Bible Studies

AN AGONISING INTERRUPTION

by Luella Campbell
06/26/15
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AN AGONISING INTERRUPTION

So Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around Him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.

When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind Him in the crowd and touched His cloak. Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she had been freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realised that power had gone out from Him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, ‘Who touched my clothes?’ ‘You see the people crowding against you,’ His disciples answered, and yet you ask, “Who touched me?”’ But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it.

Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at His feet and, trembling with fear, told Him the whole truth. He said to her, ’Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.’ (Mark 5: 24-34).

An intriguing story – two stories in tandem. There are some amazing similarities and contrasts in these two healings. One character, Jairus – an important man, a synagogue ruler – had a name. The other – an unknown woman with an embarrassing condition – was nameless. Jairus’s child was twelve years old. The woman had suffered her condition for twelve years, as long as the little girl had been on earth. Both conditions would have made Jesus, the rabbi, unclean had He touched them. Both produced miracles with equal ease.

Did you notice how He treated an important man and an unimportant woman with equal compassion and equal dignity? Jairus must have been angry and on tenterhooks while Jesus dealt with the woman. Hadn’t he got in first? Wasn’t his need far more urgent than hers? Why couldn’t she wait? In any case, what right had she, who was “unclean”, to come pushing in through the crowd? Now she had made everyone whom she touched unclean as well, including the Teacher. What a mess she had created by her appearance!

The woman, on the other hand, was terrified. She thought she could just creep in, touch Jesus and melt into the crowd, and no one would know what had happened. But Jesus didn’t do things that way. The moment He felt the power go from Him, He stopped everything. Why didn’t He just let her go and not embarrass her by calling attention to her presence? Ah, but Jesus was Jesus. Her little story fitted into a much bigger one.

He usually cautioned people who had been healed not to talk about it. Now He was making a fuss about who touched Him. Why was He so inconsistent? He had a reason. Jesus always had a reason. He was on His way to the house of Jaius where a dead child lay. It was forbidden for a rabbi to enter a room where there was death. What if the crowd, which He made aware that an “unclean” woman had touched Him, thought that He was unclean? There would have been no problem for Him to enter the room of the dead child then since He was unclean anyway.

He had a second reason for calling her to own up that she had touched Him. For twelve years she had been an outcast of society, shunned by everyone, confined to her house, perhaps even abandoned by her husband and children. After all, they did not want to live with an “unclean” person and be perpetually unclean as well. No matter what she tried, nothing helped her condition. She was trapped in a loveless situation until she was full of self-loathing.

Did you notice how Jesus called her “Daughter”? To Him she was not an unclean and shunned woman – the lowest of the low; she was God’s beloved daughter. He must have known who had touched Him but He wanted her to have the reassurance that, not only was her body healed but her heart as well. She was fully accepted as a member of God’s covenant family.

If the people thought that Jesus was already unclean, no one would have tried to stop Him from entering the room of the dead child. Hence the woman’s condition and Jesus’ insistence that she own up, paved the way for Him to raise the little girl from the dead without interference. Brilliant, don’t you think?

By the way, Jesus made a point of touching many unclean people but He never became unclean Himself because He always made the unclean clean! That’s how it was with Jesus! Brilliant again!

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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