just a touch

“And the woman was healed from that moment…”

It’s a beautiful, hopeful ending to a redemptive story — but what a long, painful road this unnamed woman traveled before realizing herself in it …

Twelve years she had carried around in her body this painful, mysterious bleeding — twelve years! Bound by Levitical laws, such bleeding made her unclean — and not only her, but anyone she touched, or anyone who touched anything she touched.

Twelve years without human touch — save the painful, mortifying examinations of the endless stream of doctors and so-called “healers” she consulted until her money ran out. Not one could give her what she craved — true healing, restoration — but instead stripped her of hope and left her destitute … and bleeding still.

Twelve years cut off from the embrace of friend or family; twelve years thrust to the borderland of her people, a people with little awareness and no understanding of her hidden agony. Acknowledging her brokenness served to fuel their fears rather than kindle their compassion, so she slipped to the sidelines and sought to draw no attention.

But one fateful day, she could not avoid the crush of the crowd. As the masses swarmed around the man called Jesus, she found herself swept into their midst. Teacher. Deliverer. Healer. The whispered words rippled through the multitude, mounting in volume, pulsing with intensity.

When she finally came in sight of Him, her mind was made up. Her last chance was a bold and desperate one, not to mention forbidden — for touching Him would involve Him in her own uncleanness. Still, she had nothing more to lose. She would squeeze through the crowd and steal up behind Him. If she could just touch the edge of His garment, the very fringe of His prayer shawl, it just might be enough. Enough to bring her some relief from her chronic pain, a reprieve from unremitting shame … even if just for a moment. No one would have to know. She would slip in and slip away, and console herself to her dying day that on this day, she had come close enough to touch the Miracle Man. And maybe, just maybe, she would be healed. Where the hope came from that suddenly welled up within her, she couldn’t have guessed. Until a moment before, she would have said she had no hope left. But in a driving force from deep within her core she knew — she knew! — she would be healed.

With an urgency born of desperation and freshly awakened faith, she reached out her trembling hand. Whisper-light, her fingers brushed against the threads of His cloak. With that touch, an unseen burst of heat and light traced the same path deep within her that the hope just had, and she knew — she knew! — she had been healed. The bleeding had stopped. No one could be more certain than she, who had felt her life’s blood draining out of her for twelve long years. It happened in an instant, and while she reeled from the shock and new reality, she could tell the crowd around her remained oblivious to her deliverance.

Except … for Him. The Teacher stilled, and she shrank back, as desperate now to hide her audacious act as she had been a moment ago to perform it.

His question rang out oddly, bouncing off baffled expressions and jostling bodies: “Who touched Me?”

“Who touched You?” His disciples blustered. “Jesus, everyone is touching You!”

But Jesus knew. He knew not only that someone had reached out to Him in faith, He knew the very someone who had touched Him. As He turned, He could see it in her face. When she first looked on His, she knew — she knew — that she had not gone unnoticed. No matter how small her life, no matter how hidden her pain, no matter how buried her brokenness … He noticed.

And there, in the center of the scandalized crowd, with the sickening realization that she now had everything to lose, she flung herself at His feet and confessed it all. She was broken and bleeding, unclean and wretched; she had thought a touch from Him would be worth whatever cost or consequences. Trembling with the force of her admission and the fear of its aftermath, she laid bare before Him the last shreds of her pride. And she waited.

Then He, the Great Healer, reached down to lift her up. His very words were a caress. “Daughter,” He comforted her — this term of tenderness reserved only for her in all the Gospel accounts — “Take heart, Daughter. Your faith has healed you. Go in peace, and be freed from your suffering.”

Healing of body, soul, and spirit: complete and permanent.

His divine blessing, her newfound faith’s reward. 

Brokenness, restored. Pain, transformed. A bruised and battered heart, a worn and weary body, bleeding no more.

Healed … whole … renewed …

… with just a touch.