Reading 10
Daughter, Your Faith Has Made You Well—Matthew 9
This chapter of Matthew is full of great stories of Jesus’ ministry but there is one pericope within this chapter that stole my attention. In Matthew 9:18-26, a man comes to Jesus to tell him that his daughter has died and asks Jesus to come with him to lay his hands on her. While he is on his way to attend to that, a woman who has been bleeding for 12 years touches Jesus’ clothes and is healed. Jesus seeks out this mysterious person who touched him in the crowd and says to her, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” Then when he arrives at the home where the daughter has died, he proclaims that “she is not dead but sleeping” and with a touch of her hand, she is indeed alive.
What makes Jesus’ encounters with these particular unnamed women significant is that by Jewish purity standards, these women are unclean—the first being dead and the second because she is bleeding. However, it is essential to note that Jesus seeks neither of these touching encounters out, he is begged by a grieving father to lay hands on the little girl and grasped in a crowd by a desperate woman.
The parallel between the grieving father and the bleeding woman is this: their last hope is Jesus. Their last hope is this new traveling rabbi they have heard tell of in their community that they, without really knowing him, have chosen to believe in. And their hope was well-placed. The healing of the woman who has been suffering for twelve years takes place, not at the woman’s touch, but at the word of Jesus. In this Gospel, the word of Jesus has power. The words of Jesus have more than just healing power. Jesus’ touch has “saved” her and that same touch raises a girl from death. A desperate father and a broken woman both from different places in the societal hierarchy now in a similar need because of illness, chose to put their last hope in Jesus in a time when they were in great need.
Our hope too is found in Jesus who is still moving in and among all types of people; saving the weak and the weary in unexpected ways.
To Consider:
- When have you had to place your hope in the unknown?
- How has your faith in Jesus made you well?
Gracious God, we give you thanks that so often that when we put our hope and faith in you it makes us well. Our faith gives us the gift of relationship with you and with one another, centers our days and guides our actions. Be with all those in desperate need of your healing words in their lives this day and always. Help us to move in and among those in needs as your hands and feet working in the world. Amen.
Cassie McIntosh Overcash is the pastor at Grace Lutheran in Thomasville, North Carolina. She enjoys crafts, time with her dogs, and her family.
