Daughter

She mattered.

Healing comes from the place of identity.

 There's a story of a woman with an issue of blood in the bible. She had an illness that caused her to bleed continuously. She had been bleeding for 12 years. Being considered ritually impure, the law said that anything she touched would be defiled. Can you imagine being unable to touch anything or anyone for twelve whole years? During the pandemic, I couldn’t hug my own daughter or speak to her without being six feet away while wearing a mask because I chose to live with my elderly parents to care for them. That time was excruciating, but I was still able to hug my son, who lived in the house with me. I was able to hug my parents too. I cannot fathom not touching another person for that many years! Can you?  

This woman was considered unclean. She had been isolated and stigmatized by her own people. She had seen every doctor and spent all of her money, but nothing had helped her. She was not given a name in this story found in the gospels. 

Matthew 9:20-22 says, “Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the Hem of His Garment she said to herself if only I Touch the Hem of His Garment I will be healed Jesus turned and saw her take heart daughter he said your faith has healed you and the woman was healed at that moment.”

The word used here for hem means fringe, tassel, or the border of a garment. It says in Numbers 15:38-39 “speak to the children of Israel tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations and to put a blue thread and the tassels on the corners, and you shall have the tassel that you may look upon it and remember all the Commandments of the Lord and do them.” These tassels were sewn on the mantle that men wore at that time, which was a long rectangular cloth that draped down over the body. It had four corners at the bottom. The Israelites were to attach tassels to the four corners of their garment.

Over time the style changed, and instead of the Four Corners, the cloth became more rounded at the bottom; due to no longer having the Four Corners, the Israelites developed something called the tallit, and Orthodox Jews of the day wore it. When the woman with the issue of blood Touched the Hem of Jesus’ garment, she would have touched one of the tassels. 

We cannot miss the deep and significant meaning of the place where this woman reached out to touch Jesus. The meaning of the hem and tassels on Jesus' garment was important. The hem and tassels told who people were at that time. These items would indicate a person’s status in society. The hem was particularly important because it symbolized the owner's Identity and Authority. 

Legal contracts at that time were written on clay tablets and were signed by pressing the corner of one's hem into the clay. In 1 Samuel 24:3-5, David encounters Saul in a cave, and instead of killing Saul, he cuts off part of the hem of his Garment. David felt great remorse because even though he didn't kill King Saul as he could have, cutting his hem symbolically was equal to assaulting the King's authority to reign. Tassels were a sign of nobility Kings and princes wore them. 

The woman who was bleeding was considered impure. She would have defiled anyone that she touched. When her fingers brushed the Hem of Christ’s Garment, immediately power went out from Him, and she was healed. Jesus called out into the crowd, “who touched me?” She had touched His Identity and Authority. Where the tassels were was the holiest part of His garment. Jesus' Purity was so great that instead of becoming defiled by her touch, He healed her impurity by His Identity!

Jesus didn't call out because he didn't know who touched him. He knew. He did not call out because he didn't know who she was. He did. He called her out of the crowd because He wanted her to know who she was.

The people in the crowd were her neighbors, They knew her, but they didn't even know her name anymore because she had been sick for so long. They knew her by what had happened to her.  She didn't know her own name anymore, either. She didn't know her identity because it had been overridden by what had happened to her. Jesus called her out of the crowd, out of that false identity, and He called her daughter. This woman is the only person Jesus calls daughter in the entire Bible! Jesus wanted her to know that she was part of the family. She was the daughter of the King!

Can you imagine what it would be like if everyone knew you for what you were going through? “Oh, there's the woman who's divorced, there's the woman who had a miscarriage, oh, there's the woman who has an addiction, there's the woman with cancer, there's the woman with mental health issues, there's the woman who is overweight, there's the woman who was sexually assaulted, there's the woman who is having an affair, there is the woman who had an abortion, there is the woman who is still single, there is the woman who can’t have a baby… the list goes on and on and on!

This happens now too. People find out what you're struggling with, and that's the name they call you by. It's the opposite of what's supposed to happen in the church, but Jesus calls her daughter, He calls you daughter, He calls me daughter, having the compassion to call us all out of that wrong identity and remind us who we are in Him. 

His compassion is love and action. He joins her in her struggle instead of leaving her there in the crowd. Jesus could have just known that He had healed her and moved on. He could have kept walking. He was on the way to heal another daughter, the only child of Jairus, who was a synagogue leader. While Jesus was taking the time to interact with the hemorrhaging women, people came from Jairus’s house to tell Him that the girl had died. 

For Jairus, all hope had died with his daughter, just as the woman with the issue of blood had lost hope of ever being healed, but God!! But God had a different plan! Jesus went to Jairus’s home anyway. He told him not to be afraid but to believe in Him. Jesus took the little girl by the hand and said, “Talitha koum” which means: little girl, I say to you, get up! In response, immediately, the girl stood up and started walking around! Interestingly enough, she was twelve years old. 

The number twelve can be found in 187 places in the bible. It symbolizes God's power and authority. It can also symbolize completeness or the nation of Israel as a whole. Jacob (Israel )had 12 sons, Each of which represented a tribe. Twelve cakes of bread were to be placed every week in the temple. The priests were commanded to change the bread every Sabbath day. Christ called 12 men to bear witness to what he did and to spread the good news of the Gospel to the entire world. The first recording of Jesus' words occurs when he is 12 years old. The high priest's breastplate had 12 Stones embedded in each. Obviously, 12 isn't put in these stories without a purpose.

Twelve years is mentioned in both of these stories, which we find intertwined together in the gospels. The woman had been bleeding since the child was born. Twelve is a significant number for the Jewish people. I believe that God is emphasizing the value, worth, identity, and deliberate choice of loving these two daughters. 

Jesus could have kept going where he was going, but it was so important to stop and be intentional. He wanted this woman to know; He wanted the crowd to know her worth! This story is in the Bible because she represents so many of us. This woman was the only person Jesus ever called daughter because he wanted each one of us to know that no matter what we have been struggling with or how no matter how many years we've been struggling with it, even if no worldly thing has helped us, even if we have spent all of our time and money, exhausted all of our hope, Jesus has the power to heal us. We need only reach out our hand in faith.

When we know by faith that the Identity of God is a Good Father, and we know that our identity is a child of God, it is only from this intimate place that we can experience a relationship with God instead of the law and regulations. And it is only in the power of this intimate relationship that we can experience resurrected life and healing. 

The women mentioned in Jesus' genealogy are Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary. In a time when no woman was mentioned in legal matters, Jesus’ lineage provided a permanent record of these women in the Bible. Each life had its own struggle, an intricate story of doubt and healing. God included them in Jesus’ genealogy so that we could find ourselves there too. They were part of his family, and so are we. 

Our own families have generations of brokenness. We all come from lines of dysfunction, but in Christ, we can be healed. Our families can be resurrected. We can start a new family line. If we will only stretch out our hand in faith!

Five women were mentioned in this genealogy. Four of them were grandmothers, and one of them was the mother of Christ. In the example of the four grandmothers, we see Tamar, who was manipulative and had to sexualize a situation to try to regain a broken promise. Next, there is Ruth, who was a foreign woman, not accepted by the Israelites, but she was noble and she was faithful. She chose family and God over her culture. Then we have Rahab, who was a prostitute, but she helped the Israelite spies. She believed in her heart who God was and acknowledge Him as One true God. Bathsheeba was innocently taking a bath when she was approached by a king who coerced her into adultery. In that time, she couldn't say no. Last we have Mary Jesus' mother, who was a virgin; she loved God in her heart, and even though she was confused and scared, she believed. 

I think when we look at this genealogy, these ladies were included to show all of the different things that women deal with in a society that doesn't acknowledge them equally. Then we look at a young girl who has not yet encountered those situations, who was chosen at a time when she was so young that her heart was still as pure as it could be for a person, and her body was pure. Mary was also twelve years old. That is who Jesus is born of.

I think God is saying that He can take the lineages and the ancestry in the genealogy of brokenness that is in our past and bring it to a place where it is pure and usable through Jesus too! I think it's beautiful that Jesus’ genealogy includes all of these women. 

God wants us to know that no matter what our background, no matter what our parents did, or our grandparents did, we have the choice to live differently. God is saying there is not a thing that we have done or that our family has done that cannot be redeemed through His Son and made Holy and pure again through the healing of Jesus Christ.

The encouragement and hope found deeply woven into these stories is for you today. No matter what ails you, No matter how long it's been. You are a child of the King. You are His family. You, too, can be healed. You need only reach out your hand in faith! 

And men, if you are reading this, please note this stands for you as well. The Bible used examples of a woman and a child to represent to “least of these” in that society. You, too, are a chosen and loved child of God, and from that intimate relationship, from that identity, you too can be healed!

Its important to note the value here placed on being a child. On the identity of having a parent who loves you. Jairus was an important man. He had a high-status role in the synagog. Jesus was God. Both Jesus and Jairus called someone daughter. Both cherished them. Both, by society’s standards, shouldn’t be making a public spectacle over these unimportant ones. But they didn’t care about rules; they cared about their family. They were more important to them no matter what society had to say.