Go in Peace

Somewhere on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, in a crowd packed tight enough that people were being carried along by it, a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years put out a hand.

We know why she did it that way, because we would have done it that way. We would take the cure and skip the conversation, and we would rather nobody found out how long it had gone on, what we had already tried, how much we had spent, or that the treatments made it worse. Mark records every one of those details about her, and it reads like a file we would prefer left closed about ourselves. The healing we would take gladly. Being known is the part that costs.

Then Jesus stops everything and asks who touched his clothes, which looks unkind, and the disciples say as much: thou seest the multitude thronging thee. He keeps looking. And she comes, fearing and trembling, and told him all the truth. That is Mark's phrase, all of it, said out loud in front of the crowd she had been hiding inside. Only then does he speak, and what he gives her is not the cure, she already had that. He gives her a word and a name. Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague. It is the only recorded time he calls anyone daughter.

So the truth is uncomfortable and it is kind, and it is aimed at all of us who would rather be fixed than met. The secret cure leaves you healed and still anonymous. He stopped the road because he was not willing to be the sort of God you can touch without being spoken to.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 142 is Heard at Midnight (Acts 16:25).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna