For she said to herself, "If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well"

 

 While He spoke these things to them, behold, a ruler came and worshiped Him, saying, "My daughter has just died, but come and lay Your hand on her and she will live."  So Jesus arose and followed him, and so did His disciples.  And suddenly, a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind and touched the hem of His garment.  For she said to herself, "If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well."  But Jesus turned around, and when He saw her He said, "Be of good cheer, daughter; your faith has made you well."  And the woman was made well from that hour.  When Jesus came into the ruler's house, and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd wailing, He said to them, "Make room, for the girl is not dead, but sleeping."  And they ridiculed Him.  But when the crowd was put outside, He went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose.  And the report of this went out into all that land. 

 

- Matthew 9:18-26 

 

Yesterday we read that, after healing a paralytic, as Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office.  And He said to him, "Follow Me."  So he arose and followed Him.  Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples.  And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, "Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"  When Jesus heard that, He said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  But go and learn what this means:  'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.'  For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.  Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?"  And Jesus said to them, "Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?  But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.  No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse.  Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined.  But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved."

 

  While He spoke these things to them, behold, a ruler came and worshiped Him, saying, "My daughter has just died, but come and lay Your hand on her and she will live."  So Jesus arose and followed him, and so did His disciples.  And suddenly, a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind and touched the hem of His garment.  For she said to herself, "If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well."  But Jesus turned around, and when He saw her He said, "Be of good cheer, daughter; your faith has made you well."  And the woman was made well from that hour.  When Jesus came into the ruler's house, and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd wailing, He said to them, "Make room, for the girl is not dead, but sleeping."  And they ridiculed Him.  But when the crowd was put outside, He went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose.  And the report of this went out into all that land. My study Bible comments on today's passage that authority over life and death is in the hand of God alone (Deuteronomy 32:39; 1 Samuel 2:6).  Being of one essence with the Father, Jesus has this authority (John 5:21).  The healing of the woman with the blood flow demonstrates Christ's power both to cleanse and to heal (see Matthew 8:1-4, in which Jesus healed a leper by touch).  In the Old Testament, my study Bible explains, hemorrhage caused ceremonial defilement, which imposed religious and social restrictions, for contact with blood was strictly prohibited (Leviticus 15:25).  This suffering woman accounts herself unclean, but she nevertheless approaches Jesus secretly and also with great faith.  Jesus brings her good cheer because of her faith.  He also corrects her thinking, because she could neither hide her touch from Him, nor is she excluded from Him because of her illness.  Finally, Jesus exhibits her faith to all, so that they might imitate her.  

My study Bible really focuses in on the trouble of the woman with the blood flow.  She has been crippled from the society and participation in it because of this affliction.  We see Christ's mercy at work in His response to her, but we also see something quite powerful that doesn't involve an apparently conscious decision on the part of Jesus.  In this text, here in Matthew's Gospel, we're told that Jesus turned around, and when He saw her He said, "Be of good cheer, daughter; your faith has made you well."  In Luke's Gospel telling of this story, Jesus asks, "Who touched Me?" and later says, "Somebody touched Me, for I perceived power going out from Me."  We should keep in mind that when we read additional details in one Gospel over another that the Gospels are made from witness statements, and come from oral testimony, so this should not surprise us nor should it be considered unusual.  But taking either text, what we see here is the response of the divine to this woman's faith.  While Jesus perceives power going out from Himself (in Luke's Gospel), here in Matthew, He turned around, and it is only when He saw her that He responded to tell her that her faith made her well.  It might seem to be a slight form of elucidation of meaning, but nevertheless what we can see is His divinity responding to her faith, and specifically to her act of faith in touching the hem of His garment.  The human Jesus may be quite aware that power has gone out of Him, and that it is the faith of this woman that has made her well, but nevertheless it was the human Jesus who needed to turn around to see her to fully understand what happened.   The divinity of Christ, on the other hand, responded to her faith before Jesus' human sight could be aware of her.  What this seems to mean for us would be an assurance that the divine power of Christ is present and working, whether or not the human Jesus walks among us still.  What we can be assured of is the response of God to our faith, the response of the divine to real faith -- and I would say especially to acts of faith.  That is, to faith put into action and thus made manifest somehow by what we do.  This is what the woman does by reaching out and touching the hem of Christ's garment.  She puts her faith into an action, and the response of Christ's divine power is immediate, even before He is aware of who touched Him.  So let us take heart from this story, and understand that while the world is beset with its own problems, we are not left abandoned by God.  For God's Spirit is present for us and working in us (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).  We must be particularly aware of God the Holy Spirit this week, as tomorrow is the celebration of Pentecost in the West (in the Eastern Churches, it is one week from tomorrow).  Let us give thanks and be aware of God's great gift to us.  We may not experience the kind of immediacy that this woman experienced in the presence of Jesus Himself, but our prayers are heard and God's power is at work to help us to God's way for us (Philippians 4:13).