20 Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. 21 She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.”
22 Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment.
23 When Jesus entered the synagogue leader’s house and saw the noisy crowd and people playing pipes, 24 he said, “Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him. 25 After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up. 26 News of this spread through all that region.
In Matthew 9:18-26 a man comes to Jesus to tell him that his daughter has died and asks Jesus to come with him to lay his hands on her and while he is on his way to attend to that a woman who has been bleeding for 12 years touches Jesus’s clothes and is healed. Jesus seeks out this mysterious person who touched him in the crowd and says to her, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” Then when he arrives at the home where the daughter has died, he proclaims that “she is not dead but sleeping” and with a touch of her hand, she is indeed alive. What makes Jesus’ encounters with these particular unnamed women significant is that by Jewish purity standards, these women are unclean the first being dead and the second because she is bleeding. However, it is essential to note that Jesus seeks neither of these touching encounters out, he is begged by a grieving father to lay hands on the little girl and grasped in a crowd by a desperate woman. The parallel between the grieving father and the bleeding woman is this, their last hope is Jesus. Their last hope is this new traveling Rabbi they have heard tell of in their community that they without really knowing him have chosen to believe in. And their hope was well placed. The healing of the woman who has been suffering for twelve years takes place, not at the woman’s touch, but at the word of Jesus. In this Gospel, the word of Jesus has power. The words of Jesus have more than just healing power Jesus’ touch has “saved” her and that same touch raises a girl from death. A desperate father and a broken woman both from different places in the societal hierarchy now in a similar need because of illness chose to put their last hope in Jesus in a time when they were in great need. Our hope too is found in Jesus who is still moving in and among all types of people saving the weak and the weary in unexpected ways.
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