Desperation

Mark 5:28 KJV: “For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.”

When you hear the word desperation, what comes to mind? The definition was stronger than I realized. The Oxford Dictionary defines desperation as “a state of despair, typically one which results in rash or extreme behavior.”

When were you last desperate and willing to do something extreme to ease your despair? The verse above comes from a woman who was truly desperate. She’d been bleeding for 12 years, and the Bible says she had suffered under many doctors, spent all her money, and instead of getting better, got worse. Broke, in pain, weak, suffering, at her wit’s end, and considered unclean and ostracized socially, she was desperate.

She was so desperate that she broke through a large crowd accompanying Jesus on his way to heal a little girl so that she could touch him. As a bleeding woman, anyone who touched her would be unclean, and yet, in her despair, she didn’t care what consequences might befall her as she squeezed through the clamoring crowd.

Only to touch the clothes of Jesus… and she would be whole. The Greek word used here is Sozo’ and means to be healed or made whole. Sozo’ is also translated into the English words rescue, deliver, save, and preserve. This, I would contend, is what we all want – to be well, whole, and healed.

I like how the NIV translation records what happened when she touched Jesus: “Immediately her bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.” Oh, to be free from suffering and whole!

I had the image in my mind of what I wanted to portray with this story, but I was curious if there was other artwork out there. At first I was surprised at the plethora of depictions of the woman reaching for Jesus’s cloak. In fact, I almost talked myself out of it, thinking there were already too many!

But then a gentle realization settled that there are so many images because many of us have felt like this woman in our own unique circumstances. But maybe we weren’t desperate enough to fight our way through all of the distractions, impossible odds, physically daunting challenges, and fear of miserable failure or consequences to find true wholeness.

Maybe it’s time you reached out.