We continue with the interpretation. Here are verses 18 and 19 of the ninth chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew:
While He spoke these things to them, behold, a ruler came and worshiped Him, saying: My daughter has just died; but come and lay Your hand on her, and she will live. So Jesus arose and followed him, and so did His disciples.
Saint John Chrysostom speaks of the character of the father who begged the Lord Jesus for the healing of his daughter and says:
“We must say that the ruler called his daughter dead either judging by the length of his journey, or wishing to present his misfortune as greater. Indeed, those who beg for help are accustomed to exaggerate and represent their circumstances in a more severe form, that they might more easily incline those whom they implore to mercy. Observe the spiritual immaturity of this ruler. He offers Christ two requests — to come and to lay His hand on her. This shows that he left his daughter still alive. The same thing was asked by Naaman the Syrian from the prophet (2 Kings 5:11). Thus, spiritually immature people are in need of visible and sensory things.”
Elder Justin of Ćelije points to all the inner obstacles that this ruler, a prominent Jew, overcame in order to come out to meet Christ and ask for help:
“And the merciful Jesus went after the ruler of the synagogue, who disregarded all Pharisaic opinions, humbled himself, forgot all his knowledge, experienced (spiritual) bankruptcy of the synagogue, the helplessness of the Old Testament law, for they were powerless to save his only daughter from death. Jairus, as it were, says: all the synagogues together, O Master and Lord, could not heal my only daughter; the disease was stronger than all Old Testament remedies; I have used all the laws, tried all the means… Death is stronger than my Old Testament faith and Law, stronger than all men. … Say to the desperate father, say, you fathers; say, you mothers; say, you parents! Our children, our dearest hearts — death snatches them away. Who will save us from it? Who! Thou alone, Lord and Master!”
Saint Hilary of Poitiers offers an allegorical interpretation of this passage as follows:
“The ruler represents the Law, which stands on behalf of the people before the Lord. The Law prepared the people for Christ at the time when they awaited His prophesied coming, and Jesus restores life to the dead girl. For it is not written that any of the rulers believed in the Lord. Therefore, the person of this ruler who rightly prays serves as an image of the Law, to which the Lord promised His help and immediately fulfilled it.”
Here we come to verses 20 and 21:
And behold, a woman who had suffered from a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind and touched the hem of His garment. For she said to herself: If I only touch His garment, I shall be made well.
Saint Macarius the Great, in the figure of the woman with the issue of blood, sees the soul of fallen man and our healing found solely and entirely in the Lord, through the grace we receive from Him. One of the greatest ascetic Fathers writes:
“Just as the woman with the issue of blood, who truly believed and touched the Lord’s garment, immediately received healing and the unclean flow of blood ceased, so also every soul, having an incurable wound of sin — the source of unclean and deceitful thoughts — if it comes to Christ and, truly believing, prays, will receive saving healing from the incurable flow of passions. By the power of Jesus alone will the source from which unclean thoughts flow be dried up. No one else can heal this wound. For this the enemy desired — to wound and darken the inner man, the mind that beholds God, through Adam’s transgression. And the eyes of the mind, when heavenly goods became inaccessible to them, were opened instead to vices and passions. Therefore, man is so wounded that no one can heal him except the Lord. Only He can do all things. For the Lord came and took away the sin of the world — that is, He dried up the unclean source of the soul’s thoughts. As the woman with the issue of blood had spent all her substance on those who could heal her and gained nothing from any of them until she came near to the Lord, truly believing in Him, when she touched His garments, she immediately felt healing and the flow of blood stopped. Thus also the soul, which was at first wounded with the incurable wound of destructive passions, none of the righteous, neither the Fathers, nor the Prophets, nor the Patriarchs, could heal.”
This is a profoundly powerful testimony that the remedy for that inner struggle felt by all human beings lies only in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Blessed Theophylact of Ohrid mentions the Church’s tradition concerning the woman with the issue of blood and speaks of what she later did:
“Jesus said to her: Do not be afraid, because she was frightened that she had stolen the gift; and He calls her daughter, as one who believes. Thus He shows us that she would not have received grace had she not first offered faith, although His garments were holy. It is said that this woman made a statue of Christ, and at its base she cultivated a plant which brought healing to all who suffered from a flow of blood. Some godless men destroyed this statue during the reign of Emperor Julian the Apostate.”
Saint Nicholas of Ohrid explains here an important spiritual law — that for healing not only our faith is needed, but also the response of the Person to Whom our plea is addressed. He writes:
“If I only touch His garment, I shall be made well — she said to herself, pushing through the crowd to reach Christ. Such was the faith of this woman. She had previously had faith in the physicians to whom she had gone, but that faith had done her no good. For faith alone is not enough if the One in whom we believe has no power to help. Let all those be silenced, therefore, who, in their utter ignorance and unbelief, speak of suggestion and autosuggestion in the Gospel miracles. … It was not the garment of Christ that gave healing to the woman with the issue of blood without Christ’s knowledge and without His direct power proceeding from Him. The same conscious and living divine power comes to help the faithful through the relics of saints and through icons. The faith of Christ knows nothing of magic or fortune-telling. No created thing in nature can, by its own power, be of any benefit to man unless the living God is aware that it is His beneficent power that proceeds from Him. This applies equally to all earthly medicines and to mineral waters. God is no more distant from medicines and mineral waters than Christ the Lord was distant from His own garment. And whoever approaches medicines and mineral waters with that same faith and modest reverent awe with which this ailing woman touched Christ’s garment will be healed. But whoever approaches them apart from God, or even against God, seldom receives healing. And if he does receive it, it is by God’s exceeding mercy — that he might recognize and acknowledge that mercy and glorify God.”
Thus we see that the Orthodox Church teaches the very opposite of what can be found in popular self-help books, which emphasize that one needs only to awaken the healing power within oneself, that everything necessary is already inside us. As we see from the Gospel, this is not the case at all.
Verse 22 reads:
But Jesus turned around, and when He saw her, He said, “Be of good cheer, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And the woman was made well from that hour.
Saint John Chrysostom reveals Christ’s motive for bringing this unfortunate woman into the open and refutes the false claim that He did so out of a desire for human glory. He says:
“Christ did not wish her to remain hidden, but revealed her for many reasons. Some senseless men say that Jesus did this out of love of glory. Why, they say, did Christ not leave her concealed? What are you saying, you impious and lawless man? Does He love glory, He who forbids others to speak about these things and does not Himself mention His countless miracles? Why then does He reveal the woman with the issue of blood? First, to free her from fear, lest, tormented by her conscience as a thief of a gift, she should spend her life in anguish. Second, to correct her, because she wished to hide. Third, to reveal her faith to all, that others might imitate it. And finally, to show that He knows all things — therein lies a miracle as great as the stopping of the blood itself. Finally, He also strengthens the ruler of the synagogue, who might easily have lost his faith — and with it, everything else — by the example of this woman.”
Blessed Augustine interprets this passage allegorically and points out that it also speaks mystically of us — that is, of the Church composed of the Gentile nations:
“The daughter of this ruler symbolizes the Jewish people, while the woman with the issue of blood symbolizes the Church from among the Gentiles. The Lord Christ, who according to the flesh was born of the Jews, manifested Himself in the flesh to the Jews themselves; to the Gentiles He sent His disciples, but He Himself did not go. His bodily and visible life was spent in Judea… He was on His way to raise the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue. However, a woman appears and is healed; she is healed first and foremost by her faith, while the Saviour seems unaware. For why does He say: Who touched Me? (Mark 5:30) God’s ‘ignorance’ is the pledge of a mystery. It has a hidden meaning, since He who cannot be ignorant appears as if He were. What does this signify? The healed Church from among the Gentiles, whose bodily presence Christ does not see, whose voice speaks in the Psalms: The people whom I have not known shall serve Me. As soon as they hear of Me, they obey Me; the foreigners submit themselves to Me (Psalm 18:43–44).”
Adapted and arranged for the contemporary reader from the Patristic commentaries by Stanoje Stanković.
