Intimate Moment with a Hemorraging Woman

I love this woman's desperate courage.

Surely there were people in the crowd who might have recognized her, trundled her off, out of the way, to a place reserved for the unclean. She shouldn't be out in the open, where her suffering might contaminate someone, or make someone else uncomfortable. There's nothing to be done, her doctors said so, why can't she have the decency to just lie down and die?

We do that now. The homeless are sent off to temporary shelter facilities, the hungry are crowded into a basement of the church for a meal, then sent back out into the cold. They are not welcome at the front door, they smell. They might fall asleep in the pews and discourage people from coming in to pray. But we have done our part. We can feel good about ourselves.

She went for it. And Jesus knew when she touched him, felt his power leave his body. Hello, that may have been a surprise. When he had healed people before, it was deliberately, mindfully, with intention, his intention. To suddenly experience someone else's ability to draw his power away... what did that mean? I don't conclude from the account that he was angry or upset, only curious. "Who touched me?" And when he saw her it all came clear. Jesus has stated clearly in many of the healing stories "your faith has made you well." Your faith... This lesson is different only in that her faith acted before his affirmative response. But when he assessed her situation, he blessed the action. "Go in peace..."