Hem of His Garment

by

Dr. John D. Garr

Chapter 1: A Healing Touch

"If I may but touch his garment, I shall be made whole!" An exclamation of angst, determination, or faith? We can’t be sure. There is no doubt, however, that it is the centerpiece of one of the most poignant of all Bible stories, an event that unfolds in what was probably a very ordinary day in the life of Yeshua of Nazareth. The humble, unassuming Galilean peasant had long been sought out by growing throngs of suffering people who desperately needed relief from a virtually unending list of maladies and misfortunes. His compassion for the poor, the infirm, the mentally retarded, the emotionally unstable, and the economically and politically disenfranchised had become legendary. He reached out with an empathy that few had ever seen, and he changed lives with a healing touch that had never been witnessed on planet earth.

This lowly Nazarene had been born some thirty years earlier in most inauspicious circumstances. While a few enlightened believers understood him to be a virgin’s son, none of those among whom he grew up ever saw anything extraordinary about him.1  Much of the general public, and certainly his detractors, considered him illegitimate, born in a stable, wrapped in swaddling clothes. In keeping with the strong devotion to their Jewish faith, his parents had circumcised him on the eighth day, thereby initiating him into the covenant of Abraham. In compliance with the requirements of pidyon ha-ben (the redemption of the firstborn), they had presented him at the temple2  where the astonishing words of both prophet and prophetess predicted wonderful things for his life that would have far-reaching and profound consequences for Israel and the world.3  He had been reared inconspicuously by his family in Nazareth, the town southwest of the Sea of Galilee whose only claim to fame was that "no good thing came from Nazareth."4 

Jesus had been precocious, to be sure, debating at the age of twelve (possibly at his bar mitzvah) with Israel’s greatest rabbis during his family’s pilgrimage festival observance. But, for the most part, his life was that of an ordinary Jew, being taught in home, synagogue, and temple in Judaism’s great truths. He "grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man."5  He was employed in his father’s business, that of a builder, soiling his hands and straining his body in the construction industry of his day. When he reached the age of thirty, he set out on an itinerant teaching ministry, announcing the imminent breaking forth of the Kingdom of God.6 

Immediately, those around Jesus recognized him to be a rabbi, this despite the fact it is nowhere recorded that he had been a student either of Beth Hillel or Beth Shammai, the era’s two leading schools of rabbinic thought. He was unique as a teacher, however, for his hearers attested to the fact that he spoke with an authority that the other rabbis of his time did not manifest.7  He was a lover of the land of Israel and of the ’Am HaAretz ("people of the land"), or the common folk. His teaching championed honesty, integrity, and human dignity.

Jesus also possessed an amazing gift for the supernatural. Though other Hebrew holy men of that time had frequently manifest preternatural powers, when Jesus spoke, he did so with unheard-of authority so that people were healed en masse, demons were exorcized, even the dead were raised. Because of this, some began to think that perhaps he was Elijah returned in spirit and power to prepare the way for the Messiah. Others considered that he might be Jeremiah or another of the prophets.8  Since there had been no recognized prophet in Israel for some four centuries, this was a distinct honor in itself.

Then, one day as he inquired of his disciples whom they considered him to be, Peter, the most outspoken of his followers, exclaimed, "You are he, the Messiah, Son of the living God."9  Jesus reiterated the fact that there was nothing about his person that would identify him as such: it was a revelation of the Eternal Father. Though he had consistently referred to himself as "Son of man," both a term of humility (connoting a "human being") and a Messianic title, and despite the fact that he had ascribed to himself eternal preexistence in his "I AM" statements,10  Jesus’ identity as the divinely Anointed of the Jewish people and the Savior of the world had been largely hidden from both the public and his disciples.

On this day, therefore, as he went his way, teaching and touching the lives of those who came to him, one of those who had heard of his reputation for compassion and of his power to mend broken, diseased bodies and wounded, troubled souls was a woman with a life-threatening condition. We cannot be certain about the details of this story, but we can imagine, based on what is recorded, that her condition was grave. Frail, emaciated, anemic, she was but a shell of her former vivacious, ebullient self. Her youthful beauty had dissolved into the haggard look of weakness. Her ashen face was punctuated by the thin lips and the clenched jaw of a determination to survive. She was desperate. "If I can but touch his garment, I shall be made whole," she said to herself.

This poor woman had been hemorrhaging for twelve years, probably with menorrhea, a condition that rendered her both physically weak and psychologically depressed because her malady made her perpetually unclean according to the ceremonial laws of her people and had probably long since been cause for divorce as "unfit for cohabitation." If she even touched other people, they contracted tumiah ("ritual impurity") and would continue to communicate her "uncleanness" to others unless they immersed in a mikveh and waited until evening to be pronounced "clean" again. How embarrassing! In such desperation, these words of hope echoed like a chant, rising to a crescendo in her troubled mind: "If I can but touch his garment, I shall be made whole."

Trying to find a cure for her condition, she had spent all of her resources on physicians and had only grown worse, perhaps even the victim of medical malpractice or ineptitude. Now, here she was, a poverty-stricken, emotionally-wrecked, physically-broken waif, possessing only one faint hope of deliverance from certain death: "If I can but touch his garment, I shall be made whole!" she repeated to herself.

So, defying all social convention, she mustered up the last reserves of her strength and pressed her way through the multitude that was thronging the Rabbi, hanging on his every word, and reacting to his every gesture. How she made her way through the crowd, no one knows, but in her heart of hearts she just knew, "If I can but touch his garment, I shall be made whole!" She didn’t need a word; she needed a touch. And, touch him she did. In one desperate lunge, she reached out her bony, near-lifeless hand and brushed against just the hem of Jesus’ garment. The fact that she touched just the hem of his garment may be an indication that she was crawling through the thronged, huddled bodies. A miracle happened: immediately her hemorrhaging stopped. She was made whole!

Jesus realized that something had occurred because of the release of power from his own person. When he inquired, "Who touched me?", his disciples replied incredulously, "With this multitude thronging you, how can you ask, ‘Who touched me?’ " Then she who had been stooped, emaciated, and cowering suddenly stood tall, so tall that she could not hide herself in the crowd, and she confessed to the Rabbi what she had done. Even though he might have been rendered ceremonially unclean by the biblical society’s standards (if she had touched his flesh), Jesus affirmed this woman’s hopes, saying, "Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague."

What a wonderful story of extraordinary, powerful emotion! What a Savior this Jesus who healed just by being touched even when he was unaware of what had happened! "If I can but touch his garment, I shall be made whole!"

But, there’s more to the story!

Footnotes:

 1 See Matthew 13:54-57 and Mark 6:1-3.

 2 Luke 2:22-24.

 3 Luke 2:32.

 4 John 1:46.

 5 Luke 2:52.

 6 Matthew 11:12, the centerpiece of Jesus’ proclamation concerning the kingdom should be translated: "The Kingdom of God is breaking forth [like the walls of a sheepfold], and passionate men press their way into it."

 7 Mark 1:22.

 8 In Second Temple Judaism, the concept of gilgul ha-nephasot was a common view, suggesting that the spirit of one prophet could return upon someone else in another era. This concept is alluded to in Luke 1:17 in Gabriel’s annunciation to Zacharias and in Matthew 11:14 in Jesus’ evaluation of John the Baptizer. This phenomenon is likely interpreted as being the return of the spirit (or the frame of mind or line of thought) that motivated a man of God of one era upon another person in another time. It may well also have implied that God could return that measure of his Holy Spirit which distinctively motivated a prophet in one era upon another person at a subsequent time.

 9 Matthew 16:16.

 10 John 8:58; 11:25; 14:16.

Guestbook | Table of Contents | Restore! Magazine | Restoration Foundation Home