Sermon Tone Analysis

We are this morning finally picking up again in Mark’s gospel, its seems like a long time since we have indeed be with Mark, the last time we Jairus daughter and there the Lord demonstrated his power over death, and we skipped over a the event that happened between Jesus agreeing to go with Jairus and when he actually arrived.

So lets pick up and get into the text, where we see Jesus display his power over disease.

Introduction

We live a world today where there seems to be more physical aliments thats ever before, and with that there seems to be more lotions, potions, tablets and treatments available than ever before, ranging from the common to the quite obscure and slightly worrying.

The pharmaceutical industry is big business, as of 2016 the global market revenue was over 1 trillion dollars, interestingly a Forbes study in 2013 presented that the pharmaceutical industry companies have the highest profit margins across the big industry players, followed closely by the banking sector.

Regardless the point I’m making is that there is a lot of disease out there and there is a lot of desperation for cures for those diseases!

Not only is big business is physical cures, there is also big business in Spiritual cures.

Just as many see their need for physical well being, they are aware of their need for spiritual well being, and there are all sorts of avenues for that, from spiritualism, to Hinduism, to Buddism, there are all sorts of programs and plans, that offer to get you to place of enlightenment and inner peace...

Now if you know the word of God and the God of the word, then you are blessed to know that truth that the is only one way to fix the spiritual problem of man and that is to come to Lord Jesus in repentance and faith and ask him to save you.

However many in the world struggle with the simple truth of the Gospel, all the while trying any other cure that the world has to offer, and many putting there physical health above the spiritual, just like we have seen with the crowds that have followed Jesus, they want healing but no more!

they want to take but they dont want to give their lives to Christ

I wonder is that you this morning, you come to Church to get something, but are not interested in giving anything, wether it be your time, your money or indeed your heart!

It’s amazing how these so called faith healers can fill stadiums, but the average Bible believing Local Church preacher, struggles to get double figures into the prayer meetings or Bible studies!

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see such fervour and clamour for the spiritual condition instead of the physical condition.

The woman from our passage of text, comes to Jesus to get physical healing but what she ends up with is a much greater as she experiences the truth that just one touch from the King changes everything.

So let’s get into the text and firstly we see

The Woman’s Disease

Its Description vs 25

“issue of the blood”

Haemorrhage

continual bleeding down below

This would have rendered her unclean

Lev 15:19-27

now this woman didn't have this issue 7 days, no it was 12 years

12 years unclean

never mind the pain of the problem

there was separation it caused

from friends, family and loved ones

from social and religious life

she was effectively a leper

Its Deterioration vs 26

Her desperation would have led her to try all things

the suffered there doesn't mean put up with, it means endured with pain

she had been poked and prodded and endure all kinds of things

The Talmud, which is a body of Jewish civil and religious laws added to the Old Testament by the Jews, it listed eleven cures for this particular uterine haemorrhage that this lady had.

Listen to this, this is remarkable: some were potions, some were superstitions, and in one place it says, 'Take the gum of Alexandria, the weight of a small silver coin; of allum the same; of crocus the same.

Let them be bruised together, and given in wine to the woman that had an issue of blood.

If this does not benefit, take of Persian onions three pints, boil them in wine.

Give her to drink and say: 'Arise from thy flux', and if this does not cure her, set her in a place where two ways meet, and let her hold a cup of wine in her right hand, and let someone come behind and frighten her and say, 'Arise from thy flux''.

In another place it actually recommends that the afflicted woman carry a barley corn - wait for it - which had been taken from the droppings of a white she-donkey, to be cured of this illness.

this woman has been through the ringer tried to find a cure, but instead of finding anything that helped, she found that her condition got worse

Maybe that’s were you are this morning, maybe you are struggling physically, and all the wisdom of men, all the prodding, pulling, potion, lotions and operations hasn't made a bit of difference, in fact its only made you feel worse, suffer more pain

I want to say to you this morning that pain gives us a platform .

A platform of testimony, what am I saying to the world in the midst of my pain?

Do I let my faith become the product of my circumstances or is God still good even if my circumstances are not?

The scope of his character and grace do not change when suffering comes.

As I trust God, even in my heartache, I let my life speak of a hope that extends well beyond what we can see or touch.

Christ comforts us so that we might share his comfort with a hurting world.

Our pain produces a ministry of comfort that we can walk in.

This woman had a terrible condition and it left her in a desperate position, but that desperation drove to Jesus, as we bare witness to

The Woman’s Determination

Her Action vs 27

Look at the angle she approaches from

“press behind”

remember she is an outcast

she come in from plain site to the front, she has to manoeuvre in from the back

one way!

Jesus

She would have to push her way through the crowd

her desperation drove her determination

She need to be healed by the great healer of gaillee

“and touched his garment”

Often time’s people read a passage in the New Testament and “miss” what it meant in its context; for example, Jesus taking the cup of wine and matzoh during the Passover meal, immersion and something as simple as what it meant to “touch the fringe of His garment”.

The woman in the Gospels with the issue of blood touched “the fringe of Jesus’ garment” (Matthew 9:20, Mark 5:25, Luke 8:43, Luke 8:44).

This word in sometimes mistranslated “hem”, but the more correct word is “fringe” (Strong’s word #2899).

This woman touched the tzitzit i.e. the braids or tassels worn on the four corners of a Jewish man’s garments.

The command to wear these fringes came from God and is outlined in (Numbers 15:37-41)

These tassels were there to remind each Jew of his responsibility to fulfill God’s commandments.

Before explaining how this works and the winding and knotting on a tzitzit, it is important to know thatin Hebrew, numbers and letters use the same symbols so the number 1 is “א” (aleph), the number 2 is “ב” (bet) and so on.

So how do the fringes of the tallit remind one of God and His commandments?

The numerical value of the word tzitzit (fringes) is 600.

Each of the fringes contains 8 threads and 5 knots, making a total of 613.

This number corresponds to the 613 commandments contained in the Torah.

Yes, there are more than Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments summarize the essense of the others that follow in the book of Exodus.

Yes, read on pastthe Ten Commandments, you will find many, many more commandments.In making the fringes according to Sephardi (Middle Eastern) tradition, one winds a long blue thread around the other white threads and in between are special knots.

The first segment below where it is tied on the garment (or prayer shall, called a tallit) has 10 winds (the number 10 = the letter “yod”) then a knot, then 5 winds (the number 5 = letter “hay”) then a knot, then 6 winds (the number 6 = the letter “vav”) and then a knot and then 5 winds again (another letter “hay:), then a final knot.

The 4 letters YHVH is known in English as the “tetragrammaton” (from the Greek τετραγράμματον, meaning “consisting of four letters”) and are the 4 letters in the Torah, Writings and Prophets (Old Testament) that are the Name of God.

Since there are no vowels, we don’t know how exactly to pronounce this name but most Jewish and Christian scholars favour “Yahweh” as the closest likely pronunciation.

Observant Jews do not attempt even attempt to pronounce the name of God because it is considered so holy, so when reading Torah they use the word Adonai (“Lord”).

In most Christian Bibles, the word appears as “LORD” (all capitalized).

In making the fringes according to Ashkenazi(Eastern European) tradition there are 7, 8, 11, and 13 winds between the knots.

The first three numbers equal 26, which is the numerical value of the Tetragrammaton.

The remaining number equals the numerical value of the word echad (“one”) from the watchword of the Jewish people, the Shema (Deut 6:4) “Hear O Israel, the LORD our G-d, the LORD is one” .

The word “one” (echad / אֶחָד) here is actually a plural unity and is the same word that is used for an army (one army made up of many individuals) or a bunch of grapes (on bunch made up of many grapes).

God is “one”.

So whether knotted according to the Middle Eastern custom or from the customs of the Jews of the Diaspora, the fringes or tzitzit placed on the corners of one’s garments (or on a prayer shawl, called atallit) not only remind the Jew of the 613 commandments but also the very name of God (YHVH).

So, the “fringe of the garment” that was touched by the woman with the issue of blood was the tsitziyot (plural of tzitzit) or tassels of Jesus’ garment.

In fact, people all around the area knew that if they could even touch Jesus’ tzitzit, they would be healed…in fact if they did so, they were healed.

“When Jesus was in Gennesaret, the men of that place brought to Him all those in the surrounding area that were sick and they implored Him that they might just touch the fringe of His cloak; and as many as touched it were cured”(Matthew 14:35-36)

“Wherever He would go, into villages, towns or the country, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged Him that they might touch just the tassel of His robe.

And everyone who touched it was made well.”

(Mark 6:56)

His tzitzit represented His very Name and all His commands and touching them (and not even Jesus Himself) had the power to heal.

When we reverence His Name in prayer and in our lives and when we seek to obey His commands in all we do or say, we likewise “touch” His tzitzit.

Her Anticipation vs 28

she was determined as many others that her actions would see her healed

that touching Christs garment would do the trick

She came to Christ in anticpation

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