To Be Healed

For the month of May, in celebration of women everywhere, I’ve been blogging on Sundays about various women who Jesus interacted with. I realize it is June already; I guess I ran out of Sundays. I just had to share this last story.

So Jesus got up and followed him, and his disciples went along with him.

A woman who had suffered from severe bleeding for twelve years came up behind Jesus and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, “If only I touch his cloak, I will get well.”

Jesus turned around and saw her, and said, “Courage, my daughter! Your faith has made you well.” At that very moment the woman became well.

Matthew 9:19-22 Good News Translation

The premise of this story is that Jesus was out and about teaching, when a Jewish official came up to Him to say that his daughter had just died, but that the man has faith that Jesus can bring her back to life.

Jesus got up and followed the man. When it says “his disciples”, it wasn’t necessarily only the twelve men we think of as His disciples, but it could be whatever crowd was with Him that day. As they are walking through the streets, they pass many other people. One of them a woman with an affliction.

It doesn’t say in any version of the Bible that I checked exactly what this bleeding problem was, but I think the vast majority of us women living in the twenty-first century believe this woman’s problem was heavy periods. Today, such a thing can still be debilitating, but can you imagine two thousand years ago when they had not much more than rags, maybe some reeds from the edge of the water, I don’t know, maybe some kind of plant that was more absorbent, but it could not have been fun.

Even now, on my trips to Africa, girls and women can be stuck in bed for days when they get their periods because there are just no decent supplies. Just yucky to think about, right? But, hey, ladies, we have all been there.

So, this woman, who has been laid up for twelve years with this uncontrollable bleeding, looks out the window of her home and sees Jesus coming. She’s heard the stories of His teachings and His miracles. She believes what she has heard, and she knows in her heart that He can cure her.

She slips out into the street, and just as Jesus passes by, she reaches out and touches the hem of His cloak.

In one sermon I heard one time on this passage, the pastor said that “Jesus felt the power go out of Him” and that was why He stopped and turned. I suppose that’s possible, but think of all the people who were reaching out to touch Jesus every time He was out in public? Seems like that would be beyond the paparazzi we have nowadays.  

Whatever the case, the woman is healed instantly. After their brief exchange, Jesus continues down the street to the official’s home and brings his daughter back to life.

As I sit here typing this, with my broken foot in a boot on a pillow, I’m wishing I would see Jesus walk by my window, so that I could stumble out, touch His cloak and be healed. I know it doesn’t work that way. Besides my soul needs healing more than my body. I am just thankful for all that I have.  

One of the oldest pictures I have of women, strong women to be sure, taken sometime in the 1910s. The arrow on the top of the photo is pointing to my mom's mom. If their lives were hard, can you imagine life for women many years before them?