Lent Day 22: Woman with the Bleeding Problem

Pause

Seek to still yourself before God, asking that He would help you to understand how today’s passage applies to your daily life.

Read & Journal

Read Mark 5:21-34. Reflect on these questions:

• What do you learn about Jesus’ character from His interactions with the woman? About His mission or purpose?

• How do you see Jesus entering into brokenness in today’s passage?

• When Jesus demanded to know how had touched him, the woman may have feared rebuke or anger. When have you feared rebuke or anger from someone, but instead, he or she responded with grace and kindness?

• When have you feared Jesus’ rebuke?

Ponder

While the cause of the woman’s bleeding isn’t clear in the passage, many scholars posit that it was uterine or menstrual in nature. While any condition that led to constant bleeding would have been debilitating (and ultimately fatal), uterine bleeding would have rendered the woman religiously unclean (Lev. 15:25-27). The most devout Jews would have had nothing to do with her. To touch her was to risk becoming impure, and her malady restricted her from participating in the life of the Jewish community.

The woman was desperate for healing, and she believed—rightly—that Jesus could do something about it. But she didn’t want to create a spectacle or take up too much of His time or face the scorn and rebuke that would surely come her way if an unclean woman like her asked a holy man like Jesus to touch her and defile Himself. So in the crowd of people who surrounded him, she reached out her hand and touched his robe, believing that this act of faith would heal her.

But faith requires confession, and Jesus gave her the opportunity to do so. Trembling, the woman admitted what she had done, expecting harsh words. Instead, Jesus called her “daughter,” a term of endearment and relationship. While society may have considered her unclean and defiled, Jesus considered the woman as a daughter—precious, cherished and beloved.

It’s easy to look at your sins, your fears, and your insecurities and expect Jesus’ scorn or rebuke. Chances are, you’ve already experienced that kind of derision and condemnation at the hands of others. Often, we learn to push those sins, fears and insecurities down, to hide them inside. We try to make sure everything looks good on the outside, but inside we’re scared, hopeless and desperate. You don’t have to hide those things from Jesus. He already knows. And you don’t have to fear His rebuke or sanction when you finally say the truth out loud. When we come to Him in our desperation, convinced that He can do something about our sin sickness, He is faithful to act.

And more than that, He welcomes you into a relationship where you are precious, cherished, and beloved. Daughter. Son. Mine.