While He spoke these things to them, behold, a ruler came and worshiped Him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay Your hand on her and she will live.” So Jesus arose and followed him, and so did His disciples. And suddenly, a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind and touched the hem of His garment. For she said to herself, “If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well.” But Jesus turned around, and when He saw her He said, “Be of good cheer, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And the woman was made well from that hour. When Jesus came into the ruler’s house, and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd wailing, He said to them, “Make room, for the girl is not dead, but sleeping.” And they ridiculed Him. But when the crowd was put outside, He went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose. And the report of this went out into all that land.
It is good many times to remind ourselves that we live in a sin-cursed and fallen world, not a perfectly happy one. It is a world filled with sorrow, disease, and ultimately, death. It is a dying world. The constant reminders of sad demises everywhere show us how many people are dying daily. In India, approximately 8,040,000 people die per year, which is about 22,500 per day. Worldwide, about 151,600 people die per day, or about 3 people per second, and 180 per minute. Truly, it is a dying world. Death is inevitable for everyone. Have you ever thought of your own death without a Christian view? How chillingly tragic! Suddenly, everything stops for you. You are cut off from everything. It’s as if the power goes off, and you lose everything—whatever relations, name, wealth, or degrees you have—it is all over. They will put you in a freezer, take you to the ground, and bury you. Now you might be scared of a small worm, cockroach, or frog, but all the worms will eat your body. Think of a person from another religion; what hope do they have? It is such a mystery and a tragedy.
For people living in this dying world, the Gospel promises have two aspects in terms of a timeline: “now” and “not yet.” We should thank God for this. The “now” is the promise Christ has given to those who repent and believe: forgiveness and all the blessings of salvation—deliverance from the dominion and penalty of sin. There is no condemnation or judgment. In the midst of all the suffering and sorrows of this world, God has provided everything spiritually for us to live peaceful and joyful lives. The “now” still has all the many sorrows, physical diseases, illnesses, deformities, and hardships that resulted from the Fall. We as believers go through that as well. However, the Gospel does not end with “now.” The Gospel promises us a day when God will wipe all tears from our eyes, and all sorrow, sickness, and death will completely vanish. That is the “not yet.” That is why we live in hope. Everything is not “now” for us. We live not for the “now” but for the “not yet,” and hence we should not be discouraged by the “now” problems. God expects us to live with the expectation and hope of the “not yet.” That is the grand aspect of the Gospel.
Who will bring that “not yet”? Who can reverse all the diseases, curses, and even death in this world? He is called the Messiah. Is that true? Does he have the credentials and power to do that? Matthew is showing Jesus’s power to do that in chapters 8 and 9, giving us a foretaste of the “not yet” in an orderly way: he healed a leper, a centurion’s servant, Peter’s mother-in-law, calmed a storm, cast out demons, healed a paralytic, forgave sins, and now he is confronting death. His authority is over disease, nature, demons, sin, and death. The miracles of Jesus were the verification of his power to reverse the curse. There is nothing he could not cure. The diseases of the whole of Palestine were wiped out by him. This should make us believe the Gospel and live in hope. This is a foretaste of our future hope. Today you may be suffering from sickness and problems, and even die, but if you trust in the Messiah, he is going to soon change all your suffering into joy. All the dead will hear the voice of the Son of Man one day and rise from their tombs. He is going to change all your sorrow to joy. Momentary affliction is producing a great weight of glory. So let us see his power to do that, and may the Holy Spirit increase our faith in him.
This is a wonderful passage. This is a double miracle, a miracle within a miracle, a play within a play, a movie within a movie. It is the raising of the ruler of the synagogue’s daughter from the dead and the healing of the woman with an issue of blood. This miracle is found in three Gospels. This comes in the same format, one inside another. Matthew, for his purpose, has condensed a lot of information. Mark and Luke give much more detail. Matthew is a fast-forward version; the normal speed is Mark and Luke. Mark 5 has more details.
These are two seemingly different stories, yet if you think carefully about what Matthew and the other Gospels tell us about them, you’ll see that there are some remarkable similarities between them. They both involve females—one a young girl, and the other a grown woman. We see that both of them are called “daughters.” That word has an affectionate feel to it. The man tells Jesus, “My daughter has just died,” and Jesus tells the woman, who was much older, “Be of good cheer, daughter.” We read in Mark’s and Luke’s telling of the story that this poor girl was only twelve years old, but we read that the woman had her ailment for twelve years. In other words, she suffered from her affliction for the same amount of time that this girl lived! Both sufferers were at the end of their ropes. But though both stories involve severe suffering, both stories also give us examples of deep faith. The Holy Spirit has chosen to weave these two stories into one so that we learn a very important lesson.
I cannot cover both miracles today. I want to show you the need and faith of each of them, their applications, and then see the actual miracles they received from Christ next week. First, let us look at the leader, and then the woman with the issue of blood.
The Leader’s Need and Faith
Let us see the leader.
“While He spoke these things to them, behold, a ruler came and worshiped Him, saying, ‘My daughter has just died, but come and lay Your hand on her and she will live.'”
Who is this man? His position and his name are “leader.” What leader? If you look at Mark and Luke, you will see it is Jairus, one of the rulers of the synagogue. The synagogue, of course, was the place where the Jewish people gathered for worship and religious instruction. It started when they were taken into captivity. At this time, it was an important place for the religious life of the Jews, a center for the exposition of the Old Testament and a center for prayer. In any organization, there must be leaders, so we have a leader of the synagogue. He was a man of prominence, known by most of the townspeople. He oversaw the operations of the synagogue of that region, building upkeep, and worship time, and he chose men to read the scriptures, pray, and preach. His name, Jairus, means “Jehovah enlightens.”
“Behold,” Matthew says. This means “look at that.” This is a startling, shocking, amazing, and very remarkable thing. What’s so remarkable? He was the number-one representative of the religious establishment in Capernaum. He’s the chief elder, not in the temple in Jerusalem, but in the synagogue in Capernaum. And here’s the number-one guy. If you know anything about the Gospels, you know that the religious establishment was dead set against Christ. They fought him tooth and nail all the way through his life. He had a lot of peer pressure to be a faithful Jewish traditional religionist, and yet he comes to Jesus.
It is amazing. He doesn’t come hiding in the night like Nicodemus. He comes openly. You might expect him to come and say, “Now, sir, I am the chief elder of the synagogue. I’d like to speak to you. Could we please have a private conversation?” That’s not what he did. He didn’t protect himself at all. It’s amazing. Look at verse 18: “He came and he worshiped Him.” Now that word in the Greek, “to worship,” means to prostrate oneself before someone and either kiss his feet, kiss the hem of his garment, or kiss the ground in front of him. Now this is a heretical person, this Jesus; the Pharisees are after him, and the religious establishment is after him, and this guy does what you only did in that culture to a deity, someone who was divine. A Jew would not do that to any human. Luke tells us that he “fell down at Jesus’ feet.” I think it’s wonderful that Matthew loves to use the word “worship.” He uses it thirteen times because it fits a king, doesn’t it?
This shows his faith. Clearly, he had heard of the things that Jesus had been doing, and his act of homage before Jesus now indicated the kind of conclusion he had come to concerning the things he had heard! Yet I should tell you there was a mingling of faith, superstition, and doubt. He worships, and then Mark says he was beseeching. He pleaded earnestly. He is found beseeching. You need to understand the difference between “ask” and “beseech.” If a man has a dry mouth, he may ask, “Please give me water,” which is a request. But if he has come through several days in the desert and his whole body is dehydrated, his lips are stuck together, and he asks for water with difficulty, “Sir, will you give me water?”—that is the difference between a request and beseeching. This man is falling at the feet of Jesus, and the manner of his request is earnest beseeching. He repeats. He beseeches him much, with earnest, importunate beseeching.
What is the substance of his beseeching? He gives information. Matthew is brief. If you look at Mark and Luke, he says, “My little daughter is at the point of death.” Mark 5:23 says, “My daughter is at the point of death. I pray thee, come and lay your hands on her, and she will get well, and live.” And later on, he was informed that she was dead, and he told Jesus she was dead. Matthew just condenses it all, leaving out some of the preliminaries, and at this point, Matthew just says, “Now she’s dead. My daughter’s dead.” When he refers to the word “daughter,” it is not a regular, standard word, but a very, very intimate word. It is a word filled with affection for his daughter. We don’t have a single word for it in English or Tamil, but it is like “my precious daughter,” “my soulmate daughter.” It is a very intimate word, showing intense affection and warmth. Luke says she was his only begotten daughter. This is the beseeching of a father. Only a father who loves his daughter so much will understand this pain. My precious angel daughter. “Instead of her suffering, I would suffer ten times more. Instead of her dying, I would die.” “I cannot bear to see her suffering; I would rather die and want to do something.” He was ready to do anything. He had come, opposing his entire religious world, work, and name. He had swallowed all his pride and didn’t care about prestige. “I have come for my daughter.” You know, some people become psychiatric patients if they lose a daughter. You speak of mothers being great, but only a father knows the depth of his love for his daughters. People who don’t have a daughter will not understand, especially an only daughter. I know how I felt. I know how it feels when my daughter becomes sick and loses all her weight. She cannot eat for a week, only liquids. Asking her to eat, she cannot even talk or explain her pain but points to the ulcers in her mouth, a mouth full of ulcers. Oh, how terrible it is. What would it have been like for this man? He says, “My precious, sweet, little, dear angel daughter. She is dying.”
Mark says, “she is at a point of death.” She has reached the final stage; she has come to the end. When he left her, all the signs of death were there at the door of his house, and it was just about to stretch its horrible hand and snatch that baby. Her vitals were going down; her body was cold and blue. She was struggling and breathing her last breath. His precious little daughter. “Please come.” He gives the information, then he implores for his help, his intervention. How he must have pleaded! “I pray thee that you come… and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” If you come and touch, two things will happen: there will be a complete reversal of this deadly disease, and life will be restored; she will live. This is great faith. There is a mix of faith, doubt, and superstition. He has not come to the place like the gentile centurion who said, “Say a word, and my servant can be healed,” whose faith was so great. “Lord, you have to come, and when you come, you can reverse that condition like no other man can do. Lay your hands upon her.” Where did he get the idea that Jesus had to lay his hands upon her? Because the Lord was regularly doing it in all his healings. But that was because of his compassion. It was not any magic formula; it was power that came from him. Even his word has that power.
What was Jesus’s response? Jesus arose and followed him. “And he went with him.” This is beautiful in its simplicity. It is just bare text. We have to use our God-given imagination and feeling and realize what happened. What would have happened in Jesus’s mind when he saw the man coming, sweating with tears in his eyes, his face scared, and pleading for his daughter? “She is at the final stage. Oh, come!” He is at his feet. Can you imagine him saying, “All right, let us go,” dealing with a distraught, scared, death-dreading, desperate father in such a cold, detached way? Rather, he would have stooped, placed his hand upon this distraught father, spoken a word of consolation, and said, “Don’t worry, I will come and heal your daughter. I know your pain.” He would have held the man’s shoulder, saying, “Don’t be afraid.” He put his arm around his shoulder, identifying himself with his pain, sympathizing with him, and going to his house. So he goes.
The Woman’s Need
And suddenly, a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind and touched the hem of His garment. For she said to herself, “If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well.”
Let us look at the woman now. Her situation was very desperate as well. Matthew tells us that she had been suffering from a flow of blood for twelve years! Jairus’s daughter was a twelve-year-old girl, and this woman had an issue of blood for twelve years. Jairus’s daughter had been healthy for twelve years and was now sick, but this lady had been sick for twelve years. Basically, for twelve years, this woman could not stop bleeding, perhaps due to a fibroid tumor in her womb. Her condition was something of a uterine hemorrhage—a constant state of bleeding. Generally, this is a private problem. From a Jewish point of view, you couldn’t imagine anything worse than being a woman with an issue of blood. It was shameful and humiliating, perhaps beyond anything except leprosy. The horror of the disease was because of what was stated in Leviticus 15:25: “If a woman has a discharge of blood for many days, not at the time of her period, or if she has a discharge beyond her period, all the days of her unclean discharge shall be as the days of her impurity. She is unclean. Every bed on which she lies during all the days of her discharge shall be to her as the bed of her impurity, and everything on which she sits shall be unclean. And whoever touches these things shall be unclean and shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until evening.”
What Leviticus said was, “This is an unclean woman with an issue of blood. Every bed she touches is unclean. Everything she sits on is unclean. Everything she wears is unclean, and every person who touches her is unclean.” Therefore, she was excommunicated from the synagogue. She was divorced by her husband. She was ostracized from all human relationships. For twelve years, this dear woman lived in utter isolation. She was never able to go to the temple. She was never able to go to the synagogue. She was no longer able to meet with her husband or her family. Imagine being in such a condition for a total of twelve long years. She was a sad lady for twelve long years. For all those long years, she endured the embarrassment, pain, and social outcast status and all the humiliation attached to this malady. She lived in fear and in terrible pain.
The woman had suffered for twelve years, spending all her money on doctors who, instead of helping her, only made her condition worse. This detail highlights a common human experience: the feeling of being hopeless and helpless. She had exhausted all her resources and options. The medical world of her time, much like various man-made solutions today, could not provide the healing she desperately needed. Her condition was not only physically and financially draining but also socially isolating, as her illness made her ritually “unclean.” This is a picture of the lost condition of humanity, a state of spiritual sickness that cannot be cured by human effort or rituals.
The Two Essentials for Salvation
The stories of both the woman and Jairus, the synagogue ruler, demonstrate two crucial components for coming to Christ.
- Desperate Need: Both individuals were in a state of desperation. Jairus’s daughter was dying, and the woman had suffered for twelve years. They had no other recourse. This desperation drove them to abandon social norms and risk everything to reach Jesus. This is the first step toward salvation: recognizing your own profound need and spiritual bankruptcy.
- Faith in Christ: Their desperation was coupled with a deep-seated faith that Jesus had the power to help them. Jairus believed Jesus could heal his daughter, and the woman believed that simply touching the hem of His garment would be enough to cure her. This faith is not just a general belief but a confident assurance in Christ’s ability and willingness to save.
Without these two elements—a profound sense of need and a firm faith in Christ’s power—no one can truly come to Him for salvation. This passage challenges us to examine ourselves and ask if we truly recognize our own spiritual sickness and believe in Jesus’s power to save us.
The Unfailing Compassion of Jesus
The story also beautifully displays the character of Jesus. He is revealed as being accessible and available.
- Accessible: Despite being surrounded and “thronged” by a large crowd, Jesus was not distant. He was in the world of men, walking the dusty roads, teaching in homes, and engaging with people. He was approachable to everyone, from a prominent leader like Jairus to a socially outcast woman.
- Available: Even while on His way to save a dying child, Jesus stopped to attend to the need of a single individual in the crowd. He was not just physically present but fully attentive. His compassion compelled Him to halt His journey and make time for someone society had forgotten. This shows that no one is too insignificant for His attention.
Jesus is the same today. His selfless compassion and proven ability to help those whom no one else can help are still available to anyone who comes to Him in faith. He is never too busy to listen to your needs, no matter how great or small they are.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 