Just Someone in the Crowd

WE don’t know her name. And as far as the crowd following Jesus was concerned, nobody cared. In the Gospel of Mark, we read about her. In chapter 5 verse 25. “And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years.”

For a normal monthly cycle, the Levitical law declared a woman was unclean for seven days. So, for this woman all that the law required had been her lot for more than a decade - unclean for twelve years!

The prevailing thought of the time was that sickness and disease was a punishment from God. And that meant living in shame and disgrace. Imagine the emotional scarring that she suffered.

But it gets worse. We are told that “She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better, she grew worse.” power of Christ and she was restored.

So, the woman in our story would have been an outcast. Considered permanently unclean. Cut off spiritually. Living a lonely life shut out from society, friends and family. No support and without a penny to her name.

But there she was in the crowd. Her faith had led her to this point. Suddenly she saw an opportunity and reached out to Jesus. Believing if she could just touch his cloak, she would be healed. And immediately her bleeding stops.

with Charles Russell Landsborough Seventh-Day Adventist Church

Hers was a continual existence of suffering and being cast out. And this is where Jesus met her. Right there in her brokenness and loneliness. And this is where Jesus meets us as well. Right where we are, no matter what the circumstance.

In a sense this story interacts with all of our stories. Like this woman we have all been in need of healing at some point.

Perhaps you feel abandoned or an outcast, isolated and lonely. Maybe you’ve been struggling for years with an issue in your life that won’t go away. One that has left you emotionally or spiritually destitute.

Maybe you’re struggling under a heavy burden and you feel nobody really understands what you’re going through. Maybe you’re being swallowed up by addictions and compulsions that have plagued you for a long time. My friend know that you are known and what you’ve done. No matter how desperate