After pausing for an uncomfortable amount of time and fielding questions from his confused disciples, a woman emerged from the shadows. A woman who had lived in the shadows for 12 years. Most scholars assume that she had a uterine hemorrhage, but we’re not sure. What we know is that she’d been bleeding for 12 years – which meant that she was an outcast from society and unable to be a part of the religious activities in the temple. She was separated from people and kept out of the very place people met with God. This was the woman who sheepishly responded to Jesus’ question, “Who touched me?”
Why does Jesus stop and ask? Why does he make her step into the light? Why does he shine a spotlight on someone who’d rather just slip into the background and become part of the scenery rather than the main character in the drama that was developing? Jesus calls her out because he isn’t interested in drive-by healings. He’s interested in relationships. He isn’t interested only in restoring this woman’s body, but he wants to repair the fractures in her soul. He makes her stand up and stand out in the crowd because Jesus knows that love for the world is comforting, but love given specifically is transforming. He shines the spotlight on her, not to shame her, but to shower her with love.
There’s a way to brush up against Jesus that makes no difference, but there’s a way to ferociously, passionately, grasp for him that changes everything. That kind of longing is called faith, and it’s faith that heals and restores this woman because it brings her face-to-face with Jesus. Let me encourage you to reach for Jesus with that same kind of passion today, and know that when you do, he pauses and asks, “Who touched me?”
Ryan Paulson