Luke 8: 42-48
As Jesus went, the people pressed around him. And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and though she had spent all her living on physicians,she could not be healed by anyone. She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased. And Jesus said, “Who was it that touched me?” When all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you!” But Jesus said, “Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me.” And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before him declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”
I love this story. I don’t really have any major connection to it. I’ve never had a life threatening illness. I’ve never touched Jesus’ clothing. I’ve never been trampled in a crowd. I haven’t been to very many doctors in my lifetime. Really, I have nothing in common with her.
However, I find her story so profound.
In Luke 8:41, we’re introduce to a man named Jairus. His daughter was dying and he had gone into panic mode for sure. And that’s pretty much all we know about him when our scene comes into view. The guy is panicking, Jesus is walking with him and listening, the crowd is pressing around them because they want to see Jesus, and then we are introduced to this woman. We don’t know her name. We just know that she has been bleeding for 12 years and she has no money because she has spent all her money on doctors bill that didn’t do any good. Here we find her in the middle of this crowd, pressing in toward Jesus just like everyone else. Let’s stop to think about this. During the time that this was happening, it was a big “no-no” for a woman who was bleeding to be out in public. She was “unclean.” And so was everything she touched! Here she is pressing in with the crowd. Do you see what I am getting at? My point is, she was a determined woman. She was going to touch Jesus.
And she did. But so did lots of other people. Remember? Big crowd, lots of people trying to touch Jesus. But for some reason, Jesus takes note of the fact that she touched Him. He didn’t see her, but He knew that something had happened. So he asked the crowd, “Who touched me?” to which Peter responded with “There are people everywhere!” But somehow the woman knew that He was speaking to her.
The passage says that “she came trembling, and falling down before Him.” She proceeded to tell Him and all of those around why she had come to touch Him and that when she had, she was healed. Can you imagine that?! You’ve been sick, dirty, unclean, shamed for all these years and now you announce to everyone what has happened. That’s bold. She could have snuck away in the crowd. Jesus response: “Your faith has made you well; go in peace.”
I wonder why Jesus wanted her to identify herself. In his book called The King’s Cross, Timothy Keller answers that question this way: “She needed it...she had a somewhat superstitious understanding of Jesus’ power. She thought it was the touch that could heal her. She thought his power was manageable. And Jesus made her identify herself so he could say, ‘Oh, no, it was your faith that healed you.’...There’s all the difference in the world between being a superstitious person who gets a bodily healing, and a life-transformed follower of Jesus for all eternity.”
I think the application is pretty clear. Are you lacking in faith? You need to trust that Jesus is perfectly capable of doing what He says he can do. Or maybe it’s pride. Do you need the humility to crawl to your Maker and reach out to Him? Or maybe you see something else in her that you wish that you had. Ask the Lord to make you like her.
One last thought: I found Job 26:14 several years ago and I thought it had such a neat connection with the story of this woman. You know the story of Job. He had everything stripped away from him. He knew suffering. In chapter 26, he starts declaring various attributes of God, declaring that He alone has power over the wind and the waves and the moon and death and the heavens. And then at the end of the chapter he says, “these are but the outskirts (or fringes) of his ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of him!” The woman in our story listened to Jesus’ “whispers.” She touched just the fringe of all that He was and is and her life was forever changed. I wonder what happened during the rest of her life. I wonder what she learned and saw and heard of Jesus once she turned to Him. I wonder what happens when we reach past the fringes.
(Side note: You can also find this story in Mark 5 and in Matthew 9. READ THEM. It helps you put together all the different pieces of the story. If you and I were at the scene of the car wreck and we were asked to explain what we saw, we would both take note of different things. Now we would both have the same big picture like, “the white car ran the red light and the blue car pulled out,” but the details would be different. The same is true when it comes to the Gospels. Different eyewitnesses wrote down different details. What different details can you find in these passages?)
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