(Apologies - I sent this earlier and it failed)
As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. 43 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. 44 She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.
45 “Who touched me?” Jesus asked.
When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.”
46 But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”
47 Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. 48 Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”Incognito... We use the word to describe those who try to fly beneath the radar to remain unnoticed. If the Latin “cognito” means that we consciously recognise, think about and reflect on something, then “incognito” means to be “not recognised”, “not thought about”, “not seen” and “not valued.”
There's a woman in Luke 8 who tries to remain “incognito”...
On His way to heal Jairus' daughter, Jesus interrupts His mission to talk with and, more importantly, to listen to a woman who had reached out to touch the hem of His garment and had been healed.
Let's imagine her story... She'd had continuously bleeding for twelve years and no doctor could help her.
Twelve years!
Levitical Law stated that her bleeding made her ceremonially unclean. It meant that anyone who touched her was unclean. It meant she could not go into the temple. It meant there could be no intimacy in her marriage. Cuddle a child or a grand-child? Not if you were a stickler for the rules!
Imagine the loneliness, the sense of rejection, and the sense of being a non-person! She was relegated to the sidelines, at best pitied and ignored, at worst avoided and rejected. Imagine what her picture of God looked like...
She was drawn to Jesus, but had embraced her status as a non-person to such an extent that she wouldn't engage Him at all – she just touched His robe. “If it doesn't work then He won't even know.” She's incognito!
She is instantly healed!! But to her (and Jairus') horror Jesus stops and asks who had touched Him...
It's the stopping and asking that reveals the true beauty of this passage...
Jesus knew that healing power had flowed out of Him, and He wanted to do more than simply heal her body.
So He stops and draws her story out of her. He's not passively listening – He's actively finding out about her and her story.
He hears her desperation and recognises her loneliness, her shame and her pain. He understands the rejection that made her try to reach for healing but stay incognito.
He listens to her in a way that restores her personhood and then affirms her faith and declares her healing official so that the crowd knows she's a person.
She joined the crowd incognito - a desperate and lonely non-person. By stopping and listening Jesus is saying: You're not incognito – I see you, hear you, and know you. You are in my conscious mind and you matter to me! She went home healed and whole.
Hearts made new by Jesus should stop and listen as He did. Who are those around us who have been reduced to non-personhood (incognito-ed) by socio-economics, a distant parent, a broken marriage, a terrible mistake, a racial stereotype or some other form of brokenness?
What if, by taking time to listen and really hear them , we might restore dignity, purpose and self-worth? ? ?
It's what He would do!
--- -------------------------- Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/
