The Woman With A Haemorrhage
THE WOMAN WITH A HAEMORRHAGE
MARK 5:21-34
Jesus can deal with many different needs at the same time, even when everything seems hopeless.
Some indication of the pressure under which Jesus worked is given by this story of two people appealing for his help simultaneously. Jairus was a man responsible for the management of the synagogue. (The actual work was done by the “hazzan” or beadle mentioned in Luke 4:20.) His appeal to Jesus shows that by no means all the religious leaders of Galilee were opposed to Jesus. Knowing the power of Jesus he had the faith to seek healing for his sick daughter. According to Matthew 9:18 Jairus said that she had already died, but this difference is due to the fact that Matthew abbreviates the story and does not mention the servants who brought this news to Jairus (Mark 5:35).
As if to strengthen the faith of Jairus while the party made its way to his house, there took place the healing of a woman who had had a haemorrhage for twelve years. The reference to the doctors is not meant to cast a slight upon an honored profession, but to show how intractable the disease was. The woman was shy of appearing in public and especially before a religious teacher because her disease rendered her unclean. She hoped to take advantage of the crowd to touch the garment of Jesus and slip away unobserved. The uncharitable may say that she was superstitious. Perhaps in some measure she was, but Jesus is greater than superstition, and in response to her real faith she received healing. The way in which her cure is described indicates a certain supernatural quality about the person of Jesus. It is wrong to think that the power passed involuntarily from him, just as a battery might be accidentally short-circuited by contact with a piece of metal. The spiritual power of Jesus is not to be narrowly confined within human categories of interpretation and consequently misunderstood. Jesus himself made sure that there could be no remaining ground for superstition in the woman’s mind, and brought her into the open so that she might recover her self-respect and know healing for her soul as well as for her body. He showed his love and care for her as an individual, and spoke a healing word which transformed what might have been a mechanical act into a personal relationship.
There is a lesson here for all who help people. Care—even spiritual care—is incomplete if it is unaccompanied by love.