The bleeding woman

see Mark 5: 21-34

This story of the bleeding woman touching Jesus' clothes and being healed has always stood out to me. It's like God has highlighted this passage with a spiritual marker; it always stands out so much. This past summer at Camp Joy, I was asked to be the speaker for teen week. Well, after praying and praying, I decided to talk about this story of the bleeding woman. My goal then was just to make the story come alive for those youth, to really show them the depth of suffering and hurt in this woman's life, and then how she received total healing from Jesus. I think I might have said something about that same healing being available to each of us if we just reach out and touch Jesus. But I don't think I believe that anymore...

This past weekend, I got to preach another message for FOCUS (a ministry GWU offers). With all the stress and chaos of finishing up a semester, honestly, I didn't make the time or have the energy to come up with some new sermon. I decided to just fall back on this same message of the bleeding woman I gave at camp. But, just in this past week, God showed up and started moving. This past week has been hell for me--physically draining, emotionally wrecking, mentally exhausting, and, in a way, spiritually overwhelming. God's revealed so much to me this past week. I've been convicted of so many things. I've felt loved in new ways--a love different, deeper, more real. I've received answers and fulfillments of prayers I've agonized over for years. God has really showed up this week. And when I resorted to a cop-out sermon that I thought I had pinned down, God changed everything.

I guess I had always looked at the story of the bleeding woman as a parable of coming into Christianity, or rather, as a parable of coming into relationship with Christ, with every aspect of the story serving as an easy and nicely packaged symbol for us Christians to fit into our lives. The bleeding woman symbolizes the sinner who has been wandering around, hurting, trying to do life his/her own way. Touching Jesus symbolizes becoming a Christian (whatever that means)--maybe a public profession of faith, or an open commitment to follow Christ. All it really takes in life is to have faith that Jesus will heal you and reach out to him. It will all be healed. All the sin, all the hurt, all the fears, all the suffering--it will all be healed.

Damn. Did I really buy into this? When I look back over this story through those lens, I have this staggering sense of loss, like I'm missing a bigger picture here, like I totally don't get it. I really wish it worked like that, though. That we all can find total healing, and peace, and love, and release in this world by simply turning to Jesus. I really do wish it worked like that. But it just doesn't. Coming into Christianity in this world, to be blunt, doesn't touch my damage inside. I touched Jesus years ago, and I still suffer and hurt; I still have those same insecurities, those same fears, those same doubts, those same sins; I still lose focus; I still break. I'm not completely healed when I touch Jesus. Life certainly would be easier if it all worked that way, but it just doesn't. For me, the story of the bleeding woman doesn't, can't mean that.


I think maybe the story of the bleeding woman is a parable for all of life.


This woman had some sort of disease in her life, where she endlessly bled and hurt. She travels from doctor to doctor, priest to priest, spending more and more money till she has nothing left; and she receives no answers. She can't stop the bleeding. And now, because of Jewish law (Lev. 15:25), she's been labeled "unclean." Now, because of her physical malady of bleeding, she has a spiritual malady. She can't come into God's temple. She's told she deserves this. It's a result of her sin. She must have done something wrong for God to have given this to her. She's excluded, an outcast from society. She's abandoned--by friends, by family, by the church. Everyone's given up on her. Doctors can't help her. The church can't help her. She's ridiculed, avoided, isolated, abandoned. By everyone! even her family! She grows sicker and sicker, weaker and weaker. Constant pain. She's poverty-stricken, destitute, heart-broken, depressed, alone, confused, sorrowful, tired, hopeless, withdrawn. She's homeless, a sojourner. She's probably given up herself. Geeze, this was the life that woman lived for 12 years! 12 years of never feeling love, never experiencing healing, never being touched by another human being. When I try to get into the head of this woman, this word keeps coming up for me: withdrawal. I think of someone that's been hurt so deeply so many times by so many people, that she's completely withdrawn into herself. I think of someone who's cried out to God: "What did I do to deserve this? What is wrong with me? What did I do wrong? God, where are you? Why don't you answer me? Why don't you heal me? Does God hate me?" This woman--who's been burned by her family, her friends, the church, God--has completely given up, completely surrendered to this depression. Completely withdrawn into herself.

But then she starts hearing about this man. There's this man who's been traveling the country, preaching about God and love, helping people, giving sight to blind men, healing people.

But there's no way he can help me. There's no way I'm trusting him. He can't heal me. It hurts too much to even hope for that again. And what's the point! I know he can't heal me. He can't. I know he can't.

But she kept hearing about this man. People said this man was God's son. He can heal her. I think about this woman--tired, unsure, terrified. But she decides to trust one more time. I think of her crying out to God: "God, if this is real... I want this so badly... I'll try one more time. But God, if this doesn't work, it will completely break me. It will destroy me. But I'll try one more time." And so this woman, terrified and doubtful yet tired of hurting, starts looking for this man. She gets to the outskirts of a crowd and hears that this man is in the middle. She starts sneaking in, blending in, disappearing into the crowd. She keeps pushing, and pushing, and pushing, looking for this man. She can't see where she's going. She can't see the man she's looking for. She doesn't even know if he really exists. But she just keeps pushing. Before long, she sees him. She's so scared to hope again, so afraid to trust again, but she desperately wants to be loved again; so she just reaches out and touches him.

sidenote: the commentaries I looked at said the woman had so much faith in Jesus that she knew she only had to touch his clothes to be healed. Bull shit. This woman was scared! She was terrified out of her mind! She wanted this healing so badly but was so afraid that she didn't even have the words to say it. She was so upset she didn't even have the power to talk. She had no strength left for words. So she just reached out.

My Bible says that immediately she felt in her body that she had been healed. Before she can even grasp that, the man stops. He asks, "Who touched me?" And of course the disciples are like, "Calm down, Jesus. You're in a crowd, bro. Everyone's touching you." But Jesus says, "No. Someone touched me." I think it's important here to notice that Jesus doesn't demand the woman to confess, but invites her to.

The woman's reaction? I imagine all her fears resurfacing. She couldn't touch him! He's a man of influence, and she's unclean. She could contaminate him. But something tells her she can trust him. This is the real act of faith, not reaching out and touching Jesus' clothes as the commentaries say. This is faith. She falls flat on her face, body trembling with fear and passion, eyes puffy and swollen, face wet with tears and dirt. She can't even look him in the face. She tells her story, and it's not an easy one to tell. Her story's embarrassing, difficult, painful. It's a story of brokenness of body and spirit. She tells this story in front of this man of influence, in front of a judgemental crowd, in front of people who are going to write her off and abandon her like everyone else in her life. He's going to judge her, too. He's going to condemn her. He's going to abandon her like everyone else.

But he doesn't. Jesus helps her up and says, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering" (v 34). See, the woman wanted a physical healing, and after the touch, she got it. The story could have ended there, but praise God it doesn't. Jesus cared about more than healing the woman physically. Jesus calls her "daughter." Daughter. It's a term that denotes relationship, belonging, and love. Jesus cares about what really matters, and he speaks to what's really damaged. This woman comes to him wanting to be healed physically, but Jesus wants to heal her spirit--her hurt, her brokenness, her feelings of mistrust and abandonment. He wants to love her. and he doesn't demand, but invites her into face-to-face relationship with him.


I think now I realize that each and every one of us is that bleeding woman.

We all hurt and suffer, and life is pushing through the crowd. All of life is wandering against this crowd because we've heard about someone who can heal us. We can't see him, and we don't know if he exists. We can let the crowd overtake us, or we can keep pushing, and pushing, and pushing. And just maybe, at the end of this life, this life of pushing through the crowd, we'll find the one who can heal us. Weeping and trembling, we fall at his feet; and on that judgment day, before God in that seat of judgement, we tell him everything--our sins, our heartaches, our brokenness. everything. But he doesn't judge us, and he doesn't condemn us. He calls us "son," "daughter." God helps us to our feet, to face-to-face relationship with him, and he makes us whole.



Nicole C. Mullen--One Touch