Church Talks
REACHING FOR HIS HEM
[Talk given by John E. Enslen at a worship service of the Wetumpka, Alabama, congregation of
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on November 16, 2014.
John’s wife Dianne would die two months and one week later after suffering with pancreatic cancer for five years.]
During the time of Christ, Capernaum was a fishing village on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, a beautiful shimmering lake surrounded by low hills and groves of olive trees. This was the town that Jesus called home during his adult life. That made Capernaum sacred, and also renowned as a place of miracles and healings.
Mark 5:25 begins with the words: “[A] certain woman…” No name. No age. No marital status. No ethnicity. Not much background information. Maybe Mark wanted us to know it could apply to any woman. In most respects she was an ordinary woman, except for some horrendous personal circumstances. “[She] had an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse.” (Mark 5:25-26)
She was suffering from a woman’s worst nightmare—an endless, cramping, menstruation discharge. Not just a few days a month, but every day of every week of every month of every year for twelve indescribably tortuous years.
Imagine the hygiene issues, the anemia and resulting exhaustion. But hers was not only an energy-less life of pain and discomfort, she daily experienced cultural and religious shame for her unavoidable uncleanliness.
Desperate for relief, she had sought treatment from many doctors. Yet her body was still bleeding, and her life’s savings had been bled as well—to the point where she lived in poverty. The speculative and feigned treatments by her physicians had left her both physically and financially worse.
We can only wonder how many times over a 12-year period she had prayed to be cured. I suspect that her regular prayer changed early on from a request to be made whole to a persistent petition for endurance, interspersed occasionally with a plea for her life to be mercifully ended.
Here is the most remarkable part. “[S]he had heard of Jesus” (Mark 5:27) and because she had heard of Jesus, she had not given up hope. Her world had fallen apart, but she had not abandoned the faith to be healed that emerged within her when she heard the stories of a miracle worker named Jesus. At this point, faith is all that she has left—a believing heart and mind still open to the possibility of cure, despite what others may have told her.
Many of us struggle daily—healthcare concerns, disabilities, social rejection, money woes, wayward children, loneliness, fears of all types. This certain woman of the New Testament must have had her many moments of doubt. We all wonder why God has not delivered us from some prolonged misery. If he can truly fix us, why hasn’t he already done so? Anyone who claims to have a detailed answer to that question is making up stuff. We can only have trust and faith that God has an individual plan tailored for each of us, and that all things will work out for the best in time—time which includes eternity.
In her depleted condition, the afflicted woman left the social safety of her home and walked perhaps as much as 30 miles to the town of Capernaum. She was on a determined quest for her own special miracle from him about whom she had heard. She was willing to put forth the effort to make it happen. She thought to herself many times: “If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.” (Mark 5:28) She knew exactly the outcome she wanted, and she believed with all her heart that it was not only possible, but that it would happen.
Too often our faith is limited to what we feel. A better measurement of our faith is how we act upon our feelings—what we do. Maybe that’s what James was trying to get across to us when he wrote that faith which doesn’t cause us to do anything is not genuine faith. (James 2:20; 26) It is certainly right and good to pray for the gift of faith. But there comes a time to move our feet and stretch forth our hands. That’s when the miracles happen.
She finally arrived at the place known for its miracles. Once there, it did not take her long to find Jesus. Just follow the people. Jesus was already being thronged by a pressing crowd who knew he was on an errand to raise the deceased 12-year-old daughter of a prominent local religious leader. (Matthew 9:18 says she was already dead.)
The certain woman plotted her means of getting near Jesus. My personal conjecture is that she spied a somewhat narrow passage through which Jesus would naturally pass; perhaps it included some few stair steps which would temporarily slow his walk.
At any rate, she secreted herself along his route so that she could approach him from behind once he drew close. She hoped to be unnoticed and unseen and definitely untouched. She should not have even been in public. The rule was strict under the Law of Moses. Anyone with whom she came in physical contact would be unclean until evening. (Leviticus 15:19)
In her circumstances, where she was unclean every day, she was hoping to steal a miracle from Jesus and then haste away undiscovered with no one the wiser, least of all, him. This certain woman, who isn’t supposed to touch anyone, is about to break the law.
Her heart must have been racing as Jesus came very near her. She fully believed with all her heart that if she could just touch his clothes, she would be healed, and she was about to put her faith into action, something she had actually done when she started on her long journey by foot to Capernaum.
Just as the Savior passed, she reached out from her low, crouched position and barely touched the lower hem of his garment. (Matthew 9:20 states it was the hem.) “And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague.” (Mark 5:29) She knew she was well. No more pain. No more blood. No more shame. She had a new life to live.
“[K]nowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, [Jesus] turned him about in the press [of the crowd], and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’” (Mark 5:30) The woman was not the only one who noticed the dramatic change that had taken place in both the physical and the spiritual realm. The Savior’s question must have struck fear in her heart. Would he take back the miracle? Would she be stoned on the spot? Should she run and try to hide herself in the crowd?
She responded with another act of faith: “But the woman fearing and trembling…came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth.” (Mark 5:33) *** “[S]he declared unto him before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately.” (Luke 8:47)
And how did the Savior address this poor, ostracized, continually unclean, don’t-get-anywhere-near-me type of woman? For the only time known in holy writ, the Savior addressed an individual woman as “Daughter.” Everyone in the crowd heard it. She was family. She was one of his own. “Daughter,” he says, “thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace…” (Mark 5:34) There was no promise that she would not have other troubles of a different type in the future, but there was an assurance that she could have peace in the midst of her troubles.
There may come a time in our lives when faith in Christ is all that we have left. At such a time, may we remember that unwavering faith is all that we will need, so long as we act on our faith—so long as we press forward with a perfect brightness of hope. (See 2 Ne. 31:20)
May we have the faith in our times of desperation to symbolically reach up and touch the hem of Jesus. Though he lives not among us as he did in Capernaum, I testify that he does yet live among us. He is real and he is there.
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
[Hours before her death, my wife Dianne had dropped into a non-communicative, unconscious state because of all the pain medicine. She was in that state or condition when an interesting phenomenon took place. I was in the hospital ICU room standing to her left. There was one tech doing something with medical equipment on the other side of the room toward the door, and there was a very good CTCA friend sitting in the room a short distance from the foot of the bed and against the cabinet.
All of a sudden Dianne raised her upper body to about a 45-degree angle, which must have been excruciatingly painful for her in the abdominal area. As she raised her upper body, she tilted her head back and lifted both arms toward heaven. There must have been a half dozen connected lines and wires dangling from her arms. Her left arm was in a half cast like device designed to protect the A-line as they call it. (Artery line for accurately measuring her blood pressure.) She then clearly pleaded the words, “Jesus, I’m touching your hem,” and then immediately collapsed back to her original position and totally unconscious state.
Those were the last words that I ever heard Dianne speak in mortality. Even in her most severe extremes, she still wanted to live for me and her family—her children and grandchildren. She was still fighting for survival with every fiber of her being, and her faith was fully intact. It was a scene I shall never forget.]