To Touch His Garment
My Granny was a professional seamstress. To ask her, she wouldn’t call herself “professional” but seeing her work one would know she was far from an amateur. She made her living working as the seamstress of our local children’s hospital. I doubt that position is even still around with all the advanced technology of today. Granny’s role was to make all the gowns for the patients and any other garments needed.
Many of the children at the hospital would be put in a full body cast for whatever medical issue that they were facing. A cast can be a very itchy thing to wear on any part of your body but imagine it on your entire torso. Granny created her own pattern for a comfortable sweater-like covering the children would wear to protect their skin from the irritation. She made oodles of these during her employment. In fact when she finally retired in her 70s, she had to cut out the pattern for the incoming seamstress because the pattern was all in her head.
I was blessed to have many clothes made for me by my Granny. I was a flower girl for my cousin’s wedding and she not only made that dress but made a matching dress for my Barbie doll. She made a Raggedy Ann doll for me that I still have to this day. I loved playing around her sewing machine, matching up her fabric scraps, digging through her tin full of every shape and size of buttons, and watching her perform her sewing magic. I never learned to sew like her but every piece she created filled me with awe at her talent.
The garments my Granny made never produced healing, but I’m sure the children who benefited from a freshly sewn gown or a soft sweater covering under an itchy cast provided such relief and comfort. But there was once a woman who thought merely touching a garment would heal her.
Shortly after Jesus had performed the miracle of driving out demons, a large crowd had gathered following Him. A woman who had an issue of blood - had been hemorrhaging for 12 years - was pressing through the crowd. She thought if she could just touch the hem of Jesus’ garment, she would be healed.
In those days, bleeding deemed a woman unclean. She couldn’t tend to her family. No one could touch her lest they be deemed unclean too. And she wasn’t allowed to worship at the temple. For 12 years. What an act of faith and bravery as she pressed through the crowd; a crowd of people who wouldn’t dare touch her.
When she finally reached Jesus and touched the hem of his garment, Jesus reacted by asking who touched Him. Peter dismissed Jesus’ question as preposterous given the intensity of the crowd. But Jesus persisted because He truly knew who touched Him. He turned around and saw the woman. She fell at His feet declaring why she had touched Him and at that moment she was healed. Jesus responded, “Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
Although Jesus had healed the woman physically, more importantly her faith had brought the most important healing - spiritual healing. I can’t imagine what her countenance must have been like walking away from that moment. Even more how I would have loved to see her first time back in the temple worshiping God. When I think about her physical ailment, it kept her from her family and from her God. Now, by the physical healing power of Jesus, she not only was free from her ailment but free from her sin.
We talk much about the touching of the garment in this story, but that wasn’t what healed her…being in the presence of Jesus the Messiah is what healed her physically and spiritually.
When I was lying in the hospital bed after my amputation and so very sick after coding and almost dying, I thought much about this story. I would envision reaching out and touching Jesus’ garment. No, He wasn’t physically there at my bedside, but I would often wish He was. Did I hope for Him to restore my leg back to life? Well, that would have been great. But I just wanted to be in His Presence, touching His garment, having the tangible evidence that He was right there. I understood in a new way how the woman with the issue of blood felt. Of course she wanted to be healed, but she got oh so much more. And my longing to touch Jesus was not only to be healed, but to feel His presence like never before.
Many of us walk through life with health struggles that go on much longer than 12 years. It’s difficult to go through those circumstances apart from Christ. In a similar way, the woman who was ostracized for her bleeding was separated from God. But by touching the hem of Jesus’ garment, her faith made her whole, and never to be separated from God ever again.
I’m so thankful that even though I’m not physically healed, I am forever engraved in the palm of my Savior’s Hands. For me that promise of His eternal presence feels like being wrapped up in the safest of security blankets.