This week at Highrock, pastor Eugene taught from Luke 8:40-56, an account of Jesus raising a girl from the dead and healing a sick woman. A couple things in the passage struck me in a new way, and I've been mulling them over today partly because I've been making a greater effort for the last 6 months or so to truly rest, reflect, and spend time with my family on Sundays.

The passage begins with Jesus drawing a crowd. They had no doubt heard stories of his miraculous power or seen miracles he'd performed themselves, for the text says they expected him and welcomed him. Immediately the story cuts to some action. A man with prominent social status, a synagogue leader named Jairus, throws himself at Jesus' feet before the entire crowd. This act is performed at great personal risk. His reputation, his very life is in jeopardy if the Sanhedrin denounces him for this. Aligning oneself with Jesus meant aligning oneself against them, they felt, and they were intent on maintaining power by protecting the status quo. They would even murder someone to keep their role in the community, their wealth, and their pride. But Jairus is desperate and doesn't know what else to do or to whom else he can turn because his twelve year old daughter is dying—and on the verge of dying that very moment. So he doesn't care if it costs him everything, he calls upon Jesus. The text says he pleads with Jesus to come to his home and heal his daughter. Apparently Jesus complies because he and the crowd begin to make their way to Jairus' house. This is exciting for the crowd and attracts many more spectators. So many that it says the crowd began to press in on Jesus, nearly crushing him. I've been in crowds like this on Bourbon Street in New Orleans during Carnival leading up to Mardi Gras day. You are shoulder to shoulder with everyone around you and where the crowd goes, you go, like it or not.

It was in this context that another person enters the story. This person is also desperate like Jairus and is also risking everything by seeking Jesus for help. However, this person does not present herself before the crown by throwing herself at Jesus' feet as Jairus had done. Instead this person discretely makes her way through the crowd unnoticed and seeks only to touch Jesus' garment because she believes this is all it will take to heal her. The text says this woman suffered from some kind of ailment that had caused her to bleed incessantly for the past twelve years. In Hebrew traditions and culture, such a woman would have been an outcast, a "pariah" as pastor Eugene put it. She would have had to remove herself, or would have been removed, from the community and her family. She was considered "unclean" and cursed. Were she to have done what Jairus did, she might have been executed on the spot. No doubt the shouts of "Unclean! Unclean!" would have given way to anger from all who were now rendered unclean with her since she had touched them. This anger could have caused the crowd to become a mob and kill her. But her fear of being exposed and punished did not prevent her from pressing through the crowd and seeking Jesus because she knew that he was her healer.

Two female persons, both desperate for Jesus, after twelve years. One female who was twelve years old and suddenly near death, was so cherished by her father that he put his reputation and life on the line to save her. The other female had no advocate, and was rejected by everyone, even her family, and felt like she'd been dead for twelve long years. What happens next in the story is where I began to think differently about the passage.

On his way to Jairus' house, Jesus isn't in so great of a rush that he can't stop to address the second female in the story. When I've read this in the past, I almost always got the impression that Jesus was annoyed or even angered when he says, "Who touched me?" I must be reading into this passage my own experience of crowds. It's awkward and uncomfortable to be touched by strangers in a crowd. Some nervously apologize. Others ignore it. Jesus stops everyone and everything. Jairus must have been indignant, thinking, "What is he doing?! Why is he stopping to find out who touched him? My daughter is dying!"

Jesus' question itself is somewhat curious. Certainly Jesus knows the answer to the question. Perhaps the question is not unlike God's question to our first parents in the Garden. Maybe it's more a question stated like, "Why are you hiding yourself?" Or "Why won't you show yourself?" Jesus won't let the woman go unnoticed.

I've always read this account and thought of what happens next in terms of Jesus' love and compassion for the woman with the issue of blood. When he says to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace." I'd always read this as a tender moment that Jesus shares with her, to declare to her who she is to him: his daughter; to praise her for her faith; and to send her on with a purpose: shalom. But today I read Jesus' words in a different light. I think they are at least as much for the crowd and the powers as they were for her. Allow me to explain.

Oppressive, divisive, or dehumanizing tradition or cultural norms are fueled by the fallen powers that Jesus is at war against. Over and over in his ministry we see Jesus confront the status quo and its protectors declaring the reign of the powers over and announcing the in-breaking reign of God. Whenever culture or tradition dictated people were to be outcast as refuse, Jesus embraced them, show them compassion and love. Whenever culture or tradition mandated that people were to be kept apart or kept below, Jesus drew them near and lifted them up. This was not because Jesus was a rabble-rouser or like controversy. This was because Jesus is God and at war against the powers who seek to enslave humanity—his creation.

With just that one word: Daughter, Jesus sent shockwaves through the cosmos and knocked the powers of their thrones. This woman who society had rejected and ejected, was family! She was a daughter of the King of Kings. She has immeasurable worth in God's eyes and would not be kept away or beneath any longer! Jesus' words to the woman were a declaration that he has conquered the powers and is our Liberator. Jesus' raising of Jairus' daughter is also war: a declaration that he has conquered death and is himself the Giver of Life!