Mark 5:21-43, Luke 8:40-56

How do you get healed when you cannot get close to the healer?  Close was certainly something she longed for.  She had been distant for so long.  Twelve long years of weary distance – so many prayers, so many doctors, so many words of advice – and yet her bleeding continued.

It had begun normally enough, innocently enough.  Be apart for a week, the law commanded.  Be free of the heavy work.  Be free of obligation.  Take care of yourself and allow your body to perform its monthly function.  When the bleeding stops and the rags of your menstruation are washed and clean, then you too will be clean.  You will be clean and rested and ready to return to your place in the community.

But for her the week passed and the flow of blood continued.  For a month it continued and the rags, daily washed but forever stained, hung drying around her quarters as a testimony to her own stain and uncleanness.  The women whispered in the synagogue and fretted over her empty seat.

Months grew into years and her spot on the synagogue bench was filled with other women.  The wives of the merchants in the marketplace stopped asking about her.  Until the money ran out, her husband continued to bring every new doctor to the house so the learned man could shake his head and rub his beard, or offer some useless herb, or, too often, make the cold diagnosis, “as God wills it”.  She grew accustomed to eating alone.  She could not smother her longing for tenderness, to be touched.

The years passed.  She watched the wedding feasts of her children through the dark doorway of her isolation and wept alone at deaths of family and old friends.  She grew pale, from her interior confinement and because of her persistent anemia.  Perpetually tired, achingly lonely, unendingly unclean, she felt the hope drain from her life even as the blood flowed from her body.

She would sit beside the narrow window and listen to the news as people passed.

“The Romans are building yet another road.”

“A band of zealots has been caught and crucified.”

“Two high priests are offering sacrifices in Jerusalem.  Who has ever heard of such a thing?”

“The old synagogue ruler has died and Jairus has taken his place.”

“We think a new prophet of God has arisen – and from Nazareth of all places.”

News of the prophet continued to grow, stories of his wonderful teaching and of the clashes between him and Pharisees.  She was enthralled by the reports of miracles and especially his miraculous healings.

“Perhaps he will come,” she thought, then immediately rejected the thought.  Her husband had long since abandoned the idea of finding a healer.  He stayed away as much as he could and when he was home he lived across the narrow courtyard.  She lived apart in her rooms, isolated in her ceremonial corruption and, after many years, in the actual uncleanness of her condition.  Her rooms were permeated with the foul aroma of her affliction.  She had no visitors.  No man of God would come to this house.  No holy healer would seek her out.

The noise on the street was full of excitement.  The prophet, Jesus, the unlikely Nazarene, was at the shore, having come from the region of the Gerasenes.  It seemed like the whole town was rushing toward the sea.  She hesitated, then trembling, pulled her cloak about her shoulders, draped a scarf over her hair and wrapped it as a veil across her face and, for the first time in many years, stepped into the street to be swept along with the crowd.

“I will bow before him,” she thought, “and beg him to heal me.  Surely, he will take mercy on me.  If only I can speak to him, he will know that I did not sin to bring this sickness to me.  He is a man of God.  Surely, he will know my heart.”

Her curse was at the moment a benefit as she pressed through the crowd.  She had been secluded for so long that she was now a stranger to her own neighbors and her desperation carried her forward.

She saw him among the fishermen and nets, surrounded by his companions, their legs still wet from dragging the boat onto the beach.  The whole town, it seemed to her, was there.  And she hesitated again.  What if he did not heal her?  What if he turned away?  She was unclean, spiritually and physically.  Though they were unaware, she was at that very moment defiling all those she touched.  What reason could there be for a prophet to sacrifice his cleanness, his righteousness, for a forsaken and forgotten woman?

There was a commotion and the crowd parted briefly.  A handsome, well-dressed man rushed forward.  “It’s Jairus,” someone said behind her.  A respectful murmur washed across the throng.  Jairus fell at the feet of Jesus; Jairus who ruled the synagogue.  The people grew silent as they strained to hear.  “Please,” Jairus’ voice trembled, “My little daughter is dying.  Please come.”

And so they went, the man of God and the ruler of the synagogue, on a matter of life and death, away from the boats, toward the fine home of Jairus, away from the lonely, empty woman.

Her long years of anemic inactivity left her weakened and she felt suddenly faint, but the crowd surged forward to follow Jesus and she was pressed along with it.  She was aware of the voice of Jairus above the noise of the crowd, “Make way!  Let us through!”  She stumbled on, unsteady and lightheaded, and then she fell.

The crush of people had stalled the mission to save the life of Jairus’ little girl.  The father was frantic, shouting and shoving to make a path for Jesus.  The bleeding woman was on her knees as her head cleared and her eyes came into focus.  She was just behind Jesus.  He was close enough to touch.  Returning from her near faint, the sound and tumult seemed distant, but the hem of Jesus’ robe was vivid before her.  As was the custom of good men, Jesus wore a tasseled garment.  Blue wool threads were knotted at the corners of the hem, reminders of the law, testimony of God’s presence, an assertion of God’s authority.  She thought of Ruth protected by the corner of Boaz’ cloak.  And Elisha finding the Spirit of God as he took up Elijah’s mantle.  She thought, “If this is the Messiah, just the fringe of his garment is enough to heal.”  The men began to move again.  The tassel seemed to float away from her.  She reached out and the fringe whispered across her fingers.  Then the crowd closed between them and he was gone.

The woman knelt in the dust and inhaled deeply.  She felt the fatigue, her constant companion, lift away.  There was strength in her arms and shoulders.  The chronic ache in her abdomen was gone.  She could feel the blood warm her face and watched the color return to her pale hands.  “Life is in the blood,” she recalled from the law.  “I am alive again.”

A few steps away, Jesus had stopped once more.  “Who touched me?” he asked as he turned to scan the faces in the crowd.

Jairus was near panic.  “My daughter,” he implored, “my daughter.”

“Master,” said one of his companions, “we are nearly crushed by the people.   How can you ask ‘who touched me’?  Everyone is touching you.”

Jesus had felt her faith.  “I sensed my power go out,” he said and again he looked into the crowd, into her eyes.  “Who touched me?” he repeated.

She heard her name in the growing murmur of the crowd, as they followed the attention of Jesus, now focused on her.  She could feel their eyes.  Across the way, she glimpsed the face of her husband, his shock of recognition, then humiliation, then anger.  “How could you do this to us?” his eyes shouted.  Her suffering had been a curse to him as well, had cost him his place in the synagogue.  Merely touching her made him ceremonially unclean.

“What secret sin,” the elders had wondered aloud, “has brought this trouble to your household?”

And now she huddled in the street, bringing the stench of her affliction and the bitterness of her uncleanliness to all who had brushed against her; to all who now backed away as if her impurity were contagious – as of course, ceremonially, it was.  She knew she had been healed by Jesus, but would he also make her clean?  She had encountered his power, but had she violated his authority in the process?  She had been invisible these last dozen years.  Was she now to be called out and humiliated?  Jesus was still gazing at her.  “Who touched me?”

Her face now exposed, her identity revealed, the community which had declared her unclean recoiled from her.  But as everyone was backing away, Jesus was moving forward and the woman who had for so long been alone was now alone with Jesus in the crowded street.  So few words had she spoken for so many years, but now they poured out of her.  She told him of her long illness, her chronic pain, her endless weariness and her aching loneliness.   And she told him of her sudden healing, of the wonder of being well, of being alive.  She wept with joy.

Jesus knelt and took her hands in his own and pulled her to her feet.  “Daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And his perfect holiness washed over her, restored her, made her clean.  “Go in peace,” he said.

“Daughter” The word lingered in her mind.  How long since she had been called “daughter”?  How long since she had found peace in that cherished relationship?  And now the Messiah, the Holy One of Israel, had taken time for her alone, had lavished his attention and healing on her, before the entire community had called her “Daughter.”  He had taken the time to meet her needs before he tended to the needs of the ruler of the synagogue.

Men were arriving from the house of Jairus; men with somber faces and moist eyes; men with the worst of news. For a moment it seems that the time Jesus has given to the woman has cost the little girl her life, but only to those who underestimate his power.  Jesus had not abandoned Jairus and his beloved daughter.  “Do not be afraid,” he said to the distraught father, “only believe” for another miracle is soon to be.