Narrative Issues: What is The Story within the Story

But Jesus said, “Somebody touched Me, for I perceived power going out from Me.” Now when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before Him, she declared to Him in the presence of all the people the reason she had touched Him and how she was healed immediately.
And He said to her, “Daughter, be of good cheer; your faith has made you well. Go in peace.”

(Luke 8:46-48)

The story of the woman with the issue of blood (Luke 8:43-48) interrupts the narrative of Jesus going to Jairus’s house to miraculously raise his daughter from the dead (Luke 8: 41-42, 49-56). Luke’s tale depicts a crowd thronging Jesus treated to the spectacle of the ruler of the synagogue, named Jairus, prostrating himself before Jesus and beseeching Him to come his mortally ill daughter’s bedside to heal her. It stops abruptly with Jesus halting on the way to attend to the woman with the issue of blood. As Jesus finishes speaking with her, people from the synagogue ruler’s house arrive announcing the girl has died.

Must the story of this never named woman, impoverished by persistently seeking a cure for her hemorrhage simply reduce to a narrative foil for the story of a more awesome miracle Jesus performs on behalf of the ruler of the synagogue? Perhaps it functions as more. Luke describes how the woman with an issue of blood worked her way through the throng around Jesus, unnoticed, to touch the hem of his robe. He immediately felt healing power flow out of Him and turning to the crowd asked, “Who touched Me?” The woman with an issue of blood owns up and Jesus says her faith has made her well.

So Luke interjects the story of the woman with an issue of blood into the over-arching Jairus narrative to modestly demonstrate the power of faith the woman’s faith presaging the subsequently even more impressive demonstration of Jesus’s healing power. Now, the reader knows why Jairus should do what Jesus says, “Only believe and she will be made well.” (Luke 8:50) Raising the dead certainly trumps curing a hemorrhage, but it all springs from the same root. The message to the reader is plain: You “just gotta believe” and Jesus can meet your need, too.

Doesn’t it seem just silly that while assenting to go to the sick bed of Jairus’s daughter in time to heal her, Jesus would not only stop and demand to know who touched Him, but that he would then dally listening to the respondent’s whole story? Did He want to make sure she had a pure motive for “touching” Him before continuing on his way? Did he want to be certain before He left her that she was not seeking a cure on the cheap, trying to avoid paying the doctors’ fees? Was he going to “take back” the healing if she didn’t have a good story-before it was too late? “Five-mile” rule (e.g., If you walk five miles after a healing, you can’t take it back)?

Or, is the real story that nothing was more important to Jesus than the healing of this woman whop never gave up hope of a cure even though the pursuit of that hope impoverished her? Is the narrative that, thronged as He was by the crowd, pressed as He was to help the local big shot, ruler of the synagogue, nothing was more important to Jesus than this anonymous woman and her humiliating plight? Could this be a tale of how nothing was more important to the incarnate God than to recognize the woman with an issue of blood at that moment when God- power passed from Him to her?

Is this a narrative that illustrates what Jesus meant by his gospel? Did Luke show us the Good News with a story of how Jesus stopped the crowd thronging Him to see Him do His magic for the ruler of the synagogue so that the God-son could announce that the woman with an issue of blood-a “God-creation” invisible to the crowd, separated from community with them by impurity and humiliation-was made well? Did Luke find compelling that what had brought her to this juncture was her persevering hope – a God-belief, faith?

When Jesus said, “Who touched me?” and this woman with an unceasing flow of contaminating blood replied, “I,” Jesus named her “Daughter” –of my loins and seed. It doesn’t presage the story of crowd’s favorite, the entitled and befuddled Jairus. Jairus serves as a backdrop to the story of the woman with an issue of blood. Her narrative presages the story of the criminal who being crucified with Jesus said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” (Luke 23:42)

“Jesus answered him, ‘I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.’" (Luke 23:43)