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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A 40-DAY JOURNEY WITH THE KING: Lenten reflections from Mark’s Gospel (5)

Image
“A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean .”   Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean !” Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean .   (Mk. 1.40-42)      Along with exorcisms, Jesus performs many healings of various physical ailments in the early chapters of Mark’s Gospel.   Jesus’ first healing is that of Simon’s mother-in-law (1.29-31).   With the restoration of the leper, we begin to understand the meaning of Jesus’ healings (and exorcisms).   The thrice-repeated word “clean” in the above passage reveals what is truly going on when the King restores the members of the people of God to wholeness.   Leprosy rendered its victim “unclean”, i.e., it proscribed that person from participation in the life of the community, of both civil society and the worship/litur...
Read more

The Protestant Reformation - good news?

Image
  The study of Reformation Europe makes many Christians wish that they had lived in the 16th century. Name 1) Some good reasons for not living in the sixteenth century and 2) Some ways in which we can live more deliberately as Christians today because of the events of that century. How should it and how should it not make a difference?    Some good reasons for not living in the 16th century include the climate of religious intolerance and violence.   Religious affiliation and observance were compulsory and imposed on the people by the state, especially it seems, in Protestant countries.   There was no freedom of conscience, except perhaps in England during the reign of Elizabeth, where the windows to people’s souls remained shut to the state, so long as they publicly conformed to the monarch’s religion (as enforced by parliament).   One may have thought that Luther’s appeal to conscience at the Diet of Worms would have inspired a broader and more sensit...
Read more

“Walking the tightrope” (St. Luke’s: Wednesday, August 22nd, 2018: Ez. 34.1-11; Ps. 23; St. Mt. 20.1-16)

Image
Ancient relevance.   Any conscientious catholic who has the habit of watching the news cannot help but notice a direct link between today’s first reading and what is going on in the Church these days.   Last week, a grand jury released a report detailing the results of their 2-year long investigation into dozens of clergymen who had abused upwards of 1,000 children in various dioceses in the state of Pennsylvania.   Every time cases of the abuse of children by priests and religious come to light, we are reminded that we live in a world – and are part of a Church – deeply infected by evil .   And of course, let’s not forget that the line between good and evil runs through each one of us (cf. Solzhenitsyn).   In today’s first reading, the prophet Ezekiel proclaims an oracle of judgment against the false “shepherds” of God’s “flock”.   Instead of caring for, protecting and nurturing God’s people , Israel’s leaders had exploited the people for their...
Read more