“Healed by His Tassels”
Mark 5:24b-34
What a difficult life this poor woman had.
A woman with an unstoppable flow of blood would be a tremendous burden on her family.
And for 12 years she had been like this.
All clothes, linens, utensils and furniture she touched, sat on or used had to be washed according to Levitical Law.
Likewise, people who touched her were considered “unclean” until evening.
Eventually, her ongoing condition seems to have led to her exclusion from her family, for we are told that she had spent all her money on a worthless chase of healing from doctors and things only got worse.
She lived her life without hugs from friends, children, grandchildren, parents.
She had no marital rights.
She probably had no income because she was unemployable.
In a culture dominated by shame and honor, she experienced constant and continuous embarrassment and exclusion.
She was lonely, isolated and impoverished.
She was also quite likely anemic and possibly dying.
After 12 unsuccessful years, her condition appears hopeless and she is desperate.
Most people might think she would be better off dead.
I remember being taught this story when I was younger.
I always had this vision of this woman kicking and throwing elbows and coming through the crowd.
And she couldn’t get to Jesus so she like dives and as she’s falling to the ground, like her finger tips grab the edge of Jesus’ cloak—at the fringe of his garment…
…but there is actually a whole lot more going on here…
…because this is a reference to the garment Jesus is wearing.
Today we would maybe call it a prayer shawl.
The word for it in Hebrew is “tel-eat” and it’s the garment that Jews wore on the outside, and it’s based on Numbers 15:37-41.
It reads, in part: “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘Throughout the generations to come you are to make tassels on the corners of your garments…
…you will have these tassels to look at and so you will remember all the commands of the Lord…”
So, God is giving His people a physical reminder of their identity—of who they are.
He says when you see this it will remind you not to chase after other gods but to serve Me only and be obedient to Me only and so the phrase there is to put tassels on the corners—or wings they might also call them—on the corners of your garments.
And in Jesus’ day they were doing this, and it was more like a shawl.
It wasn’t a full-on robe.
It was rectangular because the tassels had to be put on the corners—or wings.
And you would drape this garment over yourself.
We have references to this throughout Scripture.
One is when David cut the tassels off Saul’s garment when David is hiding in a cave and Saul comes in to…do his bathroom duties, shall we say.
And after this, David is racked with guilt because that tassel represents Saul’s obedience to God’s command.
In cutting off Saul’s tassels David is trying to tell Saul that he is not being obedient to God but at the same time that tassel also represents God’s wings and it represents God’s protection like “You are protected under my wings.”
And that’s why David is so racked with guilt.
He’s like “Who am I to say Saul is no longer under God’s protection?”
And who are we to think or say that of anyone?
Anyway, this woman is pushing through the crowd surrounding Jesus and she has this issue of bleeding.
And this would have made her unclean.
She wouldn’t have been allowed in an assembly.
She couldn’t have gone to the Temple and worshiped in the Temple assembly.
She couldn’t have been in a synagogue to celebrate and hear the words of the Lord from the inside.
Maybe she sat outside the synagogue and listened through a window or tried to catch the echoes through a doorway.
But she has been an outcast—an outsider because of her physical condition.
And she comes pushing through the crowd which brings up a couple of things.
She really has some huts-ba because she probably shouldn’t be there and she shouldn’t be touching the garments of a Rabbi.
But she comes pushing through the crowd and she gets up there and she grabs the edge of His cloak—which is His tassel.
We might want to ask ourselves why she is grabbing His tassel.
Why doesn’t she just grab the Rabbi and ask Him to heal her?
Why does it say she grabbed His tassel?
Well, there were a lot of Jews who were looking for the Messiah.
And they looked to Malachi Chapter 4 where it says that one of the ways they will know when the Messiah comes is that there will be healing in His wings—in His prayer shawl—in His tassels.
So, she grabs the tassel and all of a sudden Jesus is like “I felt the power go out of me.”
It’s like, what kind of Star Wars voodoo is going on here?
And the disciples are like, “What are you talking about?”
But, somehow Jesus felt this healing take place.
And He immediately knows someone knows their Bible.
And I think this is what gets Jesus’ attention.
It’s like He says “Somebody knows their Bible and that somebody knows Who I am.
Who is it?
Who touched my tassel?
Who touched me?”
And if it is because she knows her Bible just think about how hard this woman has had to work to know it and to know what it says in Malachi—this Scripture she is clinging to and putting all her hope in…
…because she can’t go to synagogue; she can’t go to Temple.
She has to be unbelievably committed.
And I wouldn’t be surprised if no one has gone out of their way to help her.
She’s a woman in a day when women were barely considered to be more than property.
And on top of that, she’s a woman who is unfit for assembly and yet she knows her Bible and Jesus goes, “Who is this that touched me?”
And so, we are told that Jesus “kept looking around to see who had done it.
Then the woman, knowing [she had been healed], came and fell at Jesus’ feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth.”
Can you imagine how the woman was feeling?
Having been rejected for 12 years and finally feeling whole again, she is being sought out by the One Who healed her.
She is being sought out by Jesus—the Messiah.
What would He do?
Would He take the healing away?
What kind of trouble would she be in?
It took incredible courage and faith for her to come forward and admit what she had done; extraordinary bravery to tell her story and to declare in front of everyone what had happened.
But Jesus knew what He was doing.
If she had just crept away, would anyone have believed her if she said that she was well now?
After 12 years, would she have been accepted back into the family, into society?
By calling her out and making her publicly tell her story Jesus didn’t just heal her physically, He restored her in every way.
And He gave her all the time in the world to tell the world her story, she had His full attention.
And Jesus called her “daughter.”
Not only was she publicly declared to be ritually clean again, but accepted fully into the community.
She was called “daughter” by God’s Son!
And instead of Jesus telling her not to tell anyone what He had done, He was declaring it to the world so that everyone knew that she was restored in body, mind and soul.
So, what does this amazing story say to us this morning?
How does this woman’s story have relevance to our lives?
What does it tell us about how Jesus connects with us?
For one thing, we see as we do in so many stories in the Bible that even if no one else is interested in us…
…Even if we are feeling isolated and all alone…
…No matter how the rest of the world treats us, Jesus has incredible interest in us.
In a world where it can seem like “nobody knows my name” and nobody seems to want to know it, Jesus does.
Jesus knows it and Jesus wants to know all about us.
And Jesus wants us to know He cares.
He looks for us in the crowd.
He calls for us.
Remember how Jesus compared the Kingdom of God to a Shepherd searching for a lost sheep?
What did that shepherd do?
He left everything to go and find that lost sheep.
He searched high and low.
He walked miles and miles until finally He found it.
Imagine you are in a big crowd.
Perhaps you have taken your little child or grandchild to a fair.
And it’s packed shoulder to shoulder.
And then, before you know it, you look down and that child is nowhere to be found.
What kind of fear would shoot through you?
What would be your concern?
Would you be afraid that someone with evil intent has grabbed up the child or might grab up that sweet child?
Would you put yourself in that child’s shoes and imagine the fear that child must be experiencing as he or she is suddenly aware that they are lost…on their own…completely vulnerable?
You would be so concerned for that child.
You would want to find that child and make sure he or she is safe and sound more than you would want anything else in the world.
That is how it is with God concerning us.
We are lost in the crowd and Jesus is searching for us.
He is searching for us will all His heart.
And when He finds us, and if we are willing to come to Him and with Him on the most amazing journey ever there is a celebration in heaven and our lives change.
We are healed.
Being healed physically isn’t promised; but what Jesus does is to bring healing to our souls, our very being, restoring us to Himself, calling us “Son,” “Daughter,” “Child.”
This life can be so very difficult.
And it is very easy to feel forgotten, misplaced, not wanted or on the margins.
I can’t imagine how many of us feel this way.
Most of us, at some point in our lives I’d bet.
And Jesus is calling us, searching the crowd for us.
And we need not be afraid.
He loves us.
Like the Father in the parable of the Prodigal Son, He is awaiting our return—He is waiting to welcome us back to the family…
…and when He sees us He runs out to us and throws His arms around us and invites us into His Kingdom.
And this isn’t just an after-life thing—it’s a right now thing as well.
For the Church is called to be the Kingdom of God on earth—the assembly of believers.
And we, the Church, are called by God to love everyone Jesus brings our way.
We are to rejoice over them.
And welcome them to the fold.
And it’s not our job to judge them.
None of us are perfect; none of us will be in this life.
It’s our job to call them, brother, sister, friend…
…no matter what they look like, smell like, no matter who they are.
And what a relief that is.
All we are called to do is love.
God will do the rest.
And the world will know we are Christians if we love one another.
I can’t imagine how many people there are in this community who have been hurt by the church…
…shunned by the church…
…judged by the church.
I hear the stories from people nearly every day.
It breaks my heart.
The woman in our Gospel Lesson was on the outside; not allowed in to God’s assembly—she was on her own for 12 long years.
She was hanging on to the Scripture that promised that there would be healing—even in the tassels of the Messiah when He comes.
Somehow she heard about Jesus.
She heard about the healings He was doing.
Perhaps she had witnesses some.
And her hope became a reality.
And so, she went for it.
And immediately “her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.”
Then Jesus called her.
He didn’t judge her; He called her.
And she came to Him.
And He said, “Daughter, your faith has healed you.
Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
She became a daughter of the King!
What kind of impact could we have on this community if we could be a place of unconditional love and acceptance.
A place where people meet the REAL JESUS?
What an exciting journey this is.
Let’s reach out to those on the margins and tell them we love them.
Let’s look for the young people who are sad, and smile and love them.
May we never judge.
May we never exclude.
The world does that just fine.
Behold, though, we are not of this world.
And praise God for that.
In Jesus’ name and for His sake.
Amen.
