Luke 8:40 - 9:6
I’ve studied the account of this bleeding woman many times, and it is one of the most powerful narratives in Scripture for me. A woman, bleeding for twelve years, has desperately tried everything to find a cure. Other gospels tell us she spent everything she had on doctors, but only got worse. But one day, she hears that Jesus is coming to town. She knows she’s not allowed to touch other people because her bleeding makes her unclean, but she must make her way into this mob of people in hopes of getting close to Jesus. She doesn’t want to make a scene, but she’s convinced that if she could just reach out and touch the tassels on Jesus’ cloak (or prayer shawl), that she would be healed.
Why did she think touching Jesus clothes would heal her? These tassels were reminders of the 613 commandments of the Torah. The tassels hung on the fringe (or wings) of the garment, and had come to represent Messianic power, like that described in Malachi 4:2, “But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings.”
This woman knew that Jesus was her only hope, and her compulsion to reach out and touch these tassels suggest that she believed Jesus was the Messiah, not just a miraculous healer. Jesus calls her out of the crowd, “Who touched me?” Afraid of rebuke for getting too close to people in her condition, she hesitates, but eventually comes forward. Jesus, making sure she doesn’t leave and one day convince herself that his clothes were magic, meets with her face to face, affirms her faith in him, and calls her out from her shame, saying, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace.”
The images we see of Jesus in this text reveal a Messiah who can do impossible things, for nothing is impossible with God. Raising a little girl from the dead and healing a woman who has been bleeding and suffering for years, these are things only God could do. Jesus is God in the flesh, the resurrection and the life. And as we begin chapter 9 at the end of this reading, we see that Jesus bestows this soul-saving power on his followers. We have been given this same power and authority in the Holy Spirit to take the gospel – the power of God for salvation – to the people around us and throughout the world. Then they, too, can experience the impossible work of God to bring life to people dead in their sins and accomplish for them what no doctor or philosopher or person can – the healing of their souls.
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2 comments:
Can I just say "excellent", Mr. Q-- How right you are. I always think how sad this story is about this woman in the sense of how much suffering she went through. In addidtion she would have been rejected socially. I am not surprised she reached for Jesus -- he was her last and only hope.
But stop and think, we are just as desparate. Even if we have no affliction as she did, we are all desparate to be saved from death, from that final blackness without end. We want to be saved to heaven which is always talked about as a"better place." But we cannot be saved to heaven with out knowing Jesus.
So here is that mandate again for us to help others understand this significant and important point that is often intentionally dismissed because it does not seem a tolerant thing to say that we "need saving and that it comes through Jesus and Jesus alone." The world wants it to be automatic for all of us no matter what we believe. But God has stood on this earth and said quite bluntly- it just ain't so.
Thank you, Brian. You have given me a new understanding of why the woman wanted to touch the edge of Jesus' cloak. (My Bible with cross references led me to realize that many other people also wanted to touch the fringe of his outer garment.) I didn't know the connection between the tassels and WINGS. How marvelous! I'm familiar with the verse from Malachi- ... Healing in his wings! One of my favorite hymns begins this way - Christ, whose glory fills the skies/ Christ the true, the only Light/ Sun of Righteousness, arise/ Triumph o'er the shades of night/ Dayspring from on High be near/ Daystar in my heart appear. "Sun of Righteousness" is one of my favorite names for Jesus.
Another thing I see in today's reading is this - The woman interrupted Jesus and Jairus. This desperate father could have said, take your turn, woman, I was here first. Maybe he did. But Jesus gave her his full attention. It may have seemed to Jairus that all was lost. But, incredibly, Jesus was right on time to raise the girl from the dead.
I want to be someone who gives full attention like Jesus did, to people God puts in my path, who tug at my garment. However, I also want to learn to trust God's timing when it seems all is lost.
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