Times of Healing
Luke 8:40-56 June 30, 2024
In our culture when we get ill or injured we visit a medical facility to receive care for the injury or illness. Sometimes we even seek treatment for minor issues. The medical establishment in this country is big business. Twenty-four years ago a visit to a physician cost around $50.00. Today an outpatient visit costs in around $203.00. Medicines are big business. In 2021 spending on prescription medicine cost an average of $1432 per citizen. We are demanding more of our insurers to pay for our health care. Today the largest Federal Budget item is Medicare/Medicaid. Such spending is around $1.78 trillion. The cost of medical care will likely continue to increase each year. While the availability of quality medical care is a blessing, the costs will continue to put quite a strain on personal, corporate and government budgets. Medical costs have always been an issue.
This morning’s Gospel reading is about two healings that Jesus did in Capernaum. I am only going to deal with the first healing. It is the healing of a woman who had a chronic bleeding problem. Perhaps some other Sunday I will look at the healing of the Capernaum synagogue leader’s twelve year old daughter.
To set the scene, we find Jesus and his disciples returning from Gentile territory on the East side of the Sea of Galilee. There he healed a man who was possessed by a Legion of demons. After the healing, the man became the first Gentile to go to his area to tell others of Jesus’ power and authority. Now Jesus is in Capernaum. A large crowd greets him as he walks from the boat dock to the town. Everywhere Jesus goes his reputation goes before him and large crowds of people gather around him hoping for healing or to simply see his healing powers in action.
While he is walking a crowd presses in on him. A woman who has a chronic disorder is part of the crowd. She is desperate as she has had the disorder for twelve years. In Twenty-First Century America, she would have found a physician who knew how to treat the disorder. However, in First Century Israel, that was not the case. She had seen many doctors but they did not cure her disorder. She only got worse. All they did was impoverish her as she spent all her money on seeking a cure. She was in poverty and utterly destitute. Ancient remedies for such a disorder are interesting. According to the Talmud, a book of the writings of the rabbis, there were several treatments. A person with the disorder should carry the ashes of an ostrich egg in a linen bag in the summer and carry the ashes in a cotton bag in the winter. Or she was advised to carry a barley corn found in donkey dung. How about that treatment? Another treatment called for the patient to drink wine with alum and crocuses. And if that does not work, one could try a mixture of locust wings. While this may be amusing, let us remember that in the USA there has been what we call snake oil salesmen who offer a cure for about anything, including female disorders. When I was a kid, I went to what we called the sale barn and saw a woman selling eucalyptus oil as a cure all.
The woman with the bleeding dealt with another big issue. According to the Jewish law, having such a disorder placed her in a state of perpetual ritual uncleanness. This state had a major negative effect on her life in the community. She could not marry nor be a part of the worshipping community. That made her an outcast as unclean as a leper. No one could touch her without becoming unclean themselves. Consequently, for at least twelve years she had no social status, could not bear children, was ritually unclean and excluded from her community. The writer of today’s Gospel, Luke, was a physician and he said she was incurable. Her physical condition placed her in a desperate situation with little or no hope for the future.
The woman was present in the crowd. She undoubtedly heard of Jesus’ power to heal. In essence, this was her final chance. If she could not obtain healing from Jesus, she would find healing nowhere. None of the physicians she consulted healed her and she had no money remaining to take a chance on another physician other than the Great Physician.
She creeps up on Jesus, reaches down and touches the edge of his cloak. This act is in violation of the Jewish law. For her to touch his garment would make him unclean. And the only person permitted to touch one’s tassels were members of his family. At the four corners of a Jewish man’s outer garment were four tassels, called Tzit-Tzit in Hebrew. They were dyed blue. The dye came from the fluids of a tiny mollusk and was expensive. The tassels said three things about the person who wore them. They revealed their authority, status and their holiness. The bluer the tassels were the higher the person’s status. They were a sign of the Covenant of Moses. Anyone seeing a man with such tassels would recognize them as a seriously holy Jew. She is so desperate for the healing of her bleeding disorder that she risked making Jesus ritually unclean by touching his garment and a tassel.
Luke says, “She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak and immediately the bleeding stopped (Luke 8:44).” She snuck up behind him, touched a tassel and was healed. What all the doctors that she saw could not do, in her desperation she touched the tassel of Rabbi Jesus. That was a bold thing for her to do. I am sure she did not want him to know that she touched a tassel. I am sure she wanted it to be a secret. She knew it was in violation of the Law of Moses and his response would more than likely be bad. I recall a professor saying that a rabbi in that situation had the right to beat her. Rabbis did not want to be made ritually unclean and have to go through the process of becoming ritually clean. It was a fearful thing that the woman did.
Jesus’ response was not like the response of an ordinary First Century Jewish rabbi. He asked, “Who touched me?” Undoubtedly, he knew who touched him but he was giving her the chance to fess up. Luke tells us, “When they all denied it, Peter said, ‘Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you (Luke 8:45).’” Peter is the master of the obvious. Obviously, Jesus recognized that the crowd was pressing against him. “But Jesus said, ‘Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me (Luke 8:48).” He gives the woman another chance to own up to what she did. She could have snuck away quietly through the crowd and vanished. However, she realized that she could not go unnoticed.
Here we are getting to a most unusual encounter between a rabbi and an unclean woman. Instead of running away, she came trembling and fell at his feet. She recognized that Jesus was no ordinary rabbi. She recognized that the power of God was working through him in a special way. For twelve years she has suffered and Jesus’ holy power healed her immediately. It is unlikely that she feared him as she would have feared an ordinary rabbi’s response to her touching him. She tells the whole truth for everyone to hear. Luke tells us, “In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed (Luke 8:47b).” One writer says, “The fear in her eyes meets the compassion in his.” This woman was courageous and told everyone what she did and that she was healed. I wonder what the response of the crowd might be. Some scholars believe that people in the crowd might also have struck her. Or perhaps the crowd was waiting to see Jesus’ response to her actions of touching him.
Jesus speaks to her: “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace (Luke 8:48).” Jesus does not strike her. He does not make a big show of it like modern TV preachers often do. He simply gives her several affirmations. He calls her “daughter.” In doing so, he makes her part of his family. She is not a sick woman but is his child, his daughter. One scholar said that in calling her “daughter” he has disarmed the crowd. They would have no issue with her as Jesus accepts her as part of his family. The second affirmation is that he tells her that her faith has saved or healed her. It was not magic. It was not the magic of touching a piece of cloth that healed her. It was her confidence that the power of God was working through Jesus.
The third affirmation Jesus gave her was his blessing, “Go in peace.” Coming from some people, that sounds like trite words. It’s like people saying, “God bless you,” when they really do not understand what they are saying. But coming from Jesus, we know his affirmation was not a trite comment. He was saying go on with your life in God’s shalom. The Hebrew word shalom is often translated as peace. However, it is much more than peace. It is much more than the absence of warfare. A Bible dictionary defines it as, “well-being, safety and contentment.” Prior to touching Jesus’ tassel, she was in a state of anything but well-being, safety or contentment. She was in the state of desperation, depression and anxiety. Jesus tells her to go on with her life as one healed of a terrible bleeding disorder and live in a state of well-being, safety, and contentment.
A long time ago when I joined the army, I received training as a Medical Laboratory Specialist. The main thing a lab tech does is analyze blood. I really appreciate blood. Each of us has between eight and twelve pints of blood flowing through our veins and arteries. It makes up around 8% of our body weight. Blood is absolutely necessary for our survival. With the bleeding disorder, it is likely that the woman was anemic. Every Sunday we receive the Lord’s Supper and recognize that Jesus shed his blood for our salvation. We give God thanks for sending Jesus whose shed blood gained us forgiveness of sin and the promise of Eternal Life. Remember the words of 1st John 1:7, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”
Sermon presented by Chaplain (COL) Michael W. Malone at Veterans Memorial Chapel
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