I have been drawn to this story from the first time I heard it as a little boy in Sunday School. It fascinates me and captures me each time I read it or hear a sermon on it. It perhaps is one of my favorites because in it is the heart of the real meaning of being saved. In fact, there is a feast of meaning laying within these passages. It starts in verse 40 and ends this chapter. Within it are two parallel stories that give us a true meaning of salvation. The stories are about two people desperate for God to intervene in their lives. There is Jairus, a leader of the local synagogue and a woman suffering from a disease that made her unclean. The story actually begins twelve years before when Jairus becomes a father and a woman in his congregation loses her family. You see to be unclean means you can't be around others including your immediate family. If you are a wife, which she probably was, you could not sleep with your husband, or if she had children, which she probably did, you could not hold your children on your lap. Her family and social life was over. The really interesting aspect of this story is that it was probably Jairus who had to declare her unclean. Now fast forward twelve years later and Jairus' only daughter was on her death bed. Obviously he had heard about Jesus and His healing ministry and that He had arrived on the shores of his town. At the same time, this unclean woman had heard the same. Once again their lives intersect. Jairus made it to Jesus while he could still get close enough to fall down before Him and plead with him to come to his house and save his daughter. Now the story says as Jesus was on the way with Jairus to his house, the crowd became crushing. Have you ever been down front at a major concert or sporting event? If you have, then you know what this was like. All of a sudden Jesus stops and says, "Who touched me?" What a weird question for Him to ask? Even his disciple Peter was puzzled. Now here is a very interesting fact: It was a crime to come into a crowd of people, if you were unclean, without announcing out loud that you were unclean so that no one clean would touch you and become unclean themselves. So, How did this woman get so close to Jesus in this pressing crowd as to touch the hem (fringe) of his shawl? And where is that fringe? For it is not just any fringe, but a very specific one. I will leave you to ponder these questions until the next installment. Hint: Google Jewish Prayer Shawl (Every Rabbi wore one).
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