“Now a woman, having a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any, came from behind and touched the border of His garment. And immediately her flow of blood stopped.” Luke 8:43-44 (NKJ)
Luke 8 has the story of the woman “subject to bleeding.” The story tells of the woman’s desperation for she had been bleeding for twelve years. When she went up to Jesus and touched him—hoping for anonymity with the crowd—she was healed. However, Jesus wanted to use the situation to address the purity regulations found in Leviticus 15. Jesus deliberately points up the fact that he was touched by this woman who, according to Leviticus 15:25 was unclean.
By most accounts, Jews of the Second Temple period (first century AD) would consider Jesus to be unclean when the woman touched Him. In fact, a case could be made that the woman sinned by deliberately breaching purity regulations. Yet we have no indication that Jesus went home, washed and changed his clothes as 15:27 says one must. Instead, Jesus uses the incident to force his audience to make a choice about Him. Either Jesus is a confirmed sinner as the Pharisees would insist, or the situation has indeed changed: the Kingdom of God has come. Jesus didn’t violate tôrā regulations; He fulfilled them, and the woman was now healed. Jesus was not unclean as a result of her touch. The opposite was true: the woman was clean by His touch. The woman had an encounter with Christ and now was no longer unclean.
Pray: Heavenly father, help us to boldly go before your throne and ask for what we need. We know that we have not because we ask not. Amen. Come Lord Jesus!