The Background"If a woman has a discharge of blood for many days, not at the time of her menstrual impurity, or if she has a discharge beyond the time of her impurity, all the days of the discharge she shall continue in uncleanness. As in the days of her impurity, she shall be unclean.
Every bed on which she lies, all the days of her discharge, shall be to her as the bed of her impurity. And everything on which she sits shall be unclean, as in the uncleanness of her menstrual impurity.
And whoever touches these things shall be unclean, and shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening.
Leviticus 15:25-27
Yesterday in Windsor, David Dunlop mentioned the events of Mark 5:21-34, which i'll quote in full. After Church i found myself drawn back to think about this passage & to look at a bit more detail.
A Woman With Discharge Touches Jesus
"And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse.
She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.”
And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?”
And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” And he looked around to see who had done it.
But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.""
Mark 5:24-34
Unclean Made Cleansed
The thing that struck me from this event is that this woman was declared by the Law of the Old Testament to be unclean and that anyone touching or touched by her was made ceremonially unclean, as we see in Leviticus 15.
But hearing of the miraculous man, Jesus, she gets it into her head that if she can only touch his clothes, she'll be healed. Hence we see this woman, who should have made herself known as unclean when going into public, sneak up and touch Jesus.
At this point Jesus should have been made technically & ceremonially unclean, but Jesus is far greater than purity laws and instantly the opposite happens. Rather than Him becoming unclean, she is made; not just ceremonially clean but absolutely clean, and that very second the blood stopped & she was healed of her disease.
I simply thought that this was a brilliant showcase of Jesus purity, power, glory and the salvation that He offers to unclean, vile, sinful men & women who should be kept separate from Him.
