Twelve Years a Woman

Twelve years grows a baby up to middle school age. Twelve years rushes a person from late middle age to retirement. Twelve years matures a teenager into adulthood. Twelve years…..

For twelve years the woman suffered from what the Bible calls “an issue of blood.” In that time, women having the “regular flow of blood” as well as a “discharge of blood” at any time other than her period is unclean—meaning she could not be touched or touch, could have no physical intimacy, couldn’t prepare food for others or do housework. Levitical law is specific with this.

If she had a husband, he might well have been long gone; divorce didn’t take a lot of work in those days.  Where she got money, her father, perhaps the husband who left her, really we just don’t know. But she used what money she had going from one doctor to another:  “Can you help me? Can you make this blood stop flowing?” She searched and tried until no money remained, no more to even try to help, and hope, that last gasping lifeline for the desperate, faded away, a disappearing illusion in a fog of anguish, having became not only no better, but actually worse, from her frantic searches for a cure. Very likely, she lived her life alone, by law unclean, unable to mingle with others, avoided by family and friends. By touching her, they would be unclean, unable to enter the Synagogue or Temple on Sabbath, on holy days, having no choice, no matter their desires, to associate with this fragile, ill woman.

This illness, in addition to the social repercussions, likely made her anemic….tired…..and every woman now thinking for ten seconds just groans at the thought of it…….twelve years. (Any man who lives with a woman no doubt groans in sympathy as well). With hope gone, I wonder did she reconcile herself to a life small and lonely? Or, standing outside the Synagogue, I wonder if maybe she floated a prayer:  “Please, God.” Of course, she might have been more specific, longer. But, at the end of hope, out of options, maybe "Please, God" was all she could muster.

We do know this…..somehow she heard about Jesus. She heard that a Healer was abroad in the land. Perhaps someone who loved her ran to her lonely, singular house….”Listen, listen! There’s a teacher….a preacher….a healer! And, he’s coming here, like NOW! You have to go see him! They say he even raises the dead! Maybe he can help you!” After so much……….so much time, so much money, so much despair, so much illness……could it be true?

Did she dare hope?

After the woman arrived where Jesus met the crowd, after seeing Him interact with hurting, needy people for just a bit, the woman grew certain Jesus could help her. At the same time, Jesus also dealt with a synagogue official, desperate over an ill daughter. People, crowded together as in a First Century Times Square, pressed in around Jesus, the twelve disciples there, everyone starting off to trek with Jesus and the father to help with the daughter.  The woman watched Him start to walk away…..and knew, just knew she could not miss this chance!  

Maybe she wrapped a scarf around her face to keep the crowd from recognizing her, maybe the crowd so concentrated on Jesus, they just did not recognize her, but, somehow, she quietly slipped through the people, behind this one, in front of another, between these two, kneeling a bit, reaching…… reaching…..reaching…….re-a-c-h—and just barely, lightly brushed the hem of Jesus’ robe. And she knew instantly she was healed!

Immediately Jesus stopped! In my mind, I see Peter and the other disciples, perhaps trying to protect Jesus from the crowd bumping into Him from behind, similar to the dwarfs colliding into Snow White, not seeing his sudden halt. No doubt, that was NOT the case, but we know Jesus stopped quickly and looked around. The Bible tells us He knew immediately that “power had gone out of Him.”

“Who,” he asked, “touched me?”

The disciples looked around at the crowd surging around them, pressing in close, wanting to see Jesus perform a miracle, no doubt some with faith, no doubt some wanting a good show. The close quarters made it difficult to move and not touch someone. Jesus wondered who touched Him?

Peter looked around, then at Jesus. “Who didn’t?”

But, the woman knew He had caught her.

You see, when a woman of faith touches the living Son of God, they both know it.

I want to touch Him that way.

As the woman came forward, Jesus told her, “Your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your affliction.”

Faith……peace…....healing.

We don’t know of her life after this appearance in the Gospels, but surely she found family or friends with whom to live……..Oh, I hope so. I want to find her in Heaven, want to tell her how deeply her story touched me, want to listen to her tell me that sensation when she brushed Jesus’ robe with her fingers, the expression on His face when he looked at her, what her heart felt when His loving voice said, “Your faith has made you well….”

 My guess is she doesn’t tire of telling that story. Such a short time she appears in the Gospels, the longest section in Mark’s gospel, which, we are told, might be based on Peter’s memories. If so, did Peter mull over that time Jesus said, “Who touched me?” as a crowd rushed Him, Peter and the other disciples watching in wonder a small, ill, now healed, woman capturing the attention of Jesus, perhaps not for long, but certainly completely?

I love the story, and I love to imagine the different ways it affected the different people in it. How much better to lie in bed, retelling in my mind the story of a woman healed by Christ than to replay a hurtful situation in my life I cannot change, to put myself in that Biblical story, imagine the woman, see Jesus stop, the disciples bumping into each other and Christ…..”Your faith….go in peace….be healed.”

And if I can get out of myself and into the Scripture, just perhaps, I can hear Him speak to me.

Mark 5:25-34