Interruption on the way

28 June 2009

Mark 5:21-43

Mark 5:21-43 concludes a significant chapter of healing and miracles. Mark’s narrative is the conjoining of two stories: the healing of a woman, which takes place as Jesus is en route to the house of Jairus, whose little daughter lay sick. Both are miracles which involve the power of touch. They are, however, fundamentally different:

One involves a significant synagogue official, Jairus, who specifically wanted Jesus to touch his daughter.
The other concerns the healing of an unnamed woman, insignificant in comparison, who came up behind Jesus in the crowd and anonymously touched him.

The point I want to share with you tonight and direct its application to our lives is that the healing of the woman occurred as an interruption on the way. So many of the incidents in the gospel happen as interruptions, for example:

Zacchaeus, the Tax Collector, climbed a tree and cried out as Jesus was passing through (Luke 19)
Jesus sat down at the well, after interrupting a journey, and they started to talk together (John 4)
Blind Bartimaeus shouted at Jesus as he, the disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho (Mark 10)

Interruptions can be viewed as diverting us from our purpose and real meaning for living … or they can be seen as an opportunity to discover in the ‘unprepared-for place’ how equipped for life we really are! The person who is able to deal with an interruption in life and not lose their way is one who uniquely is able to face life’s challenges. The Great Physician is on his way to make a house call when interrupted.

Ralph Martin draws attention to the Markan literary style of ‘sandwich’ structure, that is a running together of two stories laid one on top of the other. You would add to this the definite sense of purpose which Mark has in the brief but powerful interruption of Jesus on his journey.

Jesus had been teaching in the region of the Gerasenes and was confronted by a man who had an evil spirit. Jesus released the man and, in doing so, displayed his authority which was unequalled. When people witnessed what had occurred, they ran off in all directions to tell the news.

Jesus had sent the spirit into a herd of pigs which had run over the cliff edge. This threatened the livelihood of those tending the pigs, let alone the owners, which resulted in the people wanting rid of Jesus (5:17). Meanwhile the man who had been released from such evil power wanted to follow Jesus in the boat, but Jesus instructs him: “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how he has shown mercy on you.” (5:19)

Immediately Jesus arrived at the other side of the Lake, he is surrounded by a large crowd. Jairus is then introduced to us. He is one of those people whose name will always be remembered, even though we only hear about him once. He brought news that his daughter was sick and she needed the touch of Jesus to bring her healing. His need was great (v.23) and the response of Jesus was immediate (v.24). A large crowd followed him and ‘pressed around him’. We are told of a woman in the crowd, who had been sick for twelve years.

Mark 5:27-29
“When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, ‘If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.’ Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was free from her suffering.”

The way the woman in the crowd comes to Jesus has a great deal to say to us, helping us examine our own response, because:

Her need was great

The nature of this woman’s illness is not precisely identified, but that is helpful to our understanding. It may well have been some kind of uterine disease, but it is the sense of frustration and inability to find healing which makes it impossible for her to live a full life. Luke, the Doctor, records ‘no-one could heal her’. The point is that the woman’s need was so great! This has the feeling of ‘last resort’ about it – as she comes to Jesus.

Very many people, when defining the complexity of human experience, complete the puzzle with the jigsaw piece marked ‘sin’. I feel the piece may also be marked ‘need’, in which sin is but a part.

The woman is prepared to look out Jesus and to battle her way through the crowd to touch his cloak. The key part of the nature of her seeking is ‘she heard about Jesus’. Because of her illness, she would not have entered the synagogue or temple and would come to value the stories she heard from her place on the edge of the crowd.

There is a slight difference between the Jewish official’s request and what stirred her to turn to Jesus for help. In Jairus, it is his seeing … whilst in this woman it is ‘what she had heard’!

Her furtive approach is no doubt indicative of her disease which shuts her off from friends and family (Leviticus 15:25-27). Could there be any clearer sign of her need and desire for healing?

She had suffered under doctors

In his commentary, English suggests that Mark is ‘sharply critical of the doctors’ of his day. We must not unfairly castigate the medical profession for it would need to be said that many people have expectations of medical practitioners which are way beyond what is reasonable.

I have no doubt in my own mind that this woman would have been desperate to have tried many of the more unusual remedies of the day. The Talmud gave no fewer than eleven cures for such an ailment. Many are similar to the kind of herbal tonics and astringents that are available today … but some bordered on sheer superstition. Barclay reminds us that Jewish literature is interesting on the theme of doctors. We read in Tobit, “I used to go to the physicians to be healed and the more they anointed with their medications, the more my eyes were blinded by the film until they were totally blinded.”

She had spent a great deal of money.

When a person is ill in this way, they will try many avenues to bring healing and it can be very expensive. Such an attitude is reinforced by those who say, ‘There is nothing more important than your health!'

The comment about her money is that she had come to the end of herself. One of the tragedies in our world is the way people abuse human need in order to build wealth:

We meet it in our financial counselling – offers that are too good to be true … are usually exactly that!
We meet it in our gambling counselling – people who pour in money … to gain back the losses.
We meet it in some of the more eccentric ends of alternative cures, which offer healing in a way that has not been possible in any conventional way.

She had suffered for twelve years and was alienated from others

David Hewitt makes the point that her faith expressed in v.28 – ‘if I just touch his clothes’ – is almost superstitious: “It is faith in an object rather than a person” … Faith in a ‘touch’ rather than in ‘the One who is touched’. This is reinforced by the fact that Jesus brings her out into the open … to deepen her understanding of what faith is really all about.

We do not know anything about this person’s family, but we can be fairly sure that all relationships would be affected by this illness. It would render work almost impossible; it would limit friendship and cut a person off from religious life.

She came to Jesus as a final hope, which is in fact her only hope!

Despite the ‘do not touch’ signs, a museum curator was having no success in keeping patrons from touching and soiling priceless art. The problem was overcome immediately when an employee replaced the signs with new ones which read, ‘Caution: Wash hands after touching’.

Her need was met

Possibly one of the most difficult aspects of a person’s life journey centres on the theme of ‘unmet need’ and it can lead people to look back on their lives with great sadness. Here was a person who came to Jesus and he fulfilled each and every aspiration.

It could be said that this woman actually lowered her expectation in simply wanting a physical cure, but Jesus offered her far more.

She felt power enter her body

One can only begin to imagine what it must have been like to be this woman. After twelve years of feeling the constancy of her illness, she now experienced the incoming of healing power. Healing energy had left Jesus to bring wholeness to this woman. The sheer sensitivity of Jesus told him that someone had touched him … or at least his cloak.

The concern of Jesus was primarily not that someone had touched him … but who had touched him. We read, “But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it.” There was so much crush going on and the question seems superfluous, but not to Jesus. He did not just want the woman to feel well in the physical sense, but totally healed.

It was not her touching the hem of his garment that healed her, but the loving power of God which is in Jesus. Divine love lay beyond the garment.

She was physically healed immediately

There must be a place to ponder the straightforward and amazing fact that the woman’s body is healed. There is no doubt at all that physical healing attended the preaching and teaching ministry of Jesus.

It always concerns me that there are those who refuse to acknowledge the healing presence of Jesus. Clearly, what is important is that we clarify the nature of the healing:

It was not to seek attention.
It was not flamboyant in its exercise.
It pointed to something more – not an end in itself.

The healing ministry of Jesus was part of his bringing wholeness to people’s lives.

She was given the freedom to be with others

As we have already established, the healing power of Jesus is seen in this interruption … and is always to be understood in terms of the way in which it allowed the woman to enjoy life again. She had been:-

Cut off from friends and family.
Cut off from the community.
Cut off from God himself.

This woman touched Jesus and our response is that we must touch others also. There is no way we can do the work of God without touching … the lonely, the damaged, the destitute and the sick. This makes sense in response:

He touched me, oh he touched me,
And oh the joy that floods my soul.
Something happened and now I know,
He touched me and made me whole.

Her interruption led to deeper healing

What the woman received that day was far more than physical healing … for Jesus addressed her personally (v.34).

We can imagine the desperate father who would feel impatient at the interruption of this incident. His little girl is dying, yet Jesus stops to ask a question which was considered absurd, even by the disciples –

Jesus could have pressed on in response to the father’s distress.
Jesus could have been content that the woman was healed.
Jesus could have dealt with the whole incident differently, but he took time out to offer a much more personal touch.

Lamar Williamson comments, “The interruption offers food for thought to busy people in the twentieth century: to physicians pressured by specialization and overwork, to parents harried by the demands of neighbourhood children or their own, to professors distracted by students with problems, to preachers interrupted in the middle of sermon preparation.”

Henri Nouwen, in his book Reaching Out, writes, “You know … my whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.”

She was drawn to God through Jesus Christ

We can answer the enquiry as to why she looked to Jesus for help in terms of ‘she had heard about him’, but there is more to say:

God has moved in her heart.
She was beginning to see the futility of all other help.
She now focused on the One who was bringing complete wholeness.

She did not seek to be a rude interruption as she came to Jesus – her hope was to come to him and slip away in the crowd. The very nature of her visit to him indicates she came with genuine belief that he would bring her what she needed. Both her being drawn and her spiritual confidence are borne out of her sense of conviction that the Spirit of God had brought to her.

She fell at his feet and declared it was her touch

When Jesus sought to find out who it was who had touched him and asked the question of the crowd, she was presented with the option of slipping away quietly or being open and admitting it was her. She chose the latter.

Her touch achieved what she longed for (v.v.28-29), but not for a moment had she thought that this would have any effect on Jesus. English suggests, “The woman now comes up in front of him, greatly afraid, and tells him the whole saga.” She had received power (v.29); she now received peace (v.34) and the whole incident is underpinned by faith (v.34).

She received the gift of peace

One of the most obvious contrasts in the account is the different kinds of contact that people had with Jesus Christ. Some were only spectators in the crowd, while others met him face to face – and, in doing so, receive real help. God’s desire for our lives is for us to know his real peace (v.34).

Ralph Martin powerfully suggests that what Jesus did for this woman gave her a passport into the community once more. “Now she gets an entrée back into both society and the synagogue.”

She might have hoped ‘at best’ for a physical cure and then creep back into the anonymity of the faceless crowd. But she is singled out and, consequently, is given her life back!

In this section of the gospel there are many characters who are stung by disease. There is a woman who has lived twelve years with a sickness which affects her whole experience of life, there is a distraught father and a little girl whose young life is being cut short. There are baffled disciples and a crowd of people who don’t know what to think of all this. Where are you in the crowd?

And yet in the midst of this story is One whose life-giving power will breathe hope into a little girl’s life … and give peace to a woman whose interruption draws Jesus’ attention. You too can interrupt him today – and he will respond to your need with healing power!

Christian Life