Now back once more on the Jewish side of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus returns to a place he had previously visited.  Luke does not tell us exactly where these events occur.  Maybe Capernaum, maybe elsewhere.  It’s a place Jesus has visited before.  He comes back.  Why—just passing through?  I don’t know of any farmer who sows seed and then never comes back to check on it.  I think Jesus comes back to see if anything has come of his last visit to the place.  Is anything different?  Did his visit make any difference?  Beloved, I have to believe—and I hope you know by now that I, for one, believe there are indeed hearts out there that close themselves tight against Jesus—but I still have to believe that when Jesus visits, it makes a difference: something is different once Jesus comes through, even if neither you nor I can see it, yet.

We’re told about a woman.  I suppose she’s always been there, that she was there the last time Jesus came through.  We’re told she “had been subject to bleeding for twelve years” (8:43).  Well, we might initially think of that gynecologically, but it could be any of several things, many of them inherited.  Perhaps the woman had an inherited disorder that resulted in this bleeding, her lifeblood bleeding out of her, leaving her constantly, chronically weak, fatigued, always cold, can’t seem to get a really good breath.  That’s a lot of iron depletion!  Twelve years of tired.  Haven’t you ever felt all twelve years of tired?

“[B]ut no one could heal her” (8:43).  Luke, the doctor, would have felt the hurt, the heaviness, the fatigue, in that.  Other accounts tell us of the many who had tried, and the sum of money she had thrown away on hope that led nowhere and left her no better.  It’s not as if she hadn’t tried to find a cure, even something just to help ease the trouble.

But she hadn’t tried Jesus.  Jesus had been by, before.  We know that.  We heard nothing of her, before this.  Jesus has healed many.  We know this.  She hadn’t gone to Jesus for healing.  Now, God gives us the medical professions for a reason: the knowledge and skill, the insight and experience.  I would never say to a cancer patient or to anyone suffering any other physical ailment, “oh, don’t bother with those doctors, just pray about it.”  Now, do pray about it, of course, often, always.  And go see a doctor, the right doctor, a good doctor.  This woman had been to doctors and to just about everyone else in the region who claimed to be able to heal even things no one else seemed able to heal, like all those YouTube videos telling you to guzzle water boiled with lemon, ginger, and rosemary, or just slather your head with coconut oil and beef tallow.  “These statements have not been tested.”  You know what, though?  If God won’t heal it, it won’t be healed.  God made us to heal, beloved.  God wants us to know His healing.  We’ve also got to go to God for healing and open ourselves to His healing His way on His terms.  This woman could know God’s healing.  She had tried any other remedy than that.

We know from other things we read in the Gospel accounts that, in those times, there was a way of thinking that misfortunes and sicknesses were sent from God as punishments, punishments for sin.  Beloved, I do believe God chastises.  He does want our undivided attention because He has something important to say to us, if we’d only listen.  And there’s the problem.  We all have a hearing problem, and don’t for a minute think I’m not including myself.  Luke doesn’t give us any indication that he believes the woman’s malady is a punishment for her sin.  It may be!  It probably isn’t.  Sad things happen even to good people, though Jesus tells us elsewhere that no one is good, except God—what a strange thing to say!  We know lots of good people.  At any rate, at the time, the thinking would have been along the lines that this woman’s affliction was the result of her having disobeyed God: she disobeyed God, so God has abandoned her.  Not just abandoned though, abandoned her and afflicted her.

But it isn’t exactly true, is it?  God doesn’t abandon those who abandon Him.  This abandonment talk is a strong, emotionally potent way of getting us to think before we plunge off the deep end.  Oh, it will certainly feel, if we ever are so foolish as to abandon God, it will certainly feel as if God also has abandoned us.  The psalms are full of this question: why have you abandoned us, God?  Where are You?  Oh, how we need You!  The psalms are full of this question because our experience of life in this world can too often be full of times and seasons when this is exactly how we’re feeling.  The heart always beating through every psalm knows.

God wants us to think first, carefully, prayerfully, because to go dashing off away from Him is to run to harm and sorrow, pain and grief.  Jesus had been through the place, before, but the woman hadn’t gone to him.  If she had, we’d have heard about it.  If you don’t go to Jesus, what is the result?  You’re just as stuck, just as lost, just as hurt as you were before.  So, why didn’t she go?  Maybe she didn’t know he was in town.  Beloved, as we read the Bible, it seems as if, when Jesus is in a place, there isn’t anyone for miles around who doesn’t know it.  People are bringing their sick loved ones to Jesus by the cartful.  So why aren’t we?  Or is it that they just won’t come?  Which is sadder: we aren’t bringing them, or they won’t come?

She had known Jesus was in town, the last time.  She had heard people were all excited about this Jesus.  Jesus, Jesus—people always talking about Jesus, Jesus.  He could help, they said.  He could do it, they said.  No one else could do it, she knew that!  No one else had, she knew!  She had gone to all of them, tried them all.  Thrown away all her means, all her support, all her comfort, all her hope on them, and gotten what?  Nothing.  So, what made Jesus any different?  No, when you’ve been burned four or eight times, or sixteen, eventually you wise up.

But she also wanted to be well, whole, healed.  Still, even after all this time.  She had felt so sick for so long, she was afraid that she was beginning to forget what wholeness felt like, if she had ever even known it.  Beloved, what does wholeness feel like?  Do you know?  Could you say?  If you’re not really sure, what do you think it might feel like?  What would you tell her?  Go, just go.  You’ll never know if you don’t try.  But I have tried, so many, so many times, and it got me nothing.  But this is Jesus!  Jesus—so what?  Jesus healed those who could not be healed.  How do you know?  I’m one of them!  You?  You don’t look sick or like you ever were.  But I was.  And I didn’t believe, either, until I did.  Maybe I wasn’t sick like you are, or for as long, and maybe I didn’t try as many other ways as you’ve tried.  You don’t want to be fooled again.  You don’t want any more hurt, or shame.  You don’t want your hope to be spit on right in front of your eyes, again.  And you want to be well; you don’t want to be bleeding to death every day, barely able to get a good breath.  You don’t want to be made to feel foolish again.  You want to be whole again.  Which do you want more?

“She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped” (8:44).  Glory, hallelujah, what’s this?!  Preserving Peter’s memories of the day, it’s Mark who tells us that the woman believed that, if she could just touch Jesus, even only the hem of his garment, she would be well (Mk 5:28).  He won’t have to know, and I won’t have to acknowledge it there, publicly.  Secret.  Our little secret—well, my little secret, Jesus.  Yes, there are Bible students who remind us that the woman, as an unclean person, would have been breaking big taboos by touching a clean person.  After twelve years of suffering, though, what did such regulations really mean to her?  Secretly, there in the crowd, while everyone was distracted by something else.  She wants to get something from Jesus without also giving, and I daresay we all know something about that; I do!

“‘Who touched me?’ Jesus asked” (8:45).  The woman still had the opportunity to slip away unnoticed, unidentified—a private little matter that no one need know about.  But is that faith, or even just gratitude?  Is faith that little thing you keep hidden away inside?  My grandmother, she attended church, was on the council of the Methodist church she attended.  She did not talk about her faith, or Jesus, or the Bible.  For her, it was intensely, entirely private.  Faith is and ought to be intense, yes, and there is a private place in our heart wherein we commune with God in faith; this is a beautiful and sacred place.  And faith is more, wider, larger, open.  It doesn’t have to be about getting into arguments or ridiculing and being ridiculed; let’s always try to make it about sharing.

Peter, distracted and feeling a little claustrophobic as ever, just wants to keep Jesus moving along—Hey, Jesus, um, let’s not get bogged down here, okay?  Just keep moving.  People to see, places to go.  Things to do.  But that’s not how Jesus works, beloved.  Jesus stops.  He stops for the one.  He wants a relationship, eye to eye, hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder.  If anyone comes to Jesus, even in secret, even wanting then just to slip away unnoticed, Jesus isn’t going to allow that.  It matters when someone comes to Jesus, and Jesus wants to assure us and everyone of it.  He also wants more.  He says, if you want what I have to offer, confess it.  Be open about it, not ashamed or anxious.  Jesus says he knows power has gone out from him (8:46).  It has gone out from him because he has willed it be so.  Touching Jesus, reaching out to lay hold of Jesus, isn’t like putting your finger in an electrical socket!  This isn’t zap power over which he has no control, no authority; it’s healing power, wholeness power, holiness power.  It’s the power of God’s good will.  If that woman was healed, it wasn’t contrary to God’s will or the choice of Jesus.  She takes nothing from Jesus that he hasn’t already first given, willingly.  And he is looking for something in return, beloved.  Remember the ten lepers?  Did he take back the healing of the nine who didn’t come back even when it occurred to them that Jesus has done something really good for them?  Did he revoke their healing?

“Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet” (8:47).  It’s time for her testimony.  The time will come when each of us must profess our faith in the presence of others.  In whom do you believe?   You’re a Christian, right?  Who, me?  All those years, that woman had been unable to find help, was unable to help herself, and then, with Jesus, she found the help she had always needed.  She helped herself by going to Jesus.  Jesus was all the help she needed.  It’s when she took that risk, that leap of faith, that she experienced the promise of faith’s reward.  Then, “In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed” (8:47).

She testified.  What did she say?  I wasn’t sure.  I didn’t know.  I didn’t want to look like a fool.  I didn’t want to feel like a fool, again.  And I needed to be healed.  I couldn’t live this way any longer.  People had talked about you; others had told me you were nothing: a lie, a myth.  I wasn’t sure.  I didn’t know.  But what could I do?  If I didn’t try, if I never tried . . . Beloved, she took the plunge.  Oh, she was afraid!  And she took the plunge.

A few years back, at the end of summer swim lessons there at the pool in town, the kids have the chance to jump off the diving board, into the deep end, all twelve or so feet down.  It looks even higher, deeper, standing there at the end of the board: some deep water.  The swim instructors are all there, treading water, ready.  There was a girl with long, straight brown hair, maybe ten or eleven.  She walked out to the end of the diving board, stood there a moment, and then said, “I’m scared.”  Do you know, that was one of the bravest things I ever heard anyone say.  The instructors, all there, in the deep end, ready, beckoned to her, letting her know they were there, ready, all she had to do was jump.  She did.

“Then he said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has healed you.  Go in peace’” (8:48).  Now she knew; she felt it, saw it.  Now she was telling others, too.  Now she could tell.  Beloved, what brought that ailing woman healing, real healing, was faith: faith in God, faith in Jesus, who is God’s love and grace for us all.  Go and tell, too.