“Daughter,” he said, “your faith has delivered you. Go, and peace be with you; be free from your affliction.”
it is not your truth
that makes you whole
trusting what you hope
to reveal your peacefaith in projected hope
takes us past discouragement
where persistence persists
erect in failure’s facebleed on ’til your dyin’ day
it does and doesn’t matter
stay in peace rest in ease
comfortably full of meaning anyway
The Jewish Annotated New Testament comments, “The elect community at the end of time is liberated from impurity, not impurity codes (Zech 13:1–2; 14:20–21).”
The CEB Study Bible reflects on Zechariah 14:21, “on this day of the Lord, even the most ordinary things will be considered holy to the Lord. Everyone and everything will be transformed by and in God.”
N.T. Wright, in Mark for Everyone, raises the question, “Was it Jesus’ power that rescued the woman, or her own faith?” His response to his question seems a bit forced into an orthodoxy based on a hierarchy of sovereignty, “Clearly it was Jesus’ power; but he says, ‘Your faith has rescued you.’ The answer must be that faith, though itself powerless, is a channel through which Jesus’ power can work (compare 6.5).”
Waetjen raises this closing of one story with extensions based on Jesus being a hinge of ecclesial history:
The older woman, who has been moving toward menopause for twelve years, represents tradition-bound mother Judaism. Unclean, isolated from the world and oppressed by the law, she is saved and her life is redeemed by her risk of reaching out to make contact with the New Human Being. The young girl embodies the new Israel, offspring of the synagogue and its Pharisaic heritage, who is on the verge of bearing children and bringing new life to the world.
This also attempts to fit this story into later orthodoxies justifying division and even risks a Jewish/Christian feud to the death.
Remember Jesus’ awareness of his “power”, connection with people who have been touched by this force of life by stopping and asking, and confirming the value of a person’s action to storm the gates of “heaven”. It is probably best to join Luke’s Mary in simply cherishing this woman and her story in your heart.