The Power of Touch
AM Psalm 107:33-43 • 108:1-6(7-13)
Ezek. 36:22-27 • Eph. 6:10-24 • Matt. 9:18-26
A child of twelve is dying. Her father, a ruler of the synagogue, makes his way through the crowds to plead for Jesus to come to his house to heal his little girl. Jesus and his disciples head for the man’s house. But something interrupts their journey, even though getting there fast can mean the difference between life and death. A woman who has suffered from hemorrhaging for twelve years—since the very year the desperately ill child was born—dares to touch the hem of Jesus’ robe. She doesn’t think Jesus will sense the touch, much less stop. But he does.
Matthew’s sole purpose in his abbreviated account of these events is to show Jesus’ authority over death, whereas both Mark and Luke expand the narrative with exact and poignant details. (See Mark 5:22-43 and Luke 8:41-56.) Noticeably, in none of the accounts is the father impatient with Jesus for stopping nor does he urge Jesus to hurry. But only Mark and Luke give us Jesus’ question, “Who touched me,” with the disciples wondering how he could ask what seems to them a silly question, since Jesus is pressed on all sides by the crowds. To Jesus, though, this is more than just a bump by a stranger. Someone has drawn power from him with her touch, a sign of her faith in his power to heal. Matthew doesn’t mention the many physicians the woman has seen nor all the money she has spent seeking a cure. For Matthew, it’s immediate: the woman touches Jesus’ robe; Jesus turns, sees her, and says, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.”
By sandwiching the two stories together, Matthew invites us to compare the two women. The young girl is privileged, the daughter of a wealthy and powerful man. On the verge of womanhood, she has a glowing future—if she lives. The older woman, on the other hand, because of her infirmity, most likely hasn’t born children and suffers social disgrace as well as personal sadness. In a way, she has been dying for a good part of her adult life. The differences in their ages and economic or social situations mean nothing to Jesus. He restores the young girl to life; he restores the older woman to good health and community.
Both stories have to do with touch. Jairus asks Jesus to lay his hand on his dying daughter to heal her. But by the time they arrive at the house, the child has died, so touching her would defile Jesus, according to religious law. The woman touches only Jesus’ robe because, again according to the law, her bleeding ailment makes her unclean and touching his body would defile him. But as always, Jesus teaches that it is the law of love that matters, not ceremony or ritual.
Jesus especially blesses the older woman by calling her “Daughter.” She can now marry and have children; she can enter the temple for the first time in more than a decade to be among the ceremonially clean and to offer praise in the presence of God. In Mark’s and Luke’s accounts, the other daughter has at her bedside both father and mother when Jesus speaks the touching words, “Little girl, arise.” The child will continue to be nurtured by joyful parents, with the eventual prospect of children of her own.
Both stories tell us that despite our differences, we are all loved equally, all worthy of honor and respect, all worthy of divine healing. Jesus is there to turn our despair to hope, our mourning to dancing, our death to life. Whatever our difficulties, he reaches out to touch us, to take us by the hand and say, “Little child, arise.”
Written by Kay DuVal
After the long months of isolation, Kay is thankful that once again we are able to touch one another.