A Reflection on Mark Chapter 12 verses 21 to 43.
I think that this passage in Mark’s Gospel defines and epitomises what we have all come to see in Jesus Christ. Christ the healer.
Here we have two healing stories woven together into one: the daughter of Jairus and the woman with the haemorrhage, one young and one old, the child born when the woman’s bleeding began; both are daughters looking for help, similar but from different ends of the economic hierarchy.
The woman with the bleeding was already shunned in her community, her condition caused her and indeed anyone she touched to be deemed ritually unclean, so you will see that she took a great risk in approaching Jesus the way she did – from the edge of a crowd.
Jesus felt her touch and also her predicament and responded; his first words were to refer to her as ‘Daughter’ – and from that point she was no longer an outcast – she was restored, able, like the others, to return to the Temple and worship God there.
A Prayer for you:
Lord Jesus Christ. When there are scales in our eyes obscuring from us the need of others, help us to turn to you and take our lead and direction from you so that we too might feel the need of our fellow men and women and where possible, depending on your grace help to make a difference on the lives of others who are in need of healing whatever form that healing might take.
Amen