A 40-DAY JOURNEY WITH THE KING: Lenten reflections from Mark’s Gospel (14)

 

“…a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him.  Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years.  She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”  Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.” 

(Mk. 5.24-29)

     After his brief visit to the country of the Gerasenes, Jesus returns westward across the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum, which presumably, is much “cleaner” than the pig-infested graveyard of Gadara.  However, as we shall soon see, there is plenty of uncleanness in Capernaum as well.  Immediately upon his arrival, the crowd reconvenes and detains Jesus on the beach (5.21).  One of the leaders of the synagogue, Jairus by name, comes and falls at Jesus’ feet and begs him to come and “save” his daughter (i.e. make her well; Gr sozo), who is at the point of death (5.22-23).  The familiar pattern of kneeling/begging plays out once again (cf. 1.40; 5.6, 10).  Jesus accepts Jairus’ request and begins to accompany him through the congested streets of the town (5.24).

     The crowd will not let Jesus get away so easily and presses in on him as he struggles towards Jairus’ home (cf. 3.9-10).  “There was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years” (cf. 1.23; 3.1).  True to form, Mark begins a healing episode with an introductory formula which introduces us to the (anonymous) victim and provides a brief description of their affliction.  Because of her condition, the woman would have been in a constant state of “uncleanness”, akin to that of a menstruating woman (5.25-26; cf. Lev. 15.19-25).  She is desperate to be healed and has been left penniless after trying every conceivable remedy (5.26).  She had heard about Jesus (5.27; cf. 1.28, 45; 3.7-8) and was convinced that if she could but touch his clothing, she would be “saved” (sozo). 

     She came up behind Jesus in the crowd and touched his cloak, and immediately her hemorrhage stopped, and she “felt in her body that she was healed” (5.27-29; cf. 6.56).  Mark takes pains to describe the intensity of this moment.  When the woman touched Jesus’ cloak, she immediately felt that she was restored; simultaneously, Jesus was immediately aware that “power had gone forth from him” (5.30).  Jesus stopped, turned around and asked “Who touched my clothes?”.  The disciples are nonplussed – everyone is trying to touch him, “Who didn’t touch me” would be a more appropriate question (5.31).  However, Jesus continued to search out who had touched him.  The woman gave herself up and fell down before him, and “confessed” to what she had done (5.32-33).  Jesus addressed the woman as “daughter” (5.34; cf. 2.5) and told her that her faith had “saved” (sozo) her.

     As in the case of the friends of the paralytic, it is the woman’s faith that has resulted in her healing.  Jesus always rewards faith-in-action.  The paralytic’s friends had carried him to the house where Jesus was, hoisted their friend onto the roof, made a hole in the roof and lowered their friend in front of Jesus.  Because of their “faith”, Jesus had healed their friend (cf. 2.3-12).  This woman had fought her way through a crowd to get close to the source of wholeness and had taken the risk of making a gesture which would have been interpreted by anyone else as an unlawful, “contaminating” gesture (an “unclean” person touching a “clean” person).  The woman’s touching of Jesus’ cloak is the equivalent of Jesus touching the leper (cf. 1.41).  The unclean are “contaminated” with Jesus’ cleanliness, wholeness, holiness.  The king rewards those who take risks based on faith in his power to save.