Bible verse wall art
Mark 5: a touch in the crowd and a girl raised to life
Mark 5 tells three healings, and two of them are woven together on purpose. A girl of twelve is dying while a woman who has suffered for twelve years reaches out in the crowd.
Mark 5 print
Mark 5 · King James Version
34 Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace
From the tombs to the shore
The chapter opens on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee, in the country of the Gadarenes. A man possessed by many spirits lives among the tombs and cannot be bound, even with chains. Asked his name, the spirit answers Legion. Jesus sends the spirits into a herd of about two thousand swine, which rush down into the sea, and the healed man goes off to tell what happened throughout the Decapolis.
Back on the other side, a ruler of the synagogue named Jairus falls at Jesus' feet. His little daughter is at the point of death. Jesus sets off with him, and a great crowd presses in on every side.
Who touched my clothes?
In that crowd is a woman who has had an issue of blood for twelve years. Mark does not spare the details: she has suffered much from many physicians, spent all she had, and grown worse instead of better. Under the law of Leviticus 15 such a condition also made her ritually unclean, which kept her at the edge of community life. She says to herself that if she can touch but his clothes, she will be whole. She does, and immediately she feels that she is healed.
Jesus knows that power has gone out of him and turns around: Who touched my clothes? The disciples find the question absurd in such a crush. But the woman comes forward, fearing and trembling, falls down and tells him all the truth. Matthew 9 and Luke 8 say she touched the border, or hem, of his garment, which gives our poster its name.
What does “thy faith hath made thee whole” mean?
Jesus does not scold her for touching him. He calls her Daughter, the only time in the Gospels he addresses anyone that way, and says, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace. The Greek verb behind “made thee whole” is the same one used for being saved, so the healing reaches past her body. She came hoping to slip away unseen; she leaves restored in public, with a blessing of peace.
Hung in a hospital chapel, a bedroom or the home of someone living with a long illness, this piece of Christian wall art speaks to anyone who has waited years for relief.
Talitha cumi
While Jesus is still speaking, word comes that Jairus' daughter has died. Jesus tells him, Be not afraid, only believe. At the house he takes the girl by the hand and says in Aramaic, Talitha cumi, damsel, arise. She is twelve years old, Mark notes, and she gets up and walks. One daughter healed after twelve years, another raised at twelve: the two stories explain each other.