NOW WHEN JESUS returned, a crowd welcomed him, for they were all expecting him. 41Then a man named Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, came and fell at Jesus’ feet, pleading with him to come to his house 42because his only daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying.
As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. 43And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. 44She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.
45“Who touched me?” Jesus asked.
When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.”
46But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”
47Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. 48Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”
49While Jesus was still speaking, someone came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue ruler. “Your daughter is dead,” he said. “Don’t bother the teacher any more.”
50Hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed.”
51When he arrived at the house of Jairus, he did not let anyone go in with him except Peter, John and James, and the child’s father and mother. 52Meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning for her. “Stop wailing,” Jesus said. “She is not dead but asleep.”
53They laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. 54But he took her by the hand and said, “My child, get up!” 55Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up. Then Jesus told them to give her something to eat. 56Her parents were astonished, but he ordered them not to tell anyone what had happened.
Original Meaning
THE LAST MIRACLE in the Luke 8 sequence is the only intertwined miracle in the Gospels.1 In one brief succession of events Jesus deals with both disease and death. These two miracles are related in detail so that the drama of the combination can be fully evident. As with the other miracles, the emphasis is on the authority of Jesus. However, the combination also raises another theme, faith. Both the woman and Jairus reflect different aspects of growing in faith.
The opening scene is rather poignant. Jesus finds himself in the midst of a crowd, which has been expectantly waiting for him. Among them stands a synagogue ruler, Jairus—a man in charge of arranging the service and the progress of worship.2 Everyone knows him. As Jesus approaches, the leader falls before Jesus and asks him to come to his house where his only daughter, a twelve-year-old, is near death. We are not told the nature of her malady, only that there is not much time.3 To rescue her requires quick action.
Jesus starts heading for his house, but along the way, another person also needs Jesus. A woman, who has suffered from a flow of blood for twelve years wants Jesus to heal her. This condition is not only frustrating; it also renders her constantly ceremonially unclean, isolating her from Jewish religious life. Even physicians have failed to help her. Understandably, she does not want a public spectacle; all she wants is to touch Jesus, an act she hopes will bring healing. Getting herself into position, she touches him as he walks by, and immediately she is healed. This is not an act of magic, since no incantations or potions are involved.4 She simply believes that Jesus possesses great power.
There is no obvious need for what happens next to take place, but Jesus’ next action puts Jairus in an awkward position. Jesus stops to find out what has just happened. He turns to the vast throng of the pressing crowd and asks, “Who touched me?” Needless to say, Peter is shocked. How can Jesus ask such a question in the press of a crowd where all are trying to get in contact with Jesus? Jesus persists. He is conscious of the fact that power has proceeded from him. The touch he asks about is not just a physical touch but a touch that pleaded for help and found it. The silent faith of the woman needs exposure.
The woman realizes that Jesus knows what she has done. She is no longer hidden. So with great fear, she comes forward, revealing the reasonableness of Jesus’ seemingly strange question. She falls before him and relates her story. Jesus commends her, noting that her faith has saved her. This remark is significant, because sometimes this woman is maligned for her “behind the back” approach to Jesus. But there is nothing in Jesus’ treatment of her that indicates rebuke. What the woman needs is reassurance and confidence that her actions need not remain secretive. As one commentator puts it, her “smoldering wick” of faith needs fanning into a flame.5 Given the opportunity, she summons up her courage and gives her testimony to her now enhanced faith.
One can only imagine the desperate frustration Jairus feels as this delay, orchestrated by Jesus’ question, proceeds. Then things get worse. Someone from Jairus’s house appears to tell him it is too late and that Jesus need not be troubled. His daughter has just passed away. I suspect with this announcement that pain, disappointment, and anger flooded Jairus’s soul. But Jesus relates words of comfort to the synagogue ruler, telling him not to fear but to believe. Whereas the woman’s faith needed bolstering because it was shy, Jairus’s faith needs to be calmed, persistent, and trusting.
When Jesus gets to the house, he allows only the family, Peter, John, and James to enter in the room where the corpse is lying. Outside, the mourners have gathered. They are only called after it is clear that death has taken place.6 In the midst of community sorrow, Jesus calls on them to stop, for the girl “is not dead but asleep.” The agent of God will move to reveal the extent of his power over forces that reveal the mortality of humanity.
The crowd laughs. Surely one cannot resuscitate someone from the dead. We often regard the ancients as gullible, but the reaction here shows they can be as empirically based as most moderns. What Jesus proposes is ludicrous, unless.… Once inside, he grasps the girl’s hand and tells her to get up. There are no potions or incantations, no appeals to outside powers. There is only the touching hand of Jesus. The girl sits up, her spirit revived within her. Someone immediately gives her food. Her parents are amazed. The call to faith that Jesus made to Jairus has now received its answer.
The account closes with Jesus’s instruction to say nothing about what had happened. This is an odd command, for obviously by the girl’s walking the streets again, everyone will know what Jesus has done. Jesus’ point seems to be that he does not want undue attention brought to what he has done. To broadcast this healing far and wide will turn him into a wonder-worker, with all the public attention focused on that ministry. Jesus wants the attention elsewhere, on his central teaching, and will have nothing to do with the promotion of actions that place the emphasis in the wrong place (see 4:41; 5:14). The miracles point to more fundamental realities. Jesus wants to major on the major issues.
Bridging Contexts
AS WITH ALL the miracles, a fundamental point that crosses into our era is linked to the authority of Jesus. His power over disease and death shows his sovereignty over life itself, not just in terms of physical life, but in terms of life in all of its facets. This sovereignty is fundamental to the Christian hope, since life after death represents a basic characteristic of the Christian’s expectation. The raising of Jairus’s daughter, which called for great faith, reminds us of the faith we must have in God’s power to bring us to him after we die. Standing at the center of that meeting, waiting to lift us up if we turn to him, is Jesus.
There are also fundamental lessons about faith and God’s timing in this passage. We have already noted how different aspects of faith are illustrated by the woman and by Jairus. She was asked to bring her faith out of its shell; he was called on to have a faith that hangs in there. Both characteristics are important qualities of faith. What is even more enlightening is the juxtaposition of the two. Certainly as Jairus watched his daughter’s life slip away while Jesus dealt with a more minor problem that was not an emergency, he must have experienced a high level of frustration. We often struggle to understand God’s timing. In fact, much of faith is related to accepting God’s timing for events.
Contemporary Significance
IT IS OFTEN the case that what we think God ought to do right now, God chooses to act on later, while what we would put off, he chooses to handle right away. In a sense the juxtaposition of these two miracles is an exercise in time management, where everything is turned upside down. The critical life-and-death situation must wait for a healing and testimony that could have been done under less testing circumstances. Part of the faith that Jairus is called to exercise not only needed to believe that God could deal with his recently deceased daughter, but also had to rest in the trauma that the seeming delay had created. Ultimately, trusting in God’s care means accepting his timing for events.
There have often been times in my life when I wish I had a seat in the council of heaven to make my case for the superiority of a timing of events that I would have preferred but that God had not delivered. What is amazing is how often, upon reflection and given the perspective of a longer range of events, the sequence God brought to pass in my life made much better sense than what I would have lobbied for.
The testimony of the previously timid woman is also instructive. She is asked to testify to an embarrassing situation and how God healed it. Not only was it unusual for a woman to speak in public in this culture, but the nature of her problem made it even more difficult. Yet when Jesus called for her to step forward, she spoke. The text is clear that she “came trembling” as she did so. It can be frightening to speak up for the Lord sometimes, but this woman found the strength by God’s grace to overcome her fears and to tell the story of what Jesus had done for her. A timid faith can become a testifying faith. God longs for us to share how he has been good to us.
The most fundamental lesson in this passage is the combination of characteristics tied to faith. Faith should seize the initiative to act in dependence on God and speak about him, yet sometimes it must be patient. In one sense faith is full speed ahead, while in another it is waiting on the Lord. Our lives require a vibrant faith applied to the affairs of life, but it also requires a patient waiting on the Lord, for the Father does know best.