Background: Mark 5:21 - 34.
THE SETTING – A PRISON CELL IN ROME, 64 A.D.
Oh…hi…good
morning. Didn’t see you there…kinda
daydreaming. Not really daydreaming per
se, more like recollecting…remembering.
What
are you in here for? Quite the group of
you. Have you already been to trial or
are you awaiting an appearance before the Roman magistrate?
Oh…sorry…I
didn’t introduce myself, I’m Nathan ben Eleazar…a Jew from Capernaum in
Galilee. Today’s my big day…and I was
just recollecting about another big day…that day 31 years ago…long before Nero
was emperor…31 years ago…on that crowd-laden dusty road between Capernaum and
Chorazin.
I
was with my Aunt Ruth that day, my poor aunt Ruth…at least I thought of her as
my poor aunt Ruth before that day…but not after.
Ruth
is my mother’s sister…as a matter of fact she’s in a cell just down this
corridor…but that’s another matter…of course this is her big day too…this is a
big day for both of us…but back to that dust-filled choking road…
My
Mom died when I was three years old of something I think you call
influenza. Shortly after that my father
was killed by robbers as he was transporting bundles of linen and wool from
Jerusalem down to Jericho. That left me
an orphan at almost 4 years old. I have
vague memories of my parents, shadows if you will…aunt Ruth has done her best
to keep the memories alive…and in fact to give me many more as she tells me
about my parents and their young lives before their untimely deaths.
Aunt
Ruth took me into her home and raised me like her own son. Did I mention that Ruth is a widow? Her husband also died young in a shipping
accident…leaving her a childless widow. So she was a widow without children and
I was a child without parents…and she took me in…and loved me and raised me.
Then,
when I was 16 years old, Aunt Ruth got sick.
At first I didn’t notice much about the sickness. Her skin began to pale, her energy decline…at
the end of each workday – aunt Ruth made her living by dyeing linen and wool
for weavers and tailors – she was exhausted.
She began going to bed earlier than usual…her smile wasn’t as quick to
show as in the past…I knew something was wrong but didn’t know what…
When
I began to question her about her health she’d put me off by saying, “Oh, it’s
nothing. It will be better soon.” But it didn’t…it didn’t get better. In fact it got a good deal worse. There were days when she couldn’t work all
day…and an occasional day when she had to stay home.
I
kept after her to see a physician, but again she’d put me off by saying, “Oh,
it will get better.”
Now
we weren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination, but we weren’t poor…at least
in the beginning of her sickness. In
fact our life was somewhat comfortable.
The business of dyeing linen and wool isn’t a bad living as long as you
meet your quotas with the tailors and weavers.
I had learned the trade from aunt Ruth and we were doing pretty well
financially.
One
afternoon as I was sitting with the young men of the town sipping wine…it was
our afternoon break from work…little Joseph ben Levi ran up to me yelling,
“Ruth has fallen ill, Ruth has fallen ill, come quickly!!!”
Aunt
Ruth had fainted, passed out, in our little dye shop, hit her head on one of
the dye soaking bins and was unconscious and bleeding from her head. We got her home, put her to bed, and called a
physician.
After
examining her, the physician left her sleeping area in our little home and came
into the living room, he told me that Ruth was awake and that her head wound
was only superficial…but then he told me that she was weak from loss of
blood…loss of blood not from the head wound, but loss of blood due to something
he called “a condition peculiar to the female sex,” and that he could do
nothing to help her.
Our
lives changed that day…
My
heart was broken and filled with fear for my aunt Ruth. I had lost my father and mother and now there
was the threat of losing my precious aunt.
I embarked on a mission to find a physician who could cure her illness.
The
weeks, months and years that followed are somewhat of a blur…a collage of work,
physicians, dwindling money, anxiety, fear, more work, more physicians, less
and less money, hopelessness, despair.
Ruth
worked some days…seldom all day…struggling with me to keep our bills paid and
our business running…but I insisted on spending whatever need be on a
cure. And so I contacted physician after
physician in our area…and they…they virtually all came…and examined Ruth…and
took our money…and said…they all said…that Aunt Ruth had, “a condition peculiar
to the female sex,” and that there was nothing they could do.
Year
after year went by…and I saw my brave aunt’s health continue to
deteriorate. She was stubborn and
determined, and loving and tender…but sheer willpower could only help her get
from day-to-day, it could not heal her.
Early
in the twelfth year of her affliction I determined to make one last attempt to
fine someone who could cure her. Our
business was struggling, for at this point Ruth could hardly work 3 or 4 hours
a day, and while I was working and doing the best I could…our money was going
to doctors and I couldn’t afford to pay someone to assist me in the business…I
was falling behind in our contracts and was losing customers.
At
any rate…I had heard of the wonderful physicians there were in Egypt…and I
heard that one of their esteemed physicians had come to Chorazin to set up
practice. I thought that surely this was
our opportunity…perhaps our last opportunity…for a cure. I knew it would be expensive, it might take
all we had…but we had to try…we just had to try.
Oh,
I know what you’re thinking…you’re wondering how we, as Jews, could possibly go
to an unclean Egyptian doctor. Well,
it’s not as if the doctor was the only one who was unclean…for please
remember…that because my aunt Ruth had this perpetual bleeding due to “a
condition peculiar to the female sex”…that my aunt Ruth was unclean as well…and
that since I lived with my aunt, and touched her in my care for her…that I was
also unclean.
Yes,
for twelve years she…that is we…even since that day when she fainted in our
workshop and that first physician had diagnosed her…ever since then…we had been
unclean…she because of her condition and me because of my association with her.
We
could not go into other peoples’ homes, they could not come into ours, we could
not touch others…we could not even go to the synagogue on the Sabbath…we were
unclean…my aunt Ruth and I, Nathan ben Eleazar…were unclean. I could touch her and she could touch me…but
no one else would touch us. Twelve years
without being touched by other people…twelve long isolated years.
And
so, in the twelfth year of her sickness, of her being in “a condition peculiar
to the female sex”…in that year…we took the last money we had…down to our last
penny…and went to Chorazin to see the Egyptian doctor.
When I had made an
initial trip to first consult with him he gave me hope, he indicated that he
had cured many female conditions, that he had prescriptions for cures of all
kinds and that surely he could help my aunt Ruth…and so we took our last bit of
money, money that we had been hoarding…and we went.
While
Ruth was in the examining room I prayed to the God of my fathers, the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in my heart I called out to Him for mercy, mercy on
my aunt Ruth…and I tried to believe, I tried to believe that He would finally
heal my poor poor aunt.
And
then the door opened and my aunt Ruth and the Egyptian doctor came out…and I
head these words from the doctor, “Your aunt has a condition peculiar to the
female sex and I do not have a cure for it.”
Putting
my arm around my aunt I led her out of the office for the long walk home. No money, a failing business, little food in
the pantry, broken hearts…and no hope.
to be continued...
