.  So Jairus can wait, and his daughter can wait, for my daughter is here.”

Jesus saved Jairus’ daughter too.  He saved her from death.  But Jesus says, “His daughter can wait, for My daughter is here.  You thought she was a poor, sick, unclean, desperate, alone woman?  You thought she is a nobody?  She is a somebody.  She is a child of God.  She is loved by God, so she will be healed right now—not on my way back, but right now.  Everybody, stop.  She will be healed, and all will see it, all will hear about it, and all will testify about it.  Indeed, it will be recorded in the word of God, the sacred Scriptures.  It will be recorded that others might believe and be saved and be freed from their suffering also.”

I urge you, see your need.  See your need to be healed—eternally healed by God.  See your condition.  You are like this woman—unclean, sick, dying, and without hope, without alternatives.  You are accursed by sin and alienated from God until you put your faith in Jesus Christ.  See your only option.  There is nothing else that can save you.  Not the money, not the doctors, not self-help—nothing else can save you.  Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except by Me.” He is our only option.

Then go to Jesus in faith.  It is good that you see your need.  It is good that you see that you have no other option.  But it will not help you unless you go to Jesus in faith.  Believe in Him.  Believe that He alone can save.  Do not go to investigate.  Do not go to inquire.  Do not go to have a look.  Do not go to consider the options.  Do not go with a plan B in your pocket.  Go in faith.  Trust in Him.  Fall down on your knees and confess Him as Lord and Savior.  He is a great God.  Fear and tremble before Him.  But then trust in Him alone.  Be freed from your suffering—the suffering of sin.  Be free from the future suffering in hell.  Be destined for heaven.  Be destined for glory.  And then testify about Him, as this woman did.  Tell the whole truth, as she did.  Tell the crowd how Jesus saved you, just like He saved her.  Live for Him.  Walk as Jesus did—holy and obedient.  Do this, not to earn salvation, for we cannot do that, but do it out of love and gratitude for Him.

Know that Jesus cares for you too.  Whether you have a big problem, such as your eternal salvation, or a small problem, such as your physical affliction, know that Jesus cares for you.  Go and take your problems to Jesus, and He will help you eternally.

And be prepared for something even better.  You see, this woman was healed.  She felt great for the first time in her life.  She felt in her body that she had been healed.  But something even better was on the horizon for her, and she enjoys it even now, even today.  She worships with us in heaven, in glory.  You see, something better than this life is coming.  This life is not all that there is.  How we feel and how we do in this life is not all that there is.  It is not even the important part.  Something better is coming—eternity, glory, pure worship of God in heaven forever with all the saints of God.

Let us, then, come to Jesus, be freed from our suffering, and be destined for that eternal glory in heaven.  Amen.