JESUS-AS-HEALER TALES ABOUND in the gospels. The miracles surround him. He heals the deaf, the blind, the lame, the demon-possessed. He raises the dead. Everywhere he goes the striking notoriety of his reputation precedes him. He is besieged by people who need what he can do for them, whatever that need might be. One particularly poignant story tells of a woman “who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years.” (Mark 5:25) Jesus is actually on the way to honor a request from a synagogue leader; “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” (Mark 5:23) Jesus, compassionate, cannot refuse him. “So Jesus went with him.” (Mark 5:24a)
He does not go alone, and this is not abnormal. “A large crowd followed and pressed around him.” (Mark 5:24b) And in this teeming mass of people, many are jostling their way closer to him, just trying to see in person this miracle man that so many have spoken of. His notoriety increasingly draws celebrity stalkers wherever he goes. But it also draws the hopeless who still hope. Amongst them is a woman who “had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.” (Mark 5:26)
This is how this story is usually told: “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.’” (Mark 5:27-28) We picture her, physically weak, but strong in resolve, summoning up not just her physical energy, but her sense that this is her moment. He is her hope, and she places her full measure of faith in doing whatever it takes to come into contact with him. She presses forward, touches just his clothing, and “Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.” (Mark 5:29) Jesus feels “that power had gone out from him.” (Mark 5:30) Upon finding that it was this desperate woman, he says, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” (Mark 5:34)
The interruption in his errand of mercy over, Jesus continues to the house of Jairus, and there he brings the synagogue leader’s dead daughter back to life, despite the derision of the faithless present there. “‘Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.’ But they laughed at him.” (Mark 5:39-40) These were the professional mourners, who, for a fee or sometimes for mercy, came to these kinds of events to wail in sympathy for the family. He has them leave the room. Then, “He took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Little girl, I say to you, get up!’” (Mark 5:41) The girl comes back to life, and the scriptures tell us, parenthetically, that she was coincidentally “twelve years old.” (Mark 5:42) We are left to wonder, both at this strange connection to the bleeding woman, and at Jesus’ miraculous powers.
Told separately or linked together, the elements of these stories are all connected to the issue of faith. In the midst of the crowds, the faith element is like the current of a stream flowing unequally through the people present, reaching its climax when one part of that current flows up against Jesus, and in response, power flows out of him in a stream. At Jairus’ house, there is desperate need, but little faith. Nevertheless, life-giving power flows from Jesus. Perhaps with a few more ruminations, this is how the story(ies) are usually told.
However, what if we look at this/these stories in the context of the demands and cost to Jesus? Note in the first, in particular, his reactions. He knows immediately that ‘the power had gone out of him.’ At first, he doesn’t know who it had gone into. He asks, “Who touched my clothes?” (Mark 5:30b) Jesus is a rabbi, and he is God’s high priest. (cf. Heb. 7:11-22) Under the Law, any priest, and in particular the high priest, had to avoid ritual impurity. If they were defiled in any way by contact with the ‘unclean,’ they were required to go through a process of purification. The contact with the bleeding woman put Jesus, under Levitical laws, in such circumstances. “When a woman has her regular flow of blood, anyone who touches her will be unclean until evening.” (Lev. 15:19)
We could quibble over who touched who, but the issue remains this: under the Law, Jesus was ritually impure at this point. His rabbinical—and in his case priestly—office is interrupted. His ‘power’ has been diminished by contamination. We could quibble over the fact that he has not yet gone through the crucifixion, the perfect sacrifice that ‘qualifies’ him as high priest. But this is already accomplished in the mind of God, and the same author of Hebrews that shows Jesus elevated as High Priest refers to his eternally-consistent qualities, saying “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” (Heb. 13:8)
Regarding his exposure to ritual contamination, then, his own perpetually perfect sacrifice has already cleansed him – there is no conflict; his not-too-distant-in-time suffering “outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood” (Heb. 13:12), has already cleansed him. Isaiah’s prophecy regarding him as healer has also already been accomplished in the same everlasting way: “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” (Isa. 53:5) He is the first and will ever be the only High Priest to perform his ministry within the boundaries of the new covenant.
There is yet another consideration to undertake in these stories, and that is the effect on Jesus the man. Notice in the first story that he is surrounded by crowds. This is ‘normal’ for him, but think about the pressure of always being ‘on.’ In an earlier event, He heals a leper, but warns him, “See that you don’t tell this to anyone.” (Mark 1:44a) Instead, the man tells everyone he sees. Scripture records “As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.” (Mark 1:45) This is not an isolated event. Preceding this, Jesus had healed many at Peter’s mother-in-law’s house, and “The whole town gathered at the door.” (Mark 1:33). Scripture next records, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” (Mark 1:35) Peter went looking for and found him, and said “Everyone is looking for you.” (Mark 1:37)
Too often, we forget Jesus’ humanity. We seek him for his power; some need of ours is great, only he can solve our riddle, fix our pain. In the times when we are overwhelmed by our own issues, even as others seek strength from us, it is good to remember that Jesus felt these same pressures. He felt them far more significantly than you and I do. We should consider his pattern for renewal when ‘the power was out.’ He went to be alone with the Father.
Q. How often and how much time do I need to ‘recharge?’
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