One touch

Luke 8:43-48

 

She slips into the crowd with a desperate push. She shuts her mind to the thought of what might happen if she is found out. No one will notice she is here. No one ever notices.

Unclean.

This is her name now. Her life. Twelve years of the bleeding that won’t stop, twelve years of the hemorrhaging away of her self and everything she once knew. Now she is only this steady flow of suffering. This disease no one can heal has taken all she has. This thing she never sought, never asked for, has made her an outcast. Unclean means unseen. Unfit. Unlovely. Unwanted.

Even touching others will make them unclean too. When was the last time she felt a human touch? She grits her teeth and pushes on as the crowd presses in around her. They will never know. She gasps at the unfamiliar presence of so many people. She trembles as she stumbles forward. Just keep your eyes on him.

She’s heard the stories and seen the evidence of his power. He has touched the unclean, has gone in among them as if he were born to do so, wading right into the suffering and ignoring the shocked faces of the religious leaders. His touch heals.

But how can she stop him with so many people watching? To beg him to touch her? How could she ask such a thing? What will they say when they realize how close they have been to her, she who does not have the right to be there, who has made them all unclean by her presence? And how can her shame bear up under the gaze of such power?

She pushes closer, inching toward the man who holds her only hope. The people crush her in their jostling to see him. They shout his name, scream for his attention, elbowing her in her slow fear. She cannot see him now. She will never be heard.

Through the press she sees only the edge of his robe. She fears him, but she fears more the desperation of this life of shame.

Touch his robe. Only touch him and you will be healed. She believes. She reaches out through the throng, fingertips brushing the fringe of his robe, the barest whisper of connection.

She stops. She falls to the ground. Power courses through her like living light. She feels the healing. Is this what it is to be whole? She weeps with the wonder.

Suddenly she is aware of the stillness, the thick silence. The crowd has stopped. A space has opened around him. They stare at Jesus as his question rings through the air again.

“Who touched me?”

She glances up. He asks the question, but his gaze is fixed on her.

She cannot hide now, but this newness within her gives her courage. Trembling, she kneels at his feet. He stands there, waiting.

“I just want to be clean,” she whispers.

“Daughter.” The word is so tender that she looks up. He is smiling. His eyes are filled with tears.

He takes her hands. The first touch she has felt in all these long years. He gently pulls her to her feet. His gaze, his touch, they fill her with such love and wonder that she forgets everything. This is the healing. Standing here in this moment, looking into that face and knowing she is loved completely.

“Go in peace,” he says, pressing her hands. “Your faith has made you well.”

The moment is broken by urgent voices demanding his attention, and the crowd moves on, some barely pausing to look at her curiously, most hurrying along to see the next big miracle. But his look stays with her, his touch still tingles on her skin.

She didn’t know she needed his love until he gave it to her.

And soon this one whose flow of blood has stopped will hear of his own blood flowing down unstopping, drop by drop, heart breaking for his daughter, heart

stopping for love of her. And he will be unclean. Unseen in cold stone.

But there is One who sees. And his love is a power that raises even the dead. And then she will be truly healed.

You are well. Clean. Whole. Loved.

And one day she will kneel once more at his feet that are scarred with his love, and she will not even dare to touch his robe. But he will touch her again. And this touch will sear her very soul, marking her for all eternity.

“Daughter. Your faith has made you well.”