The Smallest Touch Unleashes Boundless Power

This image of the woman with the flow of blood approaching the Lord secretly has captured and captivated the imagination of generations through the centuries. Much has been said about this scene, and sermons and hymns have been written about this woman’s courageous and desperate act.

There is something very powerful about the way this woman first makes her way through the crowd. She does not ask permission; she does not reveal her condition. I imagine her pushing past people and causing annoyance in the crowd, but she is on a desperate mission and knows she has only one chance. If she does not seize it, she will lose it forever.

She moves through the crowd, overcomes the obstacles, and approaches the Lord from behind. I imagine her reaching her hand past two or three people in front of her, perhaps even the disciples, and—bam!—she touches the edge of Jesus’ cloak.

So here is a call for us not to let obstacles, the difficulty of our situation, or the length of our suffering keep us from continuing to seek the answer that is in the Lord.

The Word says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” That Word of the Lord is an invitation to persist, to overcome difficulties, to understand that often, before the Lord’s blessing comes, we will have to give proof of our faith by overcoming obstacles and being diligent, as the Lord told Joshua: “See that I command you to be strong and courageous.”

There is a part that God does, a dimension in which He wants to act, but He also wants to hear our cry. He wants to see our faith in Him, and this moves His Heart and unleashes His power and divine intervention. This woman overcame her circumstances, overcame her unlawful situation, took great risks, and finally touched the edge of the Lord’s cloak.

Why is it important that she touched the edge of the Lord’s cloak? There are two possible interpretations of why the writer, Luke, points out that this woman touches the edge of Jesus’ cloak.

For one thing, we can see that all it takes to reach the power of God is simply a touch, however slight and small. God’s power is so great that the slightest touch unleashes an infinity of strength. So even though this woman touched only the edge of the cloak, that is enough, because in God power is infinite.

Often our lives, our sinful condition, and our circumstances leave us capable of no more than the slightest approach to the Lord. Sometimes we feel unworthy; we have problems. Someone who is not married, for example, feels, “I have no right to come before the Lord. I have no right to give my life to God. First I have to put my affairs in order.”

Look: all God needs is a slight movement of the heart, an approach to the Lord, the slightest contact filled with intensity and passion. Sometimes that is all God needs: a gesture of faith and a step toward Him. He is willing to take that and continue working with us from there.

We do not have to wait until everything in our lives is right for God to attend to our needs. God is merciful and compassionate. The Word of God says in Psalm 103: “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.” All God desires is for us to give His door a knock, and He will open it immediately.

All the father of the prodigal son needed was to see him from afar, ragged and repentant, and he felt in his heart, “My son is coming back.” At once he left the house to welcome him. All God needs is the slightest approach. In this case, this woman managed only to touch the edge of Jesus’ cloak, and that was enough to unleash all the power of heaven on her behalf.

The second interpretation is that some commentators who know more about Jewish tradition say that what she did was touch the part of the cloak of a devout Jew, such as Jesus, that contained certain religious elements which served as signs of God’s Presence in that person’s life. So perhaps what she was doing, almost superstitiously, let’s say, was trying to touch what she considered the strategically important part of this rabbi’s clothing, because that was where God’s Power resided. There was something superstitious here, a fixation on the object of power this man had, you know? In a way, she hoped it would project God’s power onto her.

And this reminds us that our faith can often be imperfect. This woman seemed to have the idea that there was something almost magical about the Lord’s cloak, you know? As if touching something connected to Him would be enough.

So we see here that this woman’s faith was imperfect; it had traces of superstition and magic. But none of that prevented her from being healed. Why? Because the faith within her was more than enough. Her faith overcame every imperfection, every flaw in her understanding of the Lord, and obtained for her what she needed.

There are times when a church may have some doctrines that are a little mistaken, or when not everything is perfect in your life or in a community. But thank God He does not look for perfection in our theology or in our knowledge of Him. All He needs is faith—faith in His Person, faith in what He represents and what He embodies.

The thief on the cross, that criminal whom the Lord forgives while He is on the cross, did not make a clear confession of the Lord’s divinity or of His saving character. He simply discerned that this man who was between the two of them, the two thieves, was a servant of God, a powerful man who had special access to God. He simply made use of that to ask Him, “Hey, when You are in Your Kingdom, remember me.” And the Lord was merciful and said to him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in paradise,” because He saw the man’s faith, and that was all He needed.

Many of these people do not have perfect faith and do not understand every detail about the Person of Jesus, but they believe in Him and have a bare faith that moves the Heart of God. May God grant that we, too, exercise that kind of aggressive, powerful, visceral faith, which is what pleases the Lord and moves His Heart. God bless you, and until our next study.