NOTES for Mar 5:24-34

The woman with a flow of blood, whose healing we read about in today's Gospel, does something completely unlawful. Under Jewish law, blood defiles, and therefore a sick woman must keep away from pious people. All the more must she keep away from the Temple and from God. If one of the Pharisees had intercepted her as she forced her way through the crowd toward Jesus, she would have been condemned and perhaps severely punished. At the very least, she would have been thoroughly shamed: how dare you, so unclean, steeped in sin and impurity, approach the Teacher! Yet He Himself tells the Pharisees that people like her—tax collectors and sinners—enter the Kingdom ahead of the religious high achievers, because they have one important quality: they need this Kingdom desperately.