What She Heard

"We have covenant."

AND A certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years. Leviticus 15:25-27.

“And if a woman have an issue of her blood many days out of the time of her separation, or if it run beyond the time of her separation; all the days of the issue of her uncleanness shall be as the days of her separation: she shall be unclean. Every bed whereon she lieth all the days of her issue shall be unto her as the bed of her separation: and whatsoever she sitteth upon shall be unclean, as the uncleanness of her separation. And whosoever toucheth those things shall be unclean, and shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even.”

Point 1. The woman from Mark 5:25 was a Jew. This fact is a major part of why she was healed. We do not have a Gentile woman seeking out a preacher. We do not have she heard of a healing line she could get in, as is common in many Gentile churches. There was no church building with a steeple, and here are the people. And point 2, She “had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse (Mark 5:26).”

She had not used up all her insurance allowance, seeing doctors at the clinic. There was no medical imaging. No surgeries. If a doctor cracked your chest in that day, then you died. Needles did not exist, blood transfusions weren’t a thing, there were no blood clotting drugs. No hospital, no doctor’s offices, not even the cute, little padded paper-covered table you sit on. In that day, you had leeches. Leeches are why President George Washington died. They had to suck the bad humours out.

Point 3. “When she had heard of Jesus …” This part of the story has been Pete-and-Repeted out of the stratosphere. So-and-so taught it, and all the other little so-and-so’s repeted it, until it has become the most Gentiley, Gentiled Bible story of how to be healed. God bless all the so-and-so’s for saying, “Jesus still heals.” This is Truth. But returning to the story of a Jewish woman, called unclean by Jewish law, who was she there in the Jewish crowd, that she could not be near for miles, who had she come to see? To answer this question, I wish I could play for you a couple dozen videos made by different Jewish men and women. You need to see how they treat their Rebbes. And watch without prejudice. Because I first said, “What are they doing?” then it hit me like a 2-by-4 (which did not exist in that day), that “there is Jesus.”

Who is a Rabbi. Rebbe. And the common knowledge of any Jew is that they are holy and anointed. And healing can be found there. The Rebbes of today are sought out for the blessing. I must lean into Jewish thinking here. We like to talk about blessings in our Gentile church world, but really, they are optional. “Eh.” (Shrugs.) To the Jew they are gold. A blessing is never spoken haphazard but comes directly from Hashem. (Jesus is Hashem.) The Rebbe knows God will do what He says; the person receiving the blessing knows that it will happen. It’s not questionable.

A son flew from California to Jerusalem to get a blessing for his mother, who was at the point of death. He said, “She does not deserve to die.” Please, hear me here. The Gentile church would hack that to death and send him away. The Rebbe blessed him and said she would live. It wasn’t a thing, as we’d say. End of the video, there sits mom eating, smiling, on her way to complete health.

A father brought his young daughter to the Rebbe and said she had a lung condition and had never spoken. The Rebbe said she would speak. The father left the synagogue, and in the outer hallway, another Rebbe gave the young girl an apple. She looked at it and said, “Apple.” The father, then, returned to the Rebbe who’d blessed her, and told him what had happened. The Rebbe said she’d sing all the way home. She was instantly healed.

I will not go into my “Are The Jews Saved?” speech. But note, these are but 2 of many miracles I have seen happen among them. Jesus is Jew. Jesus is G_d. Jesus is Healer. What I will stress to you is the woman with the issue of blood was doing what Jews are still doing. Even their fawning over Rebbes is in the behavior noted in the Word. Of Jesus, Mark 9:15 says, “And straightway all the people, when they beheld him, were greatly amazed, and running to him saluted him.” This was not a military salute but hunger for His touch. If you could touch Him, you would be whole. Jews today still believe this. The woman’s faith was in who He was. That she returned to Him and admitted she was the reason He felt virtue (power) leave Him is also Jewish thought. When someone is healed, they will return to the synagogue and give testimony and offer thanks. Those clustered around the Rebbe all shout worship. “Blessed be Hashem, for His mercy endures forever.”

All credit goes to G_d. None to man. All trust in them that G_d answers prayer goes to their knowledge of covenant. G_d promised healing in it. Instruction is given of what to do when the bleeding stops, if you keep reading in Leviticus 25. Jesus made reference to this in the Law when He healed the 10 lepers (Luke 17:12). They were to go tell the priest and bring an offering. And the woman, healed of the issue of blood, was bid to “Go in peace, and be whole (Mark 5:34).” Her faith was in God. She trusted in who she was as a Jew because of who Jesus was as anointed by God. That is what she knew from what she heard, and from Him came blessing.

Faith is not an equation we preach, and if you don’t “get it right,” then you won’t be healed. God is not ignoring some and healing others because they have the right confession. Jesus healed me of what I didn’t know I had, what I hadn’t asked for, and in my darkest hour, what I couldn’t see. Whether I screamed at Him, screamed at the devil, screamed at myself, did not matter. My mistakes did not matter. Whether I said the right thing in one breath and the wrong thing in the other, did not matter.

What God answered in me was I let Him be God. And refused to give up. Which formed in me because I knew I was loved by Him. He is mine. I am His. We have covenant. What He has promised, He proved to me that He would do, and not the other way around. I didn’t have to measure up, but just rest, knowing God had it all in His hand.

The lesson of the woman with the issue of blood IS JEWISH. IS FAITH because she was a Jew. IS HEALING because Jesus is the High Priest. IS COVENANT because He is Jew and He is God.

Photo by Fellipe Ditadi on Unsplash


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com