Week 4 #2: Response!

(The passage about the woman who touched Jesus’ cloak can be found in Matthew 9:18-26, Mark 5:21-43 and Luke 8:40-56).

I was quite surprised when I read Alexis’s entries, simply because there are countless stories in the gospel where Jesus healed sick people and I used to think all of them are similar to each others. So how could a person be impressed with a story more than the others? However, when I read the passage closely, her favourite bible passage is different! Jesus did not heal the woman intentionally, but the woman had a strong faith that she was able to draw Jesus’ power by just touching his clothes, thus, she was healed immediately.

I disagree to say that she had a blind faith because she had a strong faith on what she did. She didn’t say “If I just touch his clothes, hopefully, I could be healed or I might be healed,” but she firmly believed that “If I just touch His clothes, I WILL get well” (Mark 5:28).

Her faith was definitely as big as a mustard seed (Luke 17:6), or even bigger! A faith with hope, not the ‘desperate hope’ like those people buying 4D and hoping to win (because they don’t know whether they will win), but the hope with confidence, such as our HOPE that Jesus will come again at the end of time. We must have confidence when we proclaim that Jesus will come again, as written in Acts of the Apostles 1:11 “…this Jesus, who was taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way that you saw him go to heaven.”

After reading it a few times now, I’m amazed with the woman’s faith, because I really want a faith like hers. Honestly speaking, I had doubt and fear whether my prayer would be answered. Often time, I would start asking if Jesus would grant my petition, especially when I was alone in adoration chapel. I could just sit there for hours and questioning over and over again. Now I realised that it is because I have so little faith in Him.

The time is different now, we no longer see Jesus walking around to heal people literally, but we still can witness His healing power in every one of us, why? It is because He IS risen. At the Christ’s tomb, the apostles heard these words from the angel: “He’s not here” (Luke 24:5). Thus, the apostles’ faith came from the Resurrection. Nothing more concretely and conclusively proves Christ’s divinity than His resurrection. I don’t know whether the woman knew that Christ was God but we know that Jesus Christ is God and “…there is nothing that God cannot do” (Luke 1:37). Having said that, shouldn’t we have a stronger faith than the woman as we know that Christ IS risen?

Father God,
Let the splendour of the resurrection
Light up our hearts and minds.
And in your kindness increase your gifts of grace within us,
so that fervent in faith, hope and love,
we will be the witness of the risen Christ
especially to those who do not know You yet.
Amen.

(Pictures are courtesy of One Year Bible Reading and personal collection)