50 Why Jesus Stopped Everything to Heal One Outcast Woman (Matthew 9:18-26)

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. We're studying Matthew chapter 9, verses 19 to 26 today, and this is the 50th talk in our series on the Gospel of Matthew. Lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below this podcast, and you can find them by going directly to wednesdayintheword.com slash Matthew 50. Thank you for listening today. We are continuing our study of Matthew's gospel. We are still in chapters eight and nine. This is the section that is between the first two discourses. The Sermon on the Mount is the first discourse, which was in chapters five through seven. And coming up in chapter 10 is the second discourse, which contains the instructions Jesus gives to his disciples when he sends them out to minister on his behalf. Most of the stories that we've seen so far in chapters eight and nine have been about the miracles that Jesus performed, and these miracles prove his authority and testify to the fact that he is the Messiah. The verses we're looking at today, 9, 18 through 26, contain healing stories of two women, the daughter of Jairus and the woman who was bleeding. We're going to look at the story of the woman today, and then in the next podcast we'll look at the daughter. Mark and Luke give us a few more details for these stories, and I'm going to fill in some of the details from their versions. First let me read the passage. This is Matthew nine, eighteen through twenty six. While he was saying these things to them, a synagogue official came and bowed down before him, and said, My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her and she will live. Jesus got up and began to follow him, and so did his disciples. And a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she was saying to herself, If I only touch his garment I will get well. But Jesus, turning and seeing her, said, Daughter, take courage, your faith has made you well, and at once the woman was made well. When Jesus came into the official's house and saw the flute players and the crowd in noisy disorder, he said, Leave, for the girl has not died but is asleep. And they began laughing at him. But when the crowd had been sent out, he entered and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. This news spread throughout all the land. Matthew gives us a very simplified version of this story. He omits many of the details that we learn about from Mark and Luke. We learn that this man's name is Jairus, and the sequence of events is a little bit more complicated. Let me read Mark's account. This is Mark chapter 5, verses 21 through 35. When Jesus had crossed over again in the boat to the other side, a large crowd gathered around him, and so he stayed by the seashore. One of the synagogue officials, named Jairus, came up and on seeing him fell at his feet, and implored him earnestly, saying, My little daughter is at the point of death, please come and lay your hands on her so that she will get well and live. And he went off with him, and a large crowd was following him and pressing in on him. A woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years and had endured much at the hands of many physicians, and had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse, after hearing about Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind him and touched his cloak, for she thought, If I just touch his garments I will get well. Immediately the flow of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. Immediately Jesus, perceiving in himself that the power proceeding from him had gone forth, turned around in the crowd and said, Who touched my garments? And his disciples said to him, You see the crowd pressing in on you, and you say who touched me? And he looked around to see the woman who had done this. But the woman, fearing and trembling, aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your affliction. While he was still speaking, they came from the house of the synagogue officials, saying, Your daughter has died, why trouble the teacher anymore? And we'll look at the account of the synagogue ruler's daughter in the next podcast. This podcast we're going to look at the account of the woman who was bleeding. None of the gospel writers explain exactly what her medical problem was, but most scholars assume it's some sort of menstrual bleeding problem. I think that's likely. And that means that both of the stories in this passage involve ritual uncleanness. Jesus is touched by a woman who is ritually unclean and then he touches a dead body, both of which would have rendered him ritually unclean. And as we go through these stories, we'll see that Jesus doesn't take that ritual cleanness into account at all. Well, first, let me fill in the gaps so that we understand the force of this woman's condition. The background for this story is in Leviticus chapter 15, verses 25 through 28. Now if a woman who has a discharge of her blood many days, not at the period of her minstrel impurity, or if she has a discharge beyond that period, all the days of her impure discharge, she shall continue as though in her minstrel impurity, and she is unclean. Any bed on which she lies all the days of her discharge shall be to her like her bed at menstruation, and everything on which she sits shall be unclean, like her uncleanness at that time. Likewise whoever touches them shall be unclean and shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening. When she becomes clean from her discharge, she shall count off for herself seven days, and afterward she will be clean. Well this was the condition of the woman in our story. She has been unclean for twelve years because her period never ends, and for twelve long years she had lived with this bleeding or this menstrual flow that could not be ended, and because of the Levitical laws to which she was subject as a Jew, living among Jews, it had many repercussions beyond just the illness itself. Now there are many laws related to cleanliness. I don't have time to explain the Old Testament laws regarding uncleanness and the reasons for them, which is a good thing because I don't understand all of them, but I do want to make a couple of observations. Leviticus 15, in fact, much of Leviticus is a discussion of the laws of cleanliness. We're given a list of things that were unclean, among them shellfish, pork, various insects, a man's nocturnal omission, the touching of a corpse, various skin conditions, mold in the plaster of a house, and a high priest with torn clothing or a broken bone. Touching, eating, experiencing, or being near any of these things could render a person unclean. So the first thing to note is that menstrual bleeding is not the only thing that can make someone unclean. There are lots of ways you can become unclean. The other observation to make is that the laws concerning bodily emissions were the same for men and women. The laws of cleanliness are applied equally to both men and women. Women were not singled out as unclean because they have periods. If we go back to the beginning of the chapter we just read, you will find this in Leviticus 15 1. The Lord also spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, When any man has a discharge from his body, his discharge is unclean. This, moreover, shall be his uncleanness in his discharge. It is his uncleanness whether his body allows its discharge to flow, or whether his body obstructs its discharge. Every bed on which the person with the discharge lies becomes unclean, and everything on which he sits becomes unclean. You'll notice that's very similar language to what we just saw about women. Anyone, moreover, who touches his bed shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening, and whoever sits on the thing on which the man with the discharge has been sitting shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening. Also, whoever touches the person with the discharge shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening. Or if the man with the discharge spits on one who is clean, he too shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening. Every saddle on which the person with the discharge rides becomes unclean. Whoever then touches any of these things which were under him shall be unclean until evening, and he who carries them shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening. Likewise, whomever the one with the discharge touches without having rinsed his hands in water shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening. However, an earthenware vessel which the person with the discharge touches shall be broken, and every wooden vessel shall be rinsed in water. Now when the man with the discharge becomes cleansed from his discharge, he shall count off for himself seven days for his cleansing. He shall then wash his clothes and bathe his body in running water and will become clean. Then on the eighth day he shall take for himself two turtle doves or two young pigeons and come before the Lord to the doorway of the tent of meeting and give them to the priest, and the priest shall offer them one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. So the priest shall make atonement on his behalf before the Lord because of his discharge. So the rules were essentially the same. If anything, the rules are a bit more strict for men because we don't see the rules about breaking the clay pots or spitting or making the offerings in the temple. That language is not repeated in the section on women. The rules on cleanliness, though, cross gender lines. Women were not treated differently or unfairly, nor were they singled out to be unclean just because they're female. What's the point of these laws for ritual cleanness? I don't think I understand all the profundity of these laws, but here's the tip of the iceberg. All these things were created by God and blessed by Him. They occur in nature and they're good. There's nothing intrinsically offensive about them. The laws concerning cleanliness were physical symbols to teach us a spiritual reality. We don't learn very well about the invisible and the spiritual world except by analogy. So we're given symbols. God gives us symbols in order to learn spiritual lessons. Communion is an example most of us are familiar with. Christians focus on the cross of Christ when they take the bread and the wine. So these laws categorizing conditions as clean or unclean for the children of Israel were meant to teach similar kinds of lessons of joy and sorrow, of hope and mourning, and to instruct them about life, death, and God's requirements for holiness. Now in this woman's case, the laws fell very harshly. They had consequences for her that singled her out for isolation and alienation. The last twelve years of her life must have been a nightmare of the worst sort. No one could touch her, no one could touch the things she touched, no one could sit on a chair after she sat there, no one could touch her bed or help her get dressed, and I'm sure she faced her share of insensitive louts who made an awful situation worse with their selfishness or thoughtless comments. Not to mention the treatment she must have received from the doctors of her day. So to be ritually unclean for twelve years must have been an incredible test of her faith and her character. She must have struggled with God. Why me? Why don't you answer my prayers? Why am I forced to be isolated? Why am I forbidden to go to the temple for public worship? Why must I be cut off from my family? How can I endure this for so long? Even her closest family members would stay away to avoid ritual contamination. And this went on for 12 years. I mean, I get a cold for a week and I struggle with God over all my lost time. Well, this woman walked a very hard road. And like the demoniac in the last story, she is cut off from the people. All right, let's go back to the passage. First we meet Jairus. Mark 5 and Luke 8 tell us that Jesus had more than one interaction with Jairus. Matthew starts with the second interaction, but Mark tells us that something else happened first. Let me read that bit again. This is Mark 5, 21 through 24. When Jesus had crossed over again in the boat to the other side, a large crowd gathered around him, and so he stayed by the seashore. One of the synagogue officials, named Jairus, came up and on seeing him fell at his feet and implored him earnestly, saying, My little daughter is at the point of death. Please come and lay your hands on her so that she will get well and live. And he went off with him, and a large crowd was following him and pressing in on him. So in Mark's account, the first person we meet is this important man in the community. Mark places this story after the healing of the demoniac. Jesus has now returned to the northwestern side of the lake, and there he finds a crowd waiting for him. In the crowd are two people who are both seeking his help. The first one we meet is Jairus, who's an important leader. The word used to describe him is synagogue official. It's a term for the person who was responsible for the synagogue building and the arrangement of all its services. And this typically was a person of high station or status in the community. His daughter is dying. He is so desperate that he seeks Jesus and abandons his pride and falls at Jesus' feet. Well, it must have amazed the crowds to see one of their leaders and nobles falling at the feet of a carpenter from Nazareth, in the same way a devout Jew might entreat Yahweh at the temple. Apparently the girl's condition is so critical that Mark doesn't record any verbal response from Jesus. They simply take off like an ambulance on a rescue mission. But then there's an interruption. The woman's story intervened. And again, here's Matthew 9, 20 to 22. And a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she was saying to herself, If I only touch his garment, I will get well. But Jesus, turning and seeing her, said, Daughter, take courage, your faith has made you well. At once the woman was made well. Again, both Mark and Luke give us a bit more detail in this story, and their detail creates a little bit of confusion. Matthew just cuts through all that and gives us the bottom line. Matthew makes it clear that Jesus' robe had no magical powers in and of itself. It is simply not the case that anyone could simply touch his garment and receive healing whether Jesus willed it or not. And Matthew makes that clear. Mark and Luke give us some more detail that at first glance seems to suggest there's something magical about all this, but I think a careful reading shows that that's not the case. Let me read Mark for us. This is Mark 5, 25 through 34. And there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garments. For she said, If I touch even his garments, I will be made well. And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that the power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, Who touched my garments? And the disciples said to him, You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, Who touched me? And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease. So why doesn't this woman just walk up and speak to him or approach him directly the way Jairus did? Well, we're not told, but we can speculate. Perhaps she was too embarrassed by her condition. Perhaps she could never get near Jesus because wherever he goes, he attracts these large crowds. He's always surrounded by followers and the curious at this point. Perhaps the crowd is so big she can't figure out how to get his attention. Or perhaps she sees that he's on an important mission for an important man in the community, and she thinks she's not worthy to interrupt. We don't know exactly why she doesn't approach him directly, but she gets this idea. All I really need to do is touch the fringe of his cloak and I will be healed. Mark 5.30 is one of those verses that scholars run wild with. It sounds a little confusing. It's and immediately Jesus, perceiving in himself that the power proceeding from him had gone forth, turned around in the crowd and said, Who touched me? That immediately, or it's sometimes translated at once, refers to the turning around. The ESV correctly translates, and Jesus, comma, perceiving in himself that the power proceeding from him had gone forth, comma, immediately turned around. The sentence is immediately Jesus turned around, and then the phrase is perceiving the power proceeded from him. That's a phrase within the sentence. He immediately turned. He already knew about the healing. Some translations put the immediately with the perceiving, which makes it sound like the power leaving him was either unconscious or unwilled, and that Jesus was not aware of the healing until after it was over. I really don't think that's the case. I think he knew who touched him and he knew she was healed. This was not a surprise. His clothes do not have magical power on their own, apart from God's will. And we can see that even in the passage, because the other disciples respond to him and say, Jesus, lots of people were touching you. You're in this crowd, and all these people are bumping up against you. Jesus asks, who touched him? Because he wants to teach the woman something. And we'll get to that. The other confusing verse is Mark 5.32, he looked around to see the woman who had done this. The NIV translates this verse, Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it, suggesting that he doesn't really know who touched him and he's trying to find her. I don't think that's the case either. It's more accurate, in my opinion, to translate this. He kept looking at her who had done this. He immediately turns around and looks her in the face and he keeps looking at her. She's caught red-handed. In fact, Luke adds, and when the woman saw that she had not escaped notice, so she knows that Jesus knows that she's the one who touched him because he's looking right at her. The scene described as of a jostling, pressing crowd. It's quite likely that she hoped she would slip through unnoticed, touch him, and slip out again unnoticed. If she thought he didn't know it was her, she could likely have melded into the crowd and disappeared, but she knows she's Caught because he's made eye contact with her. He immediately turns and faces her because I think he knows there's more to heal. She may be healed physically, but her soul still needs attention, and that concerns him. The word well in Mark 5.28, when the woman says, I will be made well, and then in Mark 5.34 and Matthew 9.33, when Jesus says, Your faith has made you well, is the Greek word sodzo. It's the same word in both verses. It means healing in the ordinary sense in which medicine and doctors and any processes of nature heal an illness over time. So it's a word that's used for any kind of restoration of physical health, like getting over the flu, a broken bone, and so forth. But it is also the word that is used for salvation. It is a word that is used for the eternal healing of the soul and all that is meant by gaining faith and forgiveness and an inheritance in the kingdom of God. The context tells us which kind of saving is meant, physical healing or eternal salvation. Some translations render that your faith has saved you, and others render it your faith has made you well. Well, clearly in the first verse, the woman hopes to be healed of her medical condition. She felt in her body that she was healed physically of her affliction. The question that scholars debate is how does Jesus respond? Is Jesus saying, daughter, your faith has physically healed you, or is he saying something more profound, daughter, your faith has spiritually saved you? Well, my view is that Jesus was talking about salvation in the latter verse. I think Jesus knew that the physical problems she had had already been dealt with, as did she, but there was still a spiritual brokenness that required healing from him, and we're gonna talk more about that in a minute. What should we make of her difficulty? Mark gives us a good bit of detail about her struggle. He tells us that she had this discharge for 12 years, she'd suffered much under many physicians, she'd spent all her money, and that she was growing worse. So she had this debilitating physical sickness. She must certainly have been anemic, weakened by the continued blood loss, she was probably growing sicker and sicker. She'd appealed to doctors for help, but they couldn't help her. And the medical treatment she received was probably not very helpful to begin with. Some of the cures available to her would have made things worse. Alfred Adersheim, who was an Orthodox Jew who became a Christian, and he has written studies of the Gospels with a lot of helpful insights, he writes on this, on one leaf of the Talmud, now the Talmud was an ancient commentary on the Old Testament, and in this case in Leviticus, on one leaf of the Talmud, not less than eleven different remedies are proposed for this problem of nonstop menstruation, of which at most only six can possibly be regarded as astringents or tonics, while the rest are merely the outcome of superstition to which resort is had in the absence of knowledge. He notes that the kinds of superstitions the woman would have been offered as cures were things like the ashes of an ostrich egg carried in the summer in linen, in winter in a cotton rag, or barley corn found in the dung of a white she ass, and so forth. That is from his book, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. So the help she was being offered for her affliction was not only unhelpful, it took its toll because they took her money and did her no good. But the problems went beyond her physical suffering. She also must have suffered emotionally and spiritually. Twelve years is a long time to be sick, and frustration builds when you go to one physician after another to the point of poverty with no good outcome. Her emotional condition must have been desperate as well. And we can also imagine that because she was unclean, she was isolated from her family members. If they wanted to avoid ritual uncleanness, there would have been a lot of fear of the future, and certainly as things got worse, wondering what will life be like next week or the week after if this condition continues. And finally, she'd spent all her money so she was not only sick, she was poor. People could not help her without becoming unclean, and she looked like she faced a future of dying alone, untouched, destitute, and unwanted. I think Mark gives us all that detail to give us some insight into the full impact of how difficult her situation was. My suspicion is that he means for us to read this account as heartbreakingly difficult. Like the demoniac, this woman is cut off, isolated, and alone. Though her struggle isn't visible, it isn't the violent self-destruction of the demoniac, she is no less alone or outcast. She is desperate, life is bad and getting worse, there is no hope on the horizon, all the earthly cures have failed, man-made answers have just made things worse, and it's spiraling downhill. Now, why do I bring all that up? Because if Jesus can help her, he can help us. If Jesus can deal with these extremes, the stormy weather on the Sea of Galilee, a man possessed by a legion of demons, a woman with a physical, debilitating, unsolvable problem that has dragged her down for 12 long years, well, if he can deal with all of that, he can deal with us. He can heal the problems of our hearts, the brokenness in our lives, family upheaval, financial problems, scrapes with the law, career setbacks, anything we face. The point is Jesus has faced these extreme ends of the spectrum and they are no problem for him. So of course, he can deal with our biggest and most important problem, which is our slavery to sin. One more comment on this situation. Notice that Jesus stopped his mission to help her. He is on a life and death emergency mission to save the life of a child of one of the important male members of the community. And along comes this nobody, a poor woman with no social standing that we know of, who's by now an outcast, a nobody, and a female at that. And Jesus does not hesitate to stop his errand for the rich, important man to help her. So with all that as background, let's consider the events of this story from three points of view. First, let's look at the woman. The woman is taking a risk. Presumably she's heard Jesus teach or she's known others whom he's healed, and somehow she's decided that it is worth it to at least get near enough to him to see if he would help her. She's heard enough about him and his teaching and his miracles to seek him out in faith. Like the others we've seen before her, she has wrestled with who is Jesus and come to believe that he is who he says he is. She seeks him out in faith. The reason she wants to touch Jesus is because she believes that he is from God, that God has the power to heal, God has sent Jesus, and he can heal her on behalf of God. So if you think about the scene, we might notice her off in the distance, the crowds rushing with Jesus to Jairus' house, but a large crowd can't move very fast. A woman alone could catch up to them. She sneaks into the crowd, finding a crack here or an opening there, and finally makes it to Jesus. Well, she's taking a risk. Because she is ritually unclean, it's not appropriate for her to be in the crowd at all, especially bumping up against numerous people. Imagine as she jostles her way through the crowd, how many people she would bump into. You know, if she touches this person's shoulder, he's now unclean, and then if he touches the person next to him, that person's now unclean. And if he touches another person and that one's unclean, and meanwhile, she's touched three other people and this jostling, and now all these people are unclean, she is breaking all kinds of ritual laws. Not only that, single women did not reach out and touch single men in that day. That's a breach of etiquette. And she most certainly should not be touching an important rabbi who was on an errand for one of the leaders of the community. I mean, how dare she? Yet she was able to reach out and touch the edge of Jesus' garment, and glorious news, for the first time in twelve years she finds herself free from her illness. The wonder, the joy, the surprise must have been overwhelming. But the story doesn't end there. She has not received all the healing that God wants her to have. What would be wrong if the story ended there? She might have wrongly concluded that she needed to seek God and that God would never seek her. She might have thought that she had to take the initiative to find God, she had to fight her way to gain a crumb of his mercy and healing, but that's not the gospel. The gospel is not a story of us clawing our way to God and having to prove ourselves worthy. The gospel is the story of God seeking us. Or she could have become superstitious. She could have thought her miracle was the result of some special power of the robe, maybe the miracle of the cloth, quite apart from who wore the cloth. And she needs to learn that it is God who saves, not his garment. It's certainly not true that everyone Jesus bumped into on the street was healed. It's not like Jesus had a Midas touch. And she needs to learn that's not the case. Similarly, she could have concluded that the physical touch healed her, but it was not the touch itself, it was faith. She is physically and spiritually healed because she had faith, not because she touched the Son of God's robe. As we've seen in other miracles, physical touch is not required for Jesus to save or heal. But most importantly, her healing is not complete. Physical healing is not the only thing God wants her to have. She spent 12 years isolated from the temple and from God. The bitterness, the frustrations, the doubts, the questioning of God, all that needs to be dealt with. And also, her healing is not visible to the crowd. She could continue as an outsider, outcast from the community of faith. And Jesus is not going to let her go without healing that brokenness and despair in her heart and restoring her to the community of believers. True, she has physical healing, but that's only part of what she needs. How many of you have heard a prayer that goes something like this? God, if you just give me this one thing, if you just meet me here on this point, resolve this situation, whatever it is, if you just give me this one thing, then I'll never ask you for anything again. Well, that prayer sounds really pious, but think about what's wrong with it. The woman could have been left in that situation. She got the physical remedy she wanted, now she can get on with her life. But God wants more than that. He wants us to come to him as children. God is a heavenly father who delights in giving good gifts to his children. He doesn't want hit and run followers. He wants children who trust him, who love him, who come to him in their joy and their sorrow in times of both need and plenty. Why would God be pleased with us never asking him for anything again? That's not the kind of father we have. It's not, thanks for the lift, God, I'll take it from here on my own. Jesus is not going to leave this woman in that situation. She can't touch his robe and then run away. Next, let's look at the perspective of the crowd, specifically the disciples. And Mark tells us this in 531. And his disciples said to him, You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, Who touched me? As usual, the disciples don't seem to know what's going on, and they tell Jesus he doesn't know what's going on either. Now, to be fair, her situation could be very secretive. She slipped in through the crowd, touched him, and tried to slip away, and in all that confusion, they could easily have missed her. Their unsolicited opinion, as was so often the case, is wrong. They have the audacity to tell Jesus to be sensible, to get on with meeting the needs of this important synagogue official at his house. Even though they miss this interaction with the woman, they make the assumption that they know everything and that Jesus is the one who's missing the point. Why bother stopping? Why ask who touched you? Of course, everybody's touching you. They look at the crowd and the delay from their limited point of view and say, Lord, you know, I hate to tell you this, but you can't possibly know how many people have touched you. We're late, we're on an important mission here. Let's get on with the program. We've got this important man here who's waiting on us, you know, get a move on. Well, you can see the application here. We shouldn't assume that we know what God is doing or that we know everything He knows. But also there are people everywhere who need God, and like the disciples miss this woman, we don't see them. Maybe they don't fit our expectations, maybe they don't look like our kind of people, maybe they seem like they have everything, or maybe they seem like they're beyond hope. They don't need Jesus in either case, they aren't the ones God is reaching, and we make those assumptions. But as we see, every honest cry for help receives God's full attention, and Jesus stops and turns to help this woman. The third point of view I want to look at is the most important, and that's Jesus' point of view. Matthew gives us only 922. Jesus turned and seeing her said, Take heart, daughter, your faith has made you well. Mark tells us, but the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, Daughter, your faith has made you well, go in peace and be healed of your disease. I think it's significant that he stopped his urgent emergency errand. There was a little girl dying. There was an important man tugging at his sleeve, urging him, Come quickly. The disciples are ridiculing him for stopping. But the Lord knew that somebody needed him. He knew that the woman's touch was an appeal for help and it was more important than everything else at that moment. The high status man was not preferred over the marginalized outcast woman. Every honest cry for help receives God's full attention. Jesus seeks the woman, but he doesn't force her to come to him. He turns around, makes eye contact with her, and calls for her to identify herself. He gave her the opportunity to come to him without insisting. Because of her condition and all the touching and jostling as she worked her way through the crowd, that could have resulted in a lot of scorn and rebuke. Certainly to approach an important rabbi and deliberately touch him could have resulted in censure and hostility, and on top of that, she's facing the anger of the crowd. Jesus wasn't going to insist that she say what happened, but he gives her the chance to know him face to face. He stops and faces her and encourages her to pour out her grief at his feet. Will you remember the story of the 100 sheep in Matthew 18 and Luke 15? The shepherd left the 99 sheep that weren't lost so he could find the one that needed him. Well, here's a real life example of that. She reached out for physical healing, and Jesus turns around and offers her salvation. The woman took the initiative to approach him in faith, but a saving relationship with Jesus doesn't come at our initiative. She needs to know that the Lord reached out for her, not that she was required to pursue an indifferent Messiah. In effect, Jesus tells her, although I don't have some kind of automatic magic touch, you are right to come to me for healing. You are right to think that I am the Messiah through whom God is bringing healing and you are healed because you came to me in faith. Further, he restores her to a place in the community. Her initiative was anonymous. It left her back on the outside of the crowd. No one would immediately know that she was healed. They might suspect her recovery was temporary. She wouldn't be part of the community. She wouldn't have others who would experience salvation as allies and friends. She wouldn't have brothers and sisters. She would be on her own. But Jesus makes her healing public so that everyone knows she is no longer unclean. She is healed, she is clean and forgiven and fully restored to the community again. And that ends any hostility that might have been building in the crowd over her brushing shoulders with them and touching them. Lastly, she needed more than physical healing. Jesus heals her spirit of despair and bitterness. She must have had a broken heart full of bitterness and frustration, questions and confusion, and all those memories of the twelve long years. Somebody needed to heal those as well. Courageously, this woman takes the opportunity that Jesus offers her and comes forward. I think that's the great act of faith in this story. It wasn't touching his robe, it was falling at his feet and telling her whole story. And her story is embarrassing, it's difficult, it's isolating, it's about the brokenness of her body and her heart. It's a story of rejection, of medical problems, of personal issues. And where does Mark get all his details? The woman must have told her heartbreaking, personal, embarrassing story of loss and rejection in front of the crowd and Jesus. And that was a very difficult thing to do, especially because she has taken a risk even to touch him. Now she has to admit that risk, admit the lawbreaking, admit to being unclean, and hope that he's not going to explode in anger over her actions as she sought him in faith. She has to fall at his feet and count on his mercy. The faith that allowed her to say, I trust you enough that you're going to heal me, now allows her to say, I trust you enough that you're going to forgive me and not rebuke me for what I've done. And Jesus responds with that very point, your faith has saved you. His initiative led to a face-to-face relationship with him. She lays her heart at his feet and he tenderly says, Daughter, your faith has saved you. Daughter is a term of endearment, a term of compassion and intimacy and acceptance. The outcast is now part of the family. The woman alone and unclean is now the daughter, the beloved child. She's not just healed of her physical affliction, her faith has made her whole and saved her. Jesus sought her out of the crowd to grant her more than physical healing. He wanted to heal her soul. He wanted her healing to be made public, her status as clean to be proclaimed to the crowd so that others might accept her as he had, and there would be no complaints or hostilities from those she touched on her way to him. She's healed, she's clean, she's saved, and she's a daughter. In a metaphorical way, Jesus is still asking, Who touched me? You can touch his robe and then run away. You can pray, Lord, give me this one thing and I'll never bother you again. But if you do, you're missing out because God has a lot more to give you than this one thing. God has more to offer than solving the problems of the here and now, the rifts in our relationships or finances or health. God wants a relationship with you. He wants your whole heart. God wants to hear the whole story of your life and he wants to heal that story. God is seeking you. It may be scary to respond to his question, who touched me? But it is far worse to fail the answer when he's looking intently for you and wanting to bless you. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, a podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but also shows you how to figure it out. You can hear all the episodes in this series on my website, wednesdayintheword.com. There is no charge, no spam, and no ads. If you've been blessed by this podcast, please subscribe, leave a positive rating or review wherever you listen, but most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and where you learned it. Our theme music is graciously provided by my friend and favorite musician, Reggie Coates. You can listen to more music from Reggie at heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm Chris Anmara, and I hope I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.