A BORDER CROSSING GOSPEL
THE HEALING OF THE HEMORRHAGING WOMAN (MARK 5:21-34)
Keywords:
Border-Crossings, Healing, Transformation, Women’s Spirituality, The Marginal, BorderlandAbstract
In Mark 5:21-43, readers encounter a woman suffering from a hemorrhage who encounters Jesus in the space of borderland. Like many other female characters in the Gospels, the woman does not have a name. But not only was she nameless, she was also alienated, powerless, and voiceless. Acting as an agent of her own life, she touches the garment of Jesus, and consequently she was remarkably healed. In this case, healing is not just about restoration of health, but also the restoration of social membership. Excluded by her illness due to the purity code of the times, she now was reconnected with the community. This story is unique because it is the healed, not the healer who took the initiative for the healing to take place. In the borderland, the subject and the object are reversed and, in the process, the marginality of the woman is located at the centre. Through her subversive act, the woman moved her life forward and recovered her wholeness.
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