Scripture Daily

Context No. 439 of 4322 · Mark

Context · Reflection

Mark 5:30-34: in context

30Immediately Jesus, perceiving in himself that the power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” 31His disciples said to him, “You see the multitude pressing against you, and you say, ‘Who touched me?’” 32He looked around to see her who had done this thing. 33But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had been done to her, came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth. 34He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be cured of your disease.”

A woman who has bled for twelve years, and has spent everything on doctors who could not help her, works her way through a jostling crowd to touch the edge of Jesus' cloak, believing that even that will heal her. And it does. The bleeding stops instantly. She could now slip back into the crowd and disappear, healed and anonymous, which is probably exactly what she intended, since her condition had made her ceremonially unclean and untouchable for over a decade and she had every reason to stay hidden.

But Jesus will not let it end as an anonymous transaction. He stops, right in the middle of an urgent errand, for he is on his way to heal a dying girl, and asks, who touched my clothes? The disciples think it is an absurd question; the whole crowd is pressing against you, they say, and there is the point buried in their objection. Many people were pressing against Jesus, touching him casually, incidentally, in the crush. One person touched him in faith, and that touch drew healing power. Jesus can tell the difference, and he keeps looking until he finds her. The woman, trembling, falls down and tells him the whole truth. And instead of scolding her for taking a healing unasked, he gives her far more than the healing. He calls her Daughter, a tender family name for a woman who had been isolated and unclean for years. Your faith has made you well, he says; go in peace, and be freed from your suffering. He turns a healing she tried to take in secret into a face-to-face relationship and a public restoration.

That tells me something about how Jesus works. He is not content to be a dispenser of benefits collected anonymously in a crowd. He stops, he seeks out the one who reached for him in faith, and he makes it personal, naming her, blessing her, sending her in peace. Do I relate to Jesus like the crowd, pressing near him casually and anonymously, or like the woman, reaching out in real faith, and if he stopped and asked to make it personal, to call me by name, would I come forward and tell him the whole truth, or would I rather keep it a quiet, anonymous transaction?

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