GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 5:25
Interruptions
I was preparing a lesson when someone knocked on the office door—an interruption. A former student came by with the news that she was getting married. We celebrated the good news. The interruption over, I returned to the lesson preparation. But not all interruptions turn out as well. I was cooking when the doorbell rang. I went to answer it, and by the time I got back to the stove, the eggs were hard, black, unrecognizable knot-like masses. Everyone experiences these interruptions; they’re part of life.
According to St. Mark, a woman interrupted Jesus on his way to Jairus’ house. This interruption, which one writer called a “sandwich story” (5:24b-34), introduces readers to a woman clause-by-clause. Mark’s unusually long sentence—with 80 words and 13 clauses—is like a picture book. The first picture is of a woman suffering for twelve years from a physical condition: “And a woman, having a flow of blood twelve years…” (Mark 5:25)
The church historian Eusebius (260-339 A.D.) recorded a tradition that this unnamed woman was a Gentile from Caesarea Philippi. If that were true, then she had traveled about 37 miles—or two days on foot—to get to Capernaum—a long distance for a woman suffering from vaginal bleeding for twelve years. In addition, she would have been continuously unclean and whoever touched her would have been unclean—required to bathe and wash their clothes. (Lev. 15:25-27) With the scant evidence provided by biblical writers, modern physicians claim there are several conditions that could explain the woman’s hemorrhage, and all the maladies would weaken her—uterine fibroids, endometriosis, hormonal imbalances, or blood clotting disorders.
The Talmud lists eleven cures for such a condition, some sheer superstitions like carrying the ashes of an ostrich egg in a linen rag in summer and a cotton rag in winter, or carrying a barley corn that had been found in the dung of a white she-ass. In her twelve years of suffering, this woman may have tried them all.
Mark never introduces a subject without bringing it to a conclusion. The reader senses the crescendo. Twelve long, fatiguing years…. But that is not the end of the story for this woman, or for anyone who reads Mark’s story.
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