Luke 8:40-56 Life & health from death & disease

Luke 8:40-42, 49-56 Jesus raises Jairus' daughter from the dead. Parallel passages in Matt 9 and Mark 5. In this story, which is told in two parts. At the beginning, the daughter is reported as being ill and dying. While Jesus is on the way, He is distracted by another need, discussed below. By the time this matter had been completed, word comes to Jairus that it is too late, his daughter had died.

         Is there a lesson in this? Sometimes, when the work of the ministry thrusts itself into our life with such obvious priority that it cannot be ignored, something else is postponed or put on the back burner, even though it is possibly just as important. The tyranny of the urgent over the important. (Possibly we might think preventing death would be a higher priority than healing a hemorrhage.) But God is sovereign and Jesus was able to deal with this as well. In fact, it is possible that this gave Him an opportunity to display greater glory by raising Jairus' daughter from the dead. And a very similar thing happened in the case of Lazarus, when word reached Jesus that he was sick. He waited two days longer before going to see him. (John 11:6) When he got there he finds that Lazarus has been in the tomb four days. So even if He had set off immediately for Judea, Lazarus would have been in the tomb two days already by the time Jesus got there. Minor point. It seems in that case like Jesus deliberately procrastinated. In this case, ministry to the woman took front stage. But Jesus was able to overcome even death.

Luke 8:43-48 A woman with a hemorrhage for 12 years is healed by touching the fringe of Jesus' garment. Parallel passages in Matt 9:20-22, Mark 5:25-34. Perhaps John the Baptist's references to Malachi (Matt 3:10-12, Luke 3:17) inspired this woman to believe that Malachi 4:2 was also being fulfilled. Certainly there had been enough healings by Jesus to raise that possibility. Her belief that she only needed to touch His garment, not even actually have Him say anything or touch her Himself, in order to be healed, was not previously recorded. Later on we will see that people had so much faith in the apostles' ministry of healing that they would lay down so that Peter's shadow would fall on them when he walked by (Acts 5:15), or people would take handkerchiefs from Paul to sick people and they would be healed or demons would be cast out (Acts 19:11-12). There seems to be a complex spiritual interaction between the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon a ministry and the faith of those who come to that person for healing or deliverance. Both are required, not necessarily words or actions, but the condition of the heart and soul that seems to be the key ingredient. And God is sovereign, so no simple formula can be given. Another key ingredient is clearly that glory and honor belong to Jesus as a result of the miracle. But Jesus said in this case, woman, your faith has saved you. The other elements were implicit.