The Miracles of Jesus

The Woman With the Issue of Blood

On the road to Jairus' house · Galilean ministry · Mark 5:25-34

In Mark 5:25-34, a woman who had bled for twelve years, spent all she had on physicians, and only grown worse, pressed through the crowd to touch the edge of Jesus' clothes. She was healed the instant she touched him. Jesus felt power go out of him and asked who had touched him. Trembling, she came and told him the whole truth. He did not rebuke her; he called her 'Daughter' and said, 'thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.' The account shows Jesus reaching the outcast and the ashamed, honoring desperate faith, and giving not only a cured body but a restored name and a healed heart.

The scene

Jesus was on his way to the house of Jairus, whose daughter was dying, and a great crowd pressed around him. In that crush was a woman whose story is told in a few heavy lines. She had suffered for twelve long years, and every road she had tried had failed her.

Her condition made her ceremonially unclean under the law, which meant years of isolation, unable to take part in worship or normal community life, and unable to be touched without spreading her uncleanness. She had lost her health, her money, and her place among people. She came in the crowd from behind, hoping to reach Jesus unseen.

What Jesus did

She did not ask for an audience or dare to speak to him. She reasoned that even the edge of his clothing would be enough, and she reached out and touched it.

The healing was instant. But Jesus would not let her slip away with only her body cured. He knew that power had gone out of him and asked who had touched him, drawing her into the open. Trembling, she told him everything, and his answer met the whole of her, not just her disease.

What the sign reveals

This sign reveals that Jesus cannot be touched in faith without responding. The woman came in secret, expecting to take her healing quietly and disappear. But faith that reaches for Christ, however hidden and however weak, always reaches him. He felt her touch amid a whole jostling crowd because it was the touch of trust, and he answered it fully.

It reveals, too, how thoroughly Jesus heals. He could have let her go the moment her bleeding stopped, but that would have left her still ashamed, still hiding, still an outsider who had 'stolen' a blessing. Instead he called her forward and named her 'Daughter,' the only person he ever addresses that way in the Gospels. He turned a secret cure into a public restoration, giving her back not only her body but her dignity, her belonging, and peace. The one whose touch was thought to defile is here declared whole and sent away in peace.

There is a gentle correction of her theology in this, too. She had come believing that the power lay in the garment itself, as if touching the right cloth would work like a charm whether Jesus knew or not. He does not scold that thin understanding, but he does not leave her in it either. By stopping the whole procession and speaking to her, he makes clear that she was not healed by a piece of fabric but by him, in response to her faith. 'Thy faith hath made thee whole,' he says, drawing her from a superstition about cloth to a relationship with a person. The healing was never mechanical. It was the answer of a compassionate Lord to a trusting heart.

Its place in the Gospel

Mark places this story inside another. Jesus is on his way to raise Jairus' daughter, and this healing interrupts the journey. The two accounts illuminate each other. There is a girl of twelve, loved and cared for, and a woman who has suffered for twelve years, poor and cast out. Jesus has time and power for both, the well-connected and the forgotten, and neither has to compete for his attention.

Her fear and trembling give way to peace as she tells the whole truth and hears his gentle word. The delay this healing causes will test Jairus' faith, since word arrives during it that his daughter has died. Yet the same Jesus who healed the woman will raise the girl. You can read the wider chapter, including the raising, at Mark 5 and on the raising of Jairus' daughter page.

How it meets us

Many people carry a long, wearing trouble that has drained their hope and their resources, something they have prayed about for years and watched grow worse. This woman had every reason to give up, and she did not. She came with almost nothing but a raw conviction that if she could just get to Jesus, it would be enough. That is the kind of faith he honors, not a polished or confident faith, but a desperate reach toward him.

The account also speaks to shame. She wanted to stay hidden, and many of us do too, hoping to be helped without being seen. Jesus lovingly drew her into the light, not to embarrass her but to give her more than she asked. He wants to heal not only what hurts our bodies but what isolates our hearts. His word to her is his word to all who come trembling: go in peace.

Her long history matters as well. She had been failed by everyone she turned to, spent everything she had, and only grown worse. If you have carried a trouble for years and watched every remedy disappoint you, this woman knows that road. Her twelve years were not wasted, though they must have felt like it, because they brought her at last to the one person who could not fail her. Sometimes the exhaustion of every other option is what finally drives us to Christ. He does not despise us for coming late or coming empty; he receives the reach of faith whenever it comes and answers it in full.

Where it points

The healing points to the way Christ reverses uncleanness. Under the law, contact with such a woman would defile the one she touched. But her touch did not make Jesus unclean; his wholeness made her clean. This is the pattern of everything he came to do. He takes what is broken and defiled in us and, rather than being ruined by it, makes us whole. The same reversal reaches its height at the cross, where he bears our uncleanness and gives us his own standing before God.

It points to the tenderness of the Savior toward the least, the poor, the ashamed, and the long-suffering. He notices the touch no one else feels and answers with a name of belonging: Daughter. If you have been reaching for help for a long time and are tired of hiding, this account invites you to come and meet Jesus, whose faith-honoring word still says, go in peace, and be whole.

The pairing with Jairus and his daughter completes the picture. The woman had lost everything and had no name in the crowd; Jairus was a synagogue ruler with standing and a household. Jesus stops for the one on his way to the other, showing that no one is too small to interrupt him and no one is too important to be kept waiting for the sake of the least. In the same chapter he heals the destitute outcast and raises the dying child, and both are done by the same power and the same love. The good news gathers all kinds of people to one Savior, who has enough compassion and enough authority for every one of them.

Can these things really happen?

Many honest readers ask whether miracles can happen at all. Since the Enlightenment, some have argued that the laws of nature rule them out, that a report of a wonder is always less likely than a mistake or a legend. Christians answer that the laws of nature describe how the world normally runs; they do not forbid the God who made it from acting within it. A miracle is not nature breaking down but its Author drawing near. You do not have to settle that question before you read; you only have to read honestly and ask what best explains the witness before you. We look at this more fully in miracles and the laws of nature.

Frequently asked questions

What is the meaning of The Woman With the Issue of Blood?

It means that faith reaching for Jesus, however hidden or desperate, always reaches him, and that he heals the whole person. He cured her twelve-year illness the instant she touched his garment, then called her forward, named her Daughter, and restored her dignity and peace, not just her body.

Where in the Bible is The Woman With the Issue of Blood?

It is in Mark 5:25-34, set on the road to Jairus' house. Parallel accounts appear in Matthew 9:20-22 and Luke 8:43-48.

Why did Jesus ask who touched him if he already knew?

Jesus asked in order to draw the woman out of hiding, not because he needed information. He wanted to turn her secret cure into a public restoration, giving her back her dignity and belonging and sending her away with peace and a word of blessing.