This coming Sunday is the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time.  The woman, realizing what had happened to her, approached in fear and trembling. She fell down before Jesus and told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be cured of your affliction.”

Why would the woman approach in “fear and trembling?” Perkins [588] provides a wonderful explanation that I will simply offer in whole:

The woman’s fear at being discovered suggests the magical view of such healing powers. She might be accused of stealing what belongs to the healer without appropriate supplication (or payment)!213 Other interpreters suggest that her fear stems from the possible accusation of ritual contamination. Purification legislation from Qumran equates women with a flux of blood and males with a genital discharge. After the discharge stops, a seven-day purification period, followed by laundering clothing, is required before those who touch such a person are free from that contamination. Readers know that Jesus was not concerned about the problems of ritual contamination, since he had touched the leper (1:41), and the woman is said to be familiar with Jesus’ reputation. Therefore, ritual impurity does not appear to be the primary focus of Mark’s narrative. Unlike the story of the leper’s healing, Jesus does not instruct the woman to observe the required period of purification.

The exchange between Jesus and the woman removes any suggestion that Jesus’ clothes were endowed with magical power, nor does Jesus condemn her for attempted “theft” of his power. Jesus does not possess a magic force that accounts for his ability to heal. Instead, healing reflects the presence of God’s saving power (Deut 32:39; Isa 35:4–6; 53:4–5; Hos 11:3; Mal 4:1–3),215 and Jesus’ saving and healing presence demonstrates that the kingdom of God is near. The woman’s gesture of pushing through the crowd to touch Jesus’ garment resembles the faith exhibited by those who brought the paralytic to Jesus (2:5a). Jesus points to the woman’s faith as the real agent of healing and pronounces the cure permanent (v. 34).

The fear the woman exhibits as she responds to Jesus’ question stems from her knowledge of what has happened to her (v. 33). In other words, she recognizes the extraordinary divine power possessed by Jesus. Fear and trembling are common responses to the presence of the divine. The disciples were “filled with a great fear” after Jesus calmed the storm (4:41). In that situation, they were accused of having no faith (4:40). Likewise, the Gerasenes were so afraid of Jesus’ powers that they asked him to leave their country (5:15–17). Jesus addresses the woman as “daughter,” suggesting that she now has a personal relationship to Jesus as one of his family (3:35). (Some see his form of addressing her as an indication of the difference in social status between the two, although it appears to narrow the gap exhibited by the woman’s falling at Jesus’ feet.) The term may have been introduced when this story was combined with the cure of Jairus’s daughter (v. 35). It carries more personal overtones than would the term “woman,” which had been used for her in the rest of the story.

Image credit: The Daughter of Jairus (La fille de Zäire), 1886-1896 | James Tissot |  Brooklyn Museum, | PD-US