4.2 Does God Notice Me?

People can do crazy things around celebrities. The Irish however are quite unique. For the most part, we tend to do very little. I remember when I was out to dinner with a friend and his favourite celebrity walked in and despite all of my encouragement he wouldn’t even go over to the guy, he didn’t want to ‘bother’ him!! Jesus became something of a first-century celebrity. When he entered towns or small villages, people, unlike my shy Irish friend, would go bananas. Word would spread and people would come from far and wide bringing their sick, hoping that Jesus would heal them. In Mark’s Gospel, we hear of a woman who acted very differently from the rest of the crowd. She was not going bananas but instead quietly, doing all she could to avoid the crowd and at the same time doing what she could to connect with Jesus. You need to know her story to understand her actions... She had suffered for 12 years with a bleeding disorder that was hard enough to live with but it was made worse by the religious rules that piled hardship upon her. According to the Temple purity laws, anyone with a bleeding disorder was considered ritually unclean and people would literally avoid you. So not only did it cause isolation for her but everything that she touched or everywhere that she sat would become unclean too. Can you imagine being a source of uncleanness as if you could contaminate someone? Life-giving actions that we take for granted like a pat on the back, a hug or a kiss are now a crime that leads to isolation and disconnection from others. For this lady it is extremely unfair. In her pursuit of healing though, she is willing to take the risk. She would have heard the rumours that Jesus was coming because everybody would have been talking about it. 'People say he can heal the blind, make the deaf hear, make the lame walk.' She would have known that these stories sounded like the “Messiah”. For hundreds of years, there had been prophecies in the Jewish Old testament Scriptures about a man who would be sent from God to bring rescue, healing and transformation. So as everyone else is trying to get his attention no one notices her as she sneaks closer and closer until she can reach out and grab the corner of his clothing. As she does, she feels that something has changed within her. Overjoyed, she turns to make her exit until she hears a voice saying loudly, ‘Who touched me?' The crowd are confused because they’re all touching him, something that the disciples are quick to point out. Everyone is touching you, Jesus. That’s what happens in crowds. No, he replies, someone touched me. I felt power go out from me. Jesus sensed her desperation in a way that the disciples never could. As the gospel writer, Mark, puts it seeing that she could not go unnoticed, she fell before his feet and told him the whole truth. I can just imagine how long it would have been since she was noticed, since she was truly seen by those around her? Her condition didn’t just mean that she was viewed as dirty, it meant that she was ignored. This is the beauty of Jesus. It’s not enough that her bleeding disorder is healed, he wants her to be known again. He is not made unclean by her touch nor is he offended by her approach. He says ‘Who touched me?’ because he wants her to be free from the stigma of her illness and he invites her to tell her story in front of the watching crowd, because right there and then, her reintegration into the community is happening. He didn’t just stop the bleeding. He stopped the isolation and he stopped the exclusion. This encounter tells me that, with Jesus, I’m not just another number, I’m not an item to be crossed off a to-do list. I’m not another nameless face in a crowd, I’m an individual, I’m someone he wants to get to know and be transformed by the encounter.