A Sick Woman and a Dead Girl

Part 2

15^th December 2012

Matthew 9v18-26
While he was saying this, a ruler came and knelt before him and said, "My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live."
Jesus got up and went with him, and so did his disciples.
Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, "If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed."
Jesus turned and saw her. "Take heart, daughter," he said, "your faith has healed you." And the woman was healed from that moment.
When Jesus entered the ruler's house and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd, he said, "Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep." But they laughed at him. After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up.
News of this spread through all that region.

(continued from last week)

On the way to raise Jairus's daughter from the dead, Jesus was stopped by an encounter with a woman who had had a flow of blood for 12 years. She wasn't a synagogue leader like Jairus. She was unclean - a social outcast - because of her disease. She'd been alone for 12 years. She was penniless; Mark tells us that "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". But the love, power and mercy of God are not only available to the wealthy, healthy and popular; they're available to anybody who will reach out to Jesus.

Jairus had come to Jesus, knelt before Him, and asked directly for His help. This woman didn't dare do such a thing. All she had the courage to do was reach out and touch the edge of his cloak. And Jesus turned and saw her. It must be the minimum possible physical contact between two people - to touch the fringe of the back of another person's garment. But somehow, this lonely, sick, poor woman had faith to believe that this would be enough, "If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed."

The woman had made Jesus unclean by touching Him. But that didn't bother Him at all. He turned to her and said "Take heart, daughter, your faith has healed you". And, of course, the woman was healed from that moment.

Now, theologically, I would say that her faith did not heal her! I would say that God healed her, but that her healing was appropriated by faith. I would say that a person doesn't need to have faith in order to he healed, and the fact that Jesus raised Jairus's daughter later that day proves it. So either I'm wrong about that, or Jesus is willing to be less preoccupied with theological niceties than we sometimes are. What do you think?

I think Jesus realised that this woman needed more than just physical healing. She needed to be affirmed as a person. She needed to be valued, as we all do. But she was poor, sick, lonely and unclean and was in even greater need of affirmation than most of us. So Jesus called her "daughter" and commended her faith.

Faith is not just theoretical. Faith affects what we do. In particular, faith enables us to draw near to Jesus. This woman got as near to Jesus as she dared. Her story teaches us that if your faith, or your self-confidence, has been so damaged that all you can do is touch the edge of His robe, then touch it! Get as close to Jesus as you can. Get in touch with Him any way you can.

And when she came as close to Jesus as she dared, she was healed.

Why now? Why did God heal her now? Why not 12 years ago? We never fully understand why healing is sometimes delayed but, in this story, we get one of the answers. It doesn't apply in all cases, but it does in some. Why was she healed now? Because now was the time she came to Jesus and touched his robe.

We can fight our problems for years before we reach out to God. Often it's only when we acknowledge that we can't fix ourselves, and our doctors can't fix us, and the pills can't fix us, and the self-help books and the motivational speakers and the group therapy sessions, and the self-discipline, and the self-indulgence, and the theology, can't fix us. When we finally admit that only Jesus can fix us, that we come to Him, and reach out and touch Him, and let Him heal us.