Push Through
Push Through: What a Desperate Woman in a Crowd Teaches Us About Faith
There is a story tucked inside the Gospel of Mark that has endured for two thousand years. It is familiar to many who have spent time in Scripture, yet its power has a way of feeling distant, as though it belongs to another era, another kind of person, another level of need. But the truth embedded in this story is not a relic. It is a living word for anyone carrying something they cannot seem to put down.
The story is found in Mark chapter 5, and it begins with a woman who had been suffering for twelve years.
Twelve Years of Disappointment
Mark does not spare the details. This woman had suffered much under many physicians. She had spent everything she had. And rather than improving, she had grown worse. Twelve years of hoping that the next treatment would finally be the answer. Twelve years of watching her resources disappear. Twelve years of physical pain without relief.
But there was another layer to her suffering that required knowledge of the Old Testament law to fully appreciate. According to the laws of Moses, a woman with an ongoing issue of blood was considered ceremonially unclean. She could not participate in worship. She could not enter the temple or the synagogue. Anyone she touched became ceremonially unclean as well. Her illness had not only stolen her health. It had stolen her community, her belonging, and her place before God.
For twelve years, she had been an outcast in every sense of the word.
Faith Begins With Hearing
So why did she come? Why would a woman in her condition risk entering a massive, pressing crowd?
Because she had heard about Jesus.
We are not told exactly what she heard. But she had heard enough. She had heard enough to believe that if she could somehow reach him, everything could change. This is precisely what the apostle Paul describes in Romans 10:17, where he explains that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Her faith was not born in a vacuum. It was born in a report. A story. A word about who this man was and what he had done.
And that faith moved her to act.
The Crowd Was Not an Excuse
Here is where the story becomes deeply personal. Jesus was surrounded. Mark describes the crowd as thronging him, pressing so tightly around him that movement was difficult. This was not a casual gathering. This was a mass of people. And for this woman to push her way through it was not just physically difficult. It was legally and socially dangerous. She was unclean. Her presence in that crowd was unlawful. Every person she brushed against, every shoulder she squeezed past, every gap she pressed through represented a risk.
She ignored it all.
She ignored the risk. She ignored the shame. She ignored what everyone around her might think or say or do. Reaching Jesus had become the singular most important thing in her life. And so she pushed through.
This raises an honest and searching question for anyone reading this today. How often does concern about what others think keep us from pursuing what God has for us? How often does pride build a wall between us and the healing, the help, or the honest moment of surrender that we actually need? This woman had no room for pride. She had tried everything else. And so she pushed.
Immediately
She reached out and touched the edge of his garment. And Mark records one of the most striking words in all of Scripture in that moment. Immediately.
After twelve years, immediately.
Not months later. Not after a season of waiting. Immediately, the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed.
Jesus stopped. He asked who had touched him. His disciples were almost incredulous. The crowd was pressing in from every direction, and he was asking who touched him. But Jesus knew that something different had happened. Power had gone out from him. And he wanted her to come forward, not to expose her, but to speak directly to her.
When she came, trembling and fearful, and told him everything, his response was tender and profound. He called her daughter. And he said in Mark 5:34 that her faith had made her well.
Not the garment. Not the moment of contact itself. Her faith. Faith was the connection. It was the conduit through which the power of Christ flowed into her life.
Only Believe
Woven alongside her story is the story of Jairus, a synagogue ruler whose daughter was dying. Jesus had agreed to go to his home. But while he was still speaking with the healed woman, messengers arrived with devastating news. The daughter was dead. There was no point in troubling the teacher any further.
The situation, by every human measure, was over.
But Jesus turned to Jairus and said something that echoes across every desperate circumstance recorded in Scripture. Do not be afraid. Only believe.
The same lesson. The same call. The woman had believed and pushed through a crowd. Jairus was now being asked to believe when the news said it was too late. Both stories point to the same unchanging truth: faith trusts Jesus when circumstances say there is nothing left to hope for.
What Is Your Issue of Blood?
The invitation of this story is not limited to physical illness. It extends to anxiety, broken relationships, financial ruin, addiction, grief, and the quiet, grinding feeling of being overwhelmed with no clear way forward. It extends to the prayers that have almost stopped being prayed and the needs that have started to feel too large even for God.
Jesus has not changed. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is still the one who stops for the person who reaches out in faith. He is still the one who speaks tenderness into trembling and calls the forgotten daughter. He is still the one who says, do not fear, only believe.
The question is not whether he is able. The question is whether we will push through.
There is a story tucked inside the Gospel of Mark that has endured for two thousand years. It is familiar to many who have spent time in Scripture, yet its power has a way of feeling distant, as though it belongs to another era, another kind of person, another level of need. But the truth embedded in this story is not a relic. It is a living word for anyone carrying something they cannot seem to put down.
The story is found in Mark chapter 5, and it begins with a woman who had been suffering for twelve years.
Twelve Years of Disappointment
Mark does not spare the details. This woman had suffered much under many physicians. She had spent everything she had. And rather than improving, she had grown worse. Twelve years of hoping that the next treatment would finally be the answer. Twelve years of watching her resources disappear. Twelve years of physical pain without relief.
But there was another layer to her suffering that required knowledge of the Old Testament law to fully appreciate. According to the laws of Moses, a woman with an ongoing issue of blood was considered ceremonially unclean. She could not participate in worship. She could not enter the temple or the synagogue. Anyone she touched became ceremonially unclean as well. Her illness had not only stolen her health. It had stolen her community, her belonging, and her place before God.
For twelve years, she had been an outcast in every sense of the word.
Faith Begins With Hearing
So why did she come? Why would a woman in her condition risk entering a massive, pressing crowd?
Because she had heard about Jesus.
We are not told exactly what she heard. But she had heard enough. She had heard enough to believe that if she could somehow reach him, everything could change. This is precisely what the apostle Paul describes in Romans 10:17, where he explains that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Her faith was not born in a vacuum. It was born in a report. A story. A word about who this man was and what he had done.
And that faith moved her to act.
The Crowd Was Not an Excuse
Here is where the story becomes deeply personal. Jesus was surrounded. Mark describes the crowd as thronging him, pressing so tightly around him that movement was difficult. This was not a casual gathering. This was a mass of people. And for this woman to push her way through it was not just physically difficult. It was legally and socially dangerous. She was unclean. Her presence in that crowd was unlawful. Every person she brushed against, every shoulder she squeezed past, every gap she pressed through represented a risk.
She ignored it all.
She ignored the risk. She ignored the shame. She ignored what everyone around her might think or say or do. Reaching Jesus had become the singular most important thing in her life. And so she pushed through.
This raises an honest and searching question for anyone reading this today. How often does concern about what others think keep us from pursuing what God has for us? How often does pride build a wall between us and the healing, the help, or the honest moment of surrender that we actually need? This woman had no room for pride. She had tried everything else. And so she pushed.
Immediately
She reached out and touched the edge of his garment. And Mark records one of the most striking words in all of Scripture in that moment. Immediately.
After twelve years, immediately.
Not months later. Not after a season of waiting. Immediately, the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed.
Jesus stopped. He asked who had touched him. His disciples were almost incredulous. The crowd was pressing in from every direction, and he was asking who touched him. But Jesus knew that something different had happened. Power had gone out from him. And he wanted her to come forward, not to expose her, but to speak directly to her.
When she came, trembling and fearful, and told him everything, his response was tender and profound. He called her daughter. And he said in Mark 5:34 that her faith had made her well.
Not the garment. Not the moment of contact itself. Her faith. Faith was the connection. It was the conduit through which the power of Christ flowed into her life.
Only Believe
Woven alongside her story is the story of Jairus, a synagogue ruler whose daughter was dying. Jesus had agreed to go to his home. But while he was still speaking with the healed woman, messengers arrived with devastating news. The daughter was dead. There was no point in troubling the teacher any further.
The situation, by every human measure, was over.
But Jesus turned to Jairus and said something that echoes across every desperate circumstance recorded in Scripture. Do not be afraid. Only believe.
The same lesson. The same call. The woman had believed and pushed through a crowd. Jairus was now being asked to believe when the news said it was too late. Both stories point to the same unchanging truth: faith trusts Jesus when circumstances say there is nothing left to hope for.
What Is Your Issue of Blood?
The invitation of this story is not limited to physical illness. It extends to anxiety, broken relationships, financial ruin, addiction, grief, and the quiet, grinding feeling of being overwhelmed with no clear way forward. It extends to the prayers that have almost stopped being prayed and the needs that have started to feel too large even for God.
Jesus has not changed. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is still the one who stops for the person who reaches out in faith. He is still the one who speaks tenderness into trembling and calls the forgotten daughter. He is still the one who says, do not fear, only believe.
The question is not whether he is able. The question is whether we will push through.
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