Luke 8:43-48 And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living on physicians, neither could be healed of any,… The woman reached out her hand and touched the Saviour's garment. What was it that moved her hand? She believed. But in what did she believe? Not in herself, not in the motion of her arm, not that she was doing anything that was an equivalent for the cure, or would purchase it; nor yet did she believe that by standing aloof and waiting awhile till she was partly restored, made stronger or more presentable, by some skill of her own, she should be more likely to get the benefit desired; nor had she any theory whatever about the method in which the curative power was to take effect. You do not find in her clear and urgent sense of need that strange inverting of all reason that we so often see in men when they hesitate about coming to seek heavenly grace in Christ's Church, pleading that they are "not good enough," not strong enough, healthful enough, to be blessed by it. The soldier, after the battle, wounded and sick, bloodstained and feverish, creeps along the hot and dusty road, longing only to die under the old home-tree, and under the breath of a mother's lips. He comes to a hospital, and sees it written over the door, "Whosoever will, let him come." Does he creep back, pleading that he is not well enough to go in and be healed? What, then, did the woman believe? She believed that she was to receive something, a real blessing, from Christ. This was what distinguished her, in her humility and obscurity, from the sentimental crowd around her. This was that in her which was not in them. Most graphic history of how many hearts l She believed that she could have that new life by a touch. The reaching oat of her hand was an expression of that faith. Another signal might probably have done just as well. In other cases a prayer was as effectual. But there must have been two things: the faith that she should receive the benefit, and some act to embody that faith and bring the benefit home. With faith, action. (Bp. F. D. Huntington.) Parallel Verses KJV: And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, |
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