Reflecting on Mark's Gospel - Mark 5:25-34

Jesus’ accompanying of Jairus to see his daughter is now interrupted. Jairus must have been incredibly frustrated. We can imagine that he was desperate to get back to his daughter with Jesus. But there is a pause in the journey.

It would seem that as Jesus made his way along the road with Jairus, the crowd had not dispersed. They, or at least most of them, were following on. That would have slowed the progress. It also gave this desperate woman her chance. It seems likely that she wanted to remain anonymous. It also seems likely that she had no intention of stopping everyone. She just wanted the chance of being healed, and she thought that just touching Jesus’ cloak would be enough.

She was right about just needing to touch that cloak. As the old hymn we used to sing puts it, ‘She only touched the hem of his garment.’ But her assumption that she could remain unnoticed was not correct. Jesus was aware that power had gone forth from him. So, Jesus asks about who has touched his clothes. To the disciples it is a ridiculous question. Lots of people have brushed against him. They do not understand. Yet, in the midst of a crowd, Jesus can have a one-to-one. That is what happens here. He knows. The woman knows. That particular healing contact is so different from the inevitable brushing against each other and, as Brendan Byrne (A Costly Freedom) points out – “The rude protest of the disciples when Jesus, aware of the power that has gone out from him, asks who touched him, brings out the difference between the jostling that he receives from the crowd and the touching in faith that channels healing.”

We learn that this woman has a long medical history in which she has tried ‘everything’ to resolve this issue. Her condition has been with her for twelve years, coincidentally, as we will learn a little further on, the same amount of time as the entire life of the little girl. She has spent a lot of money trying to find a cure, but without success. It would have been reasonable for her to have given up. But she has faith. She exercises her faith, and it does the trick. I wonder how strong our faith is, especially when we might think that we have already reached the end of the road. Now, though, all is well. Jesus’ addressing of her, as Byrne puts it – “expresses both personal reassurance and social rehabilitation  ….  he proclaims her reinclusion with the community.” We would not exclude somebody on medical grounds, but times were different then, and it was all bound up with the understanding of purity and impurity. However, I wonder who we do exclude. I wonder whether we realise it. I wonder what we are doing about it.