Mark 5:21-43: Another Sandwich (20)
We’ve already met Mark’s sandwich technique of storytelling in which he inserts one story between two parts of another allowing both stories to interpret the other. Here we have another. 5:21-24 and 35-43 are the bread while vv.25-34 is the meat between the bread. Jesus is back on the Jewish side of the sea. Still engulfed by crowds clamoring to be near him. In the midst of all this a leader of the synagogue bursts in on him falling at his feet and imploring him to come and heal his daughter who is at the point of death. Jesus agrees and they set off to the leader’s home. Before they get there, however, a woman in the crowd following Jesus who had been hemorrhaging blood for 12 years, snuck up behind him just to touch him. She hoped that might suffice to heal her. In her state this woman was unclean and should have been not have been there in the first place. Two very different approaches to Jesus. One forward and direct, the other stealthily and from behind. These are tw...