What healed the woman with the issuance of blood?
Discussion question for November 19, 2010.
The account is told in Matthew 9, Mark 5, and Luke 8 about the woman that touched Jesus’ robe and was healed. What was the nature of the transaction? How did the flow of power occur between Jesus and the woman? What was the nature of that power, and where did it come from? How did her faith play into the healing? What did Jesus know about her and the situation?
Here’s my summary of our discussion.
There were a few ways that this miracle differed from other ones. The gospel records a lot of healing stories, some in great detail and others in conglomerate. The thing we noticed is that they were personal encounters, that the method was individualized or custom for the particular situation. Jesus said: “Let it be done to you according to your faith.” That supports the idea of custom healings.
There are a few patterns that emerge from an overview of the recorded miracles. John wrote that if all the miracles had been recorded it would be too great of a list. So we can infer that the ones that made it to print were chosen for a specific reason. This might put greater emphasis on the peculiarity of each healing than the people of that time would have experienced. An example of this is in Luke 6:19 where it states that “all the people tried to touch Him, because power was coming from Him and healing them all.”
Jesus told the woman that her faith had healed her. The nature of the transaction was based on her faith – even desperation. She was convinced that touching Jesus would heal her. She may have gotten that idea from the accounts of healing like it says in Luke 6:19 (above). It was, however, her faith that Jesus identified as the causative agent in her healing.
Interestingly, mid-story we have the account of Jarius and his sick daughter. This is a case where it appears that the faith of the father is the causative agent. Similarly, the Centurion carried the faith for his sick servant. Another account is the paralytic in Capernaum, where Jesus say “their” faith, meaning the friends that carried the man to Jesus.
One of the key ingredients in the healing transaction is faith. It can be the faith of the person needing the healing (the healee). It can be the faith of the healer. It can be the faith of an intercessor on behalf of the healee.
The second ingredient is power. Luke 5:17 says “And the power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick.” Jesus had this power of the Lord and used it to heal the sick. The disciples were given power and authority to heal the sick before being sent out on their mission trip. This was a transference of power from Jesus.
Jesus remarked that the power had left Him. We don’t know if this was apparent to Him as fully-God or fully-man. He used the detail for a teaching moment, and explained it to the crowd so they would know something about the character of that power.
The disciples were given the power temporarily for their mission. But in Luke 24:49 Jesus tells them that He is going away and they should wait until they receive the power from on high. We see that after Pentecost and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that these same disciples were again able to do many miracles and heal people.
The transaction that healed the woman was a convergence of faith and power. The power came from the Lord and she supplied the faith.