Jesus is headed somewhere – in a hurry, on a mission. But he’s interrupted, his daughter needs healing. He has time to show love; he can stop to express compassion; he can be interrupted for a moment of grace.
This woman, one in a crowd of hundreds, needs attention, needs a personal intervention. She has been carrying shame and embarrassment but it doesn’t hold her back from pursuing Jesus. She is a risky woman – willing to leave the comfort of her isolation, her “unknowness,” to go after Jesus, go after healing for the bleeding, the draining out of life and energy. She tries to do it unnoticed, unrecognized, and he calls her out, exposing her and her shame. And she finds her voice, although trembling and afraid. She admits her pain, the reality of her life, the suffering that has kept her story hidden.
He releases his power and she receives his healing. It was risky – she didn’t know what the outcome would be – so unmasking, so exposing, but she knows him as Father and he calls her “my daughter.” The relationship is close even though she is one out of hundreds. There was time and space to reach out and receive healing – not just physically, but emotionally – peace for the journey, and spiritually – power to live the same kind of life she had just experienced…a life of love and compassion and grace.
It’s risky to be unmasked and exposed, but even a greater risk to stay the same, remain unchanged, live in denial, and keep bleeding from unhealed wounds. It is worth the risk to pursue Jesus, worth it to find healing and freedom and the intimacy with him he has to offer and wants to give. He is waiting for your reach, waiting for his precious daughter to grasp, to touch, to extend her hand of faith to her gracious and loving Father.
