Mark 5:28

For she said,.... Within herself, such were her thoughts, and so great her faith: if I may touch but his clothes I shall be whole; See Gill on Mat 9:21.

The miserable condition that this poor creature was in; he was under the power of an unclean spirit, the devil got possession of him, and the effect of it was not, as in many, a silent melancholy, but a raging frenzy; he was raving mad; his condition seems to have been worse than any of the possessed, that were Christ's patients.

For she said--"within herself" (Mt 9:21). If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole--that is, if I may but come in contact with this glorious Healer at all.

The main subject of these verses is the miraculous healing of a sick woman. Great is our Lord's experience in cases of disease! Great is his sympathy with His sick and ailing members! The gods of the heathen are generally represented as terrible and mighty in battle, delighting in bloodshed, the strong man's patrons, and the warrior's friends. The Savior of the Christian is always set before us as gentle, and easy to be entreated, the healer of the broken hearted, the refuge of the weak and helpless, the comforter of the distressed, the sick man's best friend.

The main subject of these verses is the miraculous healing of a sick woman. Great is our Lord's experience in cases of disease! Great is his sympathy with His sick and ailing members! The gods of the heathen are generally represented as terrible and mighty in battle, delighting in bloodshed, the strong man's patrons, and the warrior's friends. The Savior of the Christian is always set before us as gentle, and easy to be entreated, the healer of the broken hearted, the refuge of the weak and helpless, the comforter of the distressed, the sick man's best friend. And is not this just the Savior that human nature needs? The world is full of pain and trouble. The weak on earth are far more numerous than the strong. Let us mark, in these verses, what misery sin has brought into the world . We read of one who had had a most painful disease "for twelve years." She had "suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing better, but rather grew worse." Means of every kind had been tried in vain. Medical skill had proved unable to cure. Twelve long weary years had been spent in battling with disease, and relief seemed no nearer than at first. "Hope deferred" might well "make her heart sick." (Prov. 13:12.) How incredible it is that we do not hate sin more than we do! Sin is the cause of all the pain and disease in the world. God did not create man to be an ailing and suffering creature. It was sin, and nothing but sin, which brought in all the ills that flesh is heir to. It was sin to which we owe every racking pain, and every loathsome infirmity, and every humbling weakness to which our poor bodies are liable. Let us keep this ever in mind. Let us hate sin with a godly hatred. Let us mark, in the second place, how different are the feelings with which people draw near to Christ .

BRIEFLY consider this poor woman's case. She was afflicted with a disease of exceedingly long standing which not only wasted her strength and threatened to bring her speedily to the grave, but rendered her, according to the Jewish ceremonial Law, unclean, and therefore unable to mix in company. Thus she was doomed to be a poor, suffering, desponding, desolate woman. The physicians of those days were bold enough to attempt impossible cures, but their skill was not at all commensurate with their courage. They tormented their patients, but seldom relieved them of anything but their money. Even a few hundred years ago many of the articles which were given to patients as medicines, and cried up as drugs of sovereign efficacy, were so unutterably disgusting that I should not like to repeat their names. And the processes of surgery, then common among practitioners, would have been exceedingly satisfactory if they had been intended to kill, but were both absurd and inhuman if proposed as salutary operations. The science of medicine, indeed, did not then exist. And in the age of our Lord, surgery and medicine were just a mass of quackery and daring pretension, without anything of skill or knowledge to support their claims. This poor woman had, however, in her anxious desire to be restored to society and to health, gone first to one and then to another, and yet another—although all caused her suffering by acrid medicines or by severe operations. And after the end of 12 years she found herself penniless as well as worse in health. Just then, her physical state being still the highest thought in her mind, she heard that there was a Prophet who healed diseases.

THE miracle of the healing of this woman occurred while our Savior was on the road to the house of Jairus to raise his daughter and I have not much doubt that although, in itself, it was a very remarkable miracle, it was not meant to stand quite alone, but had a relation to the Lord's dealings with Jairus. If I read the narrative rightly, the ruler of the synagogue was about to have his faith severely tried. He had come to the Savior saying that his daughter was lying at the point of death.

THE miracle of the healing of this woman occurred while our Savior was on the road to the house of Jairus to raise his daughter and I have not much doubt that although, in itself, it was a very remarkable miracle, it was not meant to stand quite alone, but had a relation to the Lord's dealings with Jairus. If I read the narrative rightly, the ruler of the synagogue was about to have his faith severely tried. He had come to the Savior saying that his daughter was lying at the point of death. He beseeched Jesus to come and heal her, but before He had reached the house, other messengers came to say, "Your daughter is dead; why do you trouble the Master any further?" Now, in order that the faith of Jairus might be prepared for that shock, our Lord had afforded him the sight of a special miracle worked upon this woman. Our Lord had said to him, "Fear not; only believe, and she shall be made whole," and as old Bishop Hall says, "to make this good, by the touch of the hem of His garment He revived a woman from the verge of death." It is amazing that the case of his little daughter of 12 years of age was here placed within the region of hope by our Lord's healing a woman who had been exactly the same time subject to a grievous and incurable malady. A woman who led a living death is healed that Jairus may believe that his dead daughter may be raised to life! Brethren, we never know, when God blesses us, how much blessing He is incidentally bestowing upon others. It may be that even our conversion had a far-reaching but very distinct connection with the conversion of others. Grace smiles upon its personal subject, but its object reaches beyond the private benefit of the individual.