I read daily from various sources on my little slice of social media, some excellent prayers, meditations, spiritual thoughts, etc.
Never have I read anything that touched me as did these words the other morning from Adam Faithful on X.
@Adam_FaithfulM
I have copied it and posted it as it was written.
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“For twelve years, nobody touched her.
Mark 5:25. A certain woman who had an issue of blood for twelve years.
Under the Law of Moses, a woman with a flow of blood that wouldn’t stop was unclean for as long as it lasted. Leviticus 15:25. Anything she lay on, anything she sat on, was unclean. Anyone who touched her was unclean.
Twelve years.
No hand on her shoulder. No embrace from her mother. No husband, and if she’d had one, he’d likely been gone a long time. No temple. Every room she walked into, people stepped back.
And she’d spent everything trying to fix it.
Mark 5:26. And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse.
Now read Luke’s version. Luke was a physician himself.
Luke 8:43. Which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any.
The doctor quietly leaves out the line about getting worse under doctors. Mark the fisherman put it in.
She was broke. Sick. Untouchable. And she had one idea left.
But she wasn’t the one Jesus was going to see that day.
Back up a few verses. A man named Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, a respected man, has thrown himself at Jesus’s feet in front of the whole town.
Mark 5:23. My little daughter lieth at the point of death.
His only daughter, Luke says. And Mark tells you how old she was.
Mark 5:42. She was of the age of twelve years.
Twelve.
The year that girl was born, the woman started bleeding.
For twelve years, Jairus had a daughter growing up in his house: first steps, first words, laughing at the table. For the same twelve years, the woman had been slowly dying in the street.
And on the same morning, one was at the end of her life, and the other was out of options.
Jesus is walking to Jairus’s house. The crowd is crushing in. And the woman who, by law, should not be in that crowd at all, pushes her way through behind Him.
Mark 5:28. For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.
Matthew and Luke tell you exactly what she touched. The hem. The border of His garment.
In Greek, kraspedon. It’s the word used for the tassels a Jewish man wore on the four corners of his robe, commanded in Numbers 15, to remember the commandments of the LORD.
And the Hebrew word for the corners where those tassels hung is kanaf. It also means wing.
Malachi 4:2. But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings.
Healing in His wings. She reached for the corner of His robe.
And she was healed. Instantly. Mark says she felt in her body that the fountain of her blood was dried up.
She could have slipped away. Nobody would have known.
Jesus stopped.
Mark 5:30. Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes?
His disciples almost laughed at Him. Hundreds of people are touching You.
But He kept looking. And she came forward, shaking, and fell down, and told Him all the truth in front of everyone.
Why didn’t He let her go quietly?
Because she didn’t just need to be healed. She needed to be seen healed. Twelve years of the whole town knowing she was unclean; now the whole town heard Him declare her whole.
Mark 5:34. And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.
Daughter.
It’s the only time in the gospels Jesus addresses a woman by that word.
He’s on His way to save one man’s daughter, and He stops in the street to call a forgotten woman His.
Now feel what Jairus felt during that conversation.
Mark 5:35. While he yet spake, there came from the ruler of the synagogue’s house certain which said, Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master any further?
His girl died while Jesus was stopped in the road for someone else.
Jesus heard it. And before Jairus could speak, He said one sentence.
Mark 5:36. Be not afraid, only believe.
He walked into the house. Put out the mourners who laughed at Him. Took the girl by the hand.
Mark 5:41. Talitha cumi. Little girl, I say unto thee, arise.
And she got up and walked. Twelve years old. And then Jesus told them to give her something to eat.
Now look at what happened to the law that day.
Under Moses, uncleanness spread by touch. The unclean woman touched you, you became unclean. You touched a corpse; you became unclean. Numbers 19:11.
That day a bleeding woman touched Jesus. And He took a dead girl by the hand.
By the law, He should have been unclean twice before lunch.
Instead, the woman became clean. And the dead girl got up.
With Him, it runs the other way. He doesn’t catch your uncleanness. You catch His life.
Now you.
Some of you are the woman. You’ve been sick a long time, or ashamed a long time, or alone a long time. You’ve spent everything, money, years, every doctor, every program, every fix, and you’re not better. You’re worse. And you’ve stopped expecting anyone to touch you.
Reach.
Not perfectly. Not with the right words. Through the crowd, from behind, with the last faith you’ve got. He feels it. He’ll turn around. And He’ll call you something you haven’t been called in years.
And some of you are Jairus. You prayed. You begged. He said He’d come. And then He stopped for someone else, and while He was stopped, the news came. It’s over. Don’t bother Him anymore.
He’s not late. He was never late.
He saved two daughters that morning. The delay for one was the miracle for the other.
Be not afraid.
Only believe.”