Two desperate people. One journey. A Saviour who will not be rushed.
In Mark 5:21-43, Jesus is on his way to heal a dying twelve year old girl when a woman who has bled for twelve years reaches out and touches his robe ... a very significant act in itself.
What happens next tells us something vital about how Jesus sees the people everyone else has stopped noticing.
In this episode of Word for the Week, we walk through both stories together: the ritual uncleanness that had shut the woman out of community life, the social status of Jairus as a synagogue leader risking everything, and the moment Jesus stops in a crushing crowd to ask "who touched me?"
We also look at what "talitha koum" actually means in the original language, and why Mark deliberately weaves these two healings into a single story.
This is part of our ongoing series working through Mark's Gospel verse by verse, bringing careful biblical exegesis together with real pastoral application for farming and rural communities across Wales.
WATCH THE SUPER SHORT THOUGHTS on this passage:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8_nqRcLJvtchcsemJU_0q1aL0wd69SQU
TEST YOUR UNDERSTANDING
How many years had the woman suffered from her bleeding?
What was Jairus's role in the synagogue?
What Aramaic phrase does Jesus use to raise the girl, and what does it mean?
Why did touching Jesus present a particular risk for a ritually unclean woman in this culture?
What does Jesus call the woman after she is healed, and why does that matter?
(Answers: 1. Twelve years. 2. Synagogue leader/ruler. 3. "Talitha koum," meaning "Little girl, get up" or "arise." 4. Ritual impurity law meant she could make others unclean by touch, and touching a rabbi in public would have been scandalous. 5. He calls her "daughter," restoring her to family and community, not just to health.)
There is a blog here on my website that takes things a bit deeper:
And my Substack here gives a closer reading of the text interacting more thoroughly with the original text:
https://simonbowkett331045.substack.com/p/two-women-twelve-years-and-the-fringe?r=pksz8
You can read Mark's Gospel in full, completely free, here: