Are You Just Watching Jesus, or Are You Reaching for Him?
Picture the scene: a dusty road just outside Capernaum, packed shoulder-to-shoulder with people who had dropped everything because word got out that Jesus was in town. A synagogue ruler named Jairus had thrown himself at Jesus' feet, begging Him to come heal his dying daughter, and now the whole neighborhood was tagging along to see what would happen. Front-row seats to a miracle? Nobody was missing that.
So, there they were, pressing in from every side, so tightly packed that Jesus could barely move. And in the middle of all that shoving and jostling was a woman nobody wanted to stand next to. She'd been bleeding for twelve straight years. Twelve! She'd spent every coin she had on doctors who only made things worse, and under Jewish law, her condition made her ceremonially unclean, which meant she wasn't even supposed to be in that crowd, touching people, brushing up against their clothes. But she came anyway.
She didn't come to watch.
She came with one goal: "For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole" (Mark 5:28).
So she pressed through the wall of bodies, reached out a trembling hand, and grabbed the hem of His garment. Immediately, her bleeding stopped. She felt it in her body. And Jesus, in the middle of a crushing crowd, stopped and asked, "Who touched my clothes?" His disciples practically laughed at Him. "You see the multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?" (Mark 5:31). Of course, people were touching Him. Dozens of them. But only one had reached for Him on purpose.
Here's the question that's been rattling around in my head ever since I read that story again this week: Am I part of the crowd, or am I the woman?
Because here's the uncomfortable truth. The crowd wasn't doing anything wrong, exactly. They liked Jesus. They were excited to be near Him. They probably even believed He could do the miracle everyone was hoping for. But their involvement stopped at proximity. They were content to be around the action, close enough to see it happen, without ever actually reaching for Him themselves. They left that day gratified, entertained, impressed, and maybe even inspired.
But the woman left justified.
Made whole.
Called "daughter."
Sent away in peace.
Two very different outcomes from two very different postures toward the same Jesus, standing in the same crowd, on the same afternoon.
I think we do this in church more than we'd like to admit. We show up. We sing the songs. We nod along with the sermon. We're genuinely glad to be near Jesus, and we'd never say a bad word about Him. But somewhere along the way, we settled for spectating instead of grabbing hold.
We watch other people's testimonies instead of wrestling out our own.
We admire faith instead of exercising it.
We let "being around" church, around the Word, around godly people, substitute for actually reaching out and touching the hem of His garment ourselves.
The Shulamite bride in Song of Solomon models the posture I want instead: "It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go" (Song of Solomon 3:4).
Notice she didn't hold him at arm's length and admire from a safe, respectable distance. She held on. She wouldn't let go until she'd gotten what her soul was after. That's not casual curiosity. That's desperate, determined pursuit, the same kind of reaching that pushed a bleeding woman through a crowd that had every reason to shove her right back out.
So today, wherever you're at and whatever you're carrying, don't just admire what God is doing around you. Reach for Him. Pray the specific prayer instead of the generic one. Open the Word looking for Him, not just information about Him. Press through the fear, the fatigue, the "what will people think," and grab hold like your healing depends on it.
Because honestly, it might.
The crowd got a good story to tell. The woman got her life back. I don't know about you, but I'd rather leave justified than merely gratified. I'd rather be a participant than a spectator.
🔍 PULLING BACK THE CURTAIN: A Peek at the Study Behind This Post
This one started with a message my husband preached recently. He brought out several interesting facts about the story, comparing a theater, where plays are enacted with a surgical theater (as it’s called in the UK), where healing takes place. My mind grabbed hold of the idea and ran with it (as it’s prone to do).
The observation. I noticed Mark and Luke both describe the crowd as pressing, thronging, and crushing Jesus from every side (Mark 5:24, Luke 8:42, Luke 8:45). That's not a polite gathering. That's a mob scene. I asked myself, "If everyone was that close to Jesus, why did only one woman's touch stand out to Him? Surely, lots of people were touching Him."
Digging into the details. I pulled up Mark 5:25-34 and Luke 8:43-48 side by side (Mark's account has a few extra details Luke leaves out) and noticed she specifically "came in the press behind" (Mark 5:27). That phrase "in the press" stuck with me. It's the same crowd everyone else was standing in, but she used it as a means, not an excuse.
Looking for a cross-reference. I wanted a second picture of "reaching for God" that wasn't the obvious "seek and ye shall find" verse, so I went hunting through Song of Solomon (a book I don't visit nearly enough) and landed on 3:4, which says, "I held him, and would not let him go." That gave me the contrast image I needed: holding on versus just standing near.
The moment it clicked. Comparing "the crowd thronged Him" with "she touched Him on purpose" is what handed me the "gratified vs. justified" framing. It was two different outcomes from two different postures toward the very same Jesus.
Time note: This whole hunt took me about 40 minutes with my Bible open in three places and my tea going cold beside me. This, of course, does not include the time and preparation my husband did for the message that sparked the idea, nor the time it took for him to preach it.
Try this yourself: The next time a familiar Bible story feels too familiar, stop on one word that catches your eye and just ask what it's really describing. Then go looking for a cross-reference outside your usual go-to verses. You'll be amazed at what treasure is sitting there waiting for you to dig it up.