The Woman with an Issue of Blood
Mark 5:21–43 NKJV
Now when Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side, a great multitude gathered to Him; and He was by the sea. And behold, one of the rulers of the synagogue came, Jairus by name. And when he saw Him, he fell at His feet and begged Him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter lies at the point of death. Come and lay Your hands on her, that she may be healed, and she will live.” So Jesus went with him, and a great multitude followed Him and thronged Him.
Now a certain woman had a flow of blood for twelve years, and had suffered many things from many physicians. She had spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came behind Him in the crowd and touched His garment. For she said, “If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well.”
Immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction. And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that power had gone out of Him, turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched My clothes?”
But His disciples said to Him, “You see the multitude thronging You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’ ”
And He looked around to see her who had done this thing. But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth. And He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction.”
While He was still speaking, some came from the ruler of the synagogue’s house who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?”
As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, He said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not be afraid; only believe.” And He permitted no one to follow Him except Peter, James, and John the brother of James. Then He came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and saw a tumult and those who wept and wailed loudly. When He came in, He said to them, “Why make this commotion and weep? The child is not dead, but sleeping.”
And they ridiculed Him. But when He had put them all outside, He took the father and the mother of the child, and those who were with Him, and entered where the child was lying. Then He took the child by the hand, and said to her, “Talitha, cumi,” which is translated, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” Immediately the girl arose and walked, for she was twelve years of age. And they were overcome with great amazement. But He commanded them strictly that no one should know it, and said that something should be given her to eat.
A few weeks ago, I opened my Bible software which was supposedly set for the lectionary passage for the week which I read came from Matthew 9:18-26. I was a little puzzled why this passage would be in the lectionary as Matthew is not the gospel text for this lectionary year. But I wrote it up as the sermon “The Raising of Jairus’ Daughter and was about to publish it when my program crashed. When it came back up, the lectionary was blank. The entire year 2024 was deleted. when I finally got things back in order, I found out that it was not the lectionary text at all. But I published the sermon anyway. In that sermon, I concentrated on the raising of Jairus’ daughter as the account of healing the woman with the issue of blood is quite short. I said to myself that I would handle the haling of the woman with the issue of blood when the text came up in Mark who treats this with far more detail. I didn’t have to preach that Sunday anyway as I was going to a gathering at the Cove in the Billy Graham center that weekend. Little did I know that the sermon that Sunday was on the healing of the woman with the issue of blood from the gospel of Luke. And today, when I opened the lectionary for June 30, the this text from Mark came up. I ordinarily don’t include personal experience in my sermons, but this was so “coincidental” that I felt the need to mention this. So what does the Lord want us to learn from this text in Mark,
One of the things we first notice about the text is that it is the longest treatment of the healing of Jairus’ daughter. Mark usually has shorter accounts than Matthew or Luke. He treats the Baptism and Temptation of Jesus in a few short sentences. The calling of the fishermen is also short. And so on. So what does it mean when Mark goes to great length in describing an incident? It indicates how important this passage was to Mark, or to Peter who is said to have provided the material for Mark’s gospel. This is true anytime that a writer uses words or literary style which is out of the ordinary for him.
Mark adds little to the account of the raising of Jairus’ daughter which has not already been covered in my previous exegesis of the text of Matthew other than it is a little shorter. It does not tell the mockery of the professional mourners. It only mentions that Jesus encouraged Jairus to believe. The extra length of the account is then centered in the woman with the issue of blood which is sandwiched in the middle of the Jairus account. We can also see this sandwiching of two incidents in Mark’s account of the cleansing of the Temple and the cursing of the fig tree. Mark tells us that the fig tree was cursed before the cleansing of the Temple. Then Jesus cleansed the Temple. On the next day, the disciples noticed that the fig tree Jesus had cursed had withered. Mark tells us the reason for the cursing of the fig tree. The fig tree represents the current corrupt religious system of the priests who had turned the Temple from a house of prayer to one of merchandise. When Jesus cursed the fig tree by saying “May no one ever eat from you again” it points to the fact that the Temple and its system would be destroyed, never to be rebuilt. So we can see, that that particular passage about the fig tree was not about Jesus being hungry and getting mad because the fig tree was barren. It was Jesus coming to the Temple and expecting pure prayer and sacrifice but finding it totally barren. (See Mark 11:12-25)
I took the extra time to describe the meaning of the cursing of the fig tree because it is a clear example of how we are to read sandwiched texts. The emphasis is not on the ends but the middle. There is something in the middle of this account which we should zero in. This does not mean that the need of Jairus was any less than the need of this poor woman. The raising of Jairus’ daughter is every important. Just think how important it was to Jairus, his daughter, and his family. We covered the Jairus side of this account in the previous sermon. So lets us not dive into the text and see what we can find.
Mark’s account of the woman with the issue of blood begins in verse 25. It is actually a very long sentence which is translated by several sentences in Greek. The literal translation is:
“A woman being with a flow of blood twelve years, and having suffered many things by many physicians, and having spent everything she had, and not being profited (by it) but rather becoming worse. having heard the things about Jesus (and) coming into the crowd from behind, touched His garment. "
The main verb, touched: does not even appear until the end of the sentence. The rest of these verbals are participles which set up the occasion for the woman touching Jesus’ garment. in grammar, participles can be used to subordinate verbal ideas and actions to the main verb. What this means here is that we need to give special emphasis upon the word “touched.” We see another example of using subordinating participles in the Great Commission in Matthew 28:16-20.” Literally, this is translated: “Having gone out, make disciples of all nations (Gentiles), baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe whatsoever things I have taught you. In this text, the emphasis is not on “go” which seems to catch our attention in English because it is the first verb we come to. But it is a participle in Greek. So is “baptizing” and “teaching.” The most important thing is to make disciples. “Go” tells us where. “Baptizing” and “teaching” tells us how to make disciples. First we win them which results in baptism and then nurturing them in discipleship.
I don’t usually use grammatical examples in treating the text under review, but I fell it is important for us to know this principle to get the most out of the text. The important thing is that this woman acted out her faith. We can see from the background material in the participles that she was a desperate woman. This was brought out by Butch Baker in his sermon at the Cove last week. She had been suffering from a female medical condition which involved constant bleeding for twelve years. She did not bleed enough to die, but one can only imagine that she would have been weak and anemic from blood loss. But this isn’t all. Women during their periods normally bleed, but are considered ritually impure during this period. But, afterwards, the flow stops and all is good until next month. But she had a flow for twelve years! When a woman had an issue of blood, she was put off into a corner. Her husband could not have relations with her. On top of this, many would see her condition as a curse from God for her sin! She was so desperate that the had sought out many physicians who tired to treat her but only made her worse. She was broke as she spent everything she had. We don’t know the “before” picture of the woman. she might well have had some status and means as she was at least able to spend money on physicians. But there could be no doubt on how desperate she was now.
After all the participles describing the woman’s desperate condition, we come to a very important participle “having heard the things concerning Jesus.” She heard about Jesus. she might have taken advice from her friends at one time to see this healer or another, but now she heard about someone who could do something about it. I would like to have overheard those who told her about Jesus. She was probably a Jewish woman, so she might have heard something about the Scripture, although many women were discouraged from reading it. WE can guess that she had heard of the promised Messiah because the talk of that day is that when Messiah came, one would be healed if they just touched the tassels at the fringe of his garment. Many who wondered if they would be the Messiah made their tassels longer to make them easier to touch. There is no Scriptural warrant for such a belief as far as I can recall, but the woman seemed to believe it. She knew that if she just touched the fringe of his garment, she would be made well. So she came up in the crowd and casually touched Jesus’ garment, thinking she would be healed and could go away quietly. It probably was not a good idea to draw much attention to one’s self when she had an active issue of blood.
The text says that she knew that she was immediately healed when she touched Jesus. The fountain of her blood dried up. She wasn’t the only one who knew it. Jesus knew it too. He called out: “Who touched my garment?” The disciples, true to form at this stage of their ministry were puzzled. The crowd was so great and pressed upon them that it would have been difficult to avoid inadvertent contact with others. Perhaps many had already bumped into Jesus and the disciples that way. But this was no ordinary touch. Jesus had felt power leaving his body. It was a light touch intended to not draw notice, but it was a powerful touch. So he turned in the direction of the woman who knew her deed was not hid from Jesus. She was terrified but came forth and fell at Jesus’ feet and confessed what she had done. Jesus responded that she should cheer up. Her faith had saved her. Jesus then told the woman that she was indeed healed. she was now clean and could return home in peace. Jesus would now continue on to Jairus’ house.
So what do we learn from this passage? First of all, we see that desperation had led to the healing of the woman with the issue of blood. This does not mean that some didn’t come to Jesus without feeling desperate. As Jesus was popular, making friends with Jesus could be seen as a way of getting ahead in the world. But those who truly come to Jesus must come to desperation. If the woman had been healed by one of the doctors, she would not have felt the need to come to Jesus. This was true of Jairus as well. His daughter was at the point of death. The length and depth of desperation was different. The woman with the issue of blood had been desperate for twelve years. Jairus only became desperate when his daughter fell ill, and no one could heal her. Before that, he was the highly respected leader of the synagogue. So there is no fixed pattern for desperation, but the desperation is real. When it comes to sin, many people do not feel desperate anymore. They feel that they are all right. They might get desperate at the conditions in this world, but they think some pill or some psychological counseling to overcome this. But people are slowly coming to realize that they are indeed personally destitute and desperate. The pills and the counseling just don’t seem to work any more.
At some point, some hear about Jesus. What they are told may or may not be orthodox, but they hear. Maybe they can “try” Jesus. After a;;, nothing else has worked. What does one have to lose? But this is in itself not enough. This woman believed that if she touched the hem of Jesus’ garment that she would be healed. She believed and acted in faith. Jesus commended her fore this. We read from Matthew’s account that Jairus believed that if Jesus came to his house that his daughter would be made well. It must have come as quite a shock when the report came that the young girl had died. Mark say that Jesus had to comfort Jairus and challenged him to only believe. It was one thing to believe that Jesus could heal, but raise the dead? Mary and Martha in John 11 asked Jesus to come and heal Lazarus. Jesus responded by waiting several days before making to trip. By the time He got there, Lazarus was long dead and buried. Both sisters lamented the delay, saying that if Jesus had only come sooner, Lazarus would not have died. Jesus challenged their faith and told them that He was the resurrection and the life. It was not far off in the sweet by and by. The Resurrection was here, and Jesus called Lazarus back from the dead. Jairus would get his daughter back.
When we evangelize, we need to show in what desperate shape they are in as far as their standing is before God. This is true for the skid row drunk as it is for the most respectable person in the community. The church spends so much time preaching the love of God that they leave off the fact that God is also the judge. We need to tell the full gospel or few will come, and those with the wrong motivation. The Law shows truly our desperate condition and that there is no hope for salvation in any other than in Jesus. We don’t know as we have mentioned how either Jairus or the woman came to hear about Jesus. But they did. What we must do is to be perfectly clear when we present Jesus. We can’t just be satisfied about hearsay which is not far removed from heresy about Jesus. They have to come in faith believing that Jesus is who He says He is in the Bible. This is the faith that saves.
We were all once lost until we received Jesus. It is important that salvation is not a private affair that one does quietly and privately. We had to publicly confess Jesus and our sins at baptism. This is something else we learn from this passage. So let us continue to hope in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and confess Him publicly on every occasion. It is then that we will be commended to go our way in peace.
