Asick Woman And Adead Girl
A SICK WOMAN AND A DEAD GIRL
LUKE 8:40-56
What do these miracles teach us about the need for faith and the way it should be shown?
The little ship came back across the lake, perhaps to Tiberias, which lies half-way down the western shore. Here Jairus sought his help, and the Lord began to make his way through the thronging streets, and the crowds who were glad to see him return. There is a strong, vivid verb in 8:42. The multitude “were suffocating him,” it says.
It was a desperate situation. The little girl was dying, and the desperation of Jairus can be imagined, as the party made its slow progress along the packed street.
And then came fatal interruption. The woman with the humiliating and long-standing blemish in her body surreptitiously touched his garment. God met her, as God will, on the level of her faith, and she was healed. Then came the message which Jairus dreaded. It was too late. The child was dead. The cruel delay which had ended thus fatally must have been hard to bear. What was the woman’s burden compared with the life of a loved child? Jairus faced the uttermost of temptation. But as with the Bethany family, the Lord’s delay was purposeful (John 11:4,6). He wished to give Jairus not less, but more, than he asked, not a little one restored, but one brought back from the dead, and a deep lesson which would color all life and faith. God is never too late, and Jairus learned that in the room of death.
It is still true, or our faith is vain. He does not cancel today the law of death, but what is death as God sees it? He still appears to time-bound man to linger and tarry, but it is in order to strengthen the fibers of our faith, to give understanding which we might otherwise lack, to purge and ennoble our prayers. And yet he does not forbid the prayer: “Lord, make haste to save us.”
Notes 8:42: “one only daughter”—Luke notes this detail; cf. 7:12; 9:38. 8:43: a literal interpretation of Leviticus 15 would make her an outcast always, and Pharisaic severity would no doubt strengthen the prohibitions against her. Mark 5:26 adds a satiric comment on physicians, which Dr Luke omits; inspiration does not obliterate personality (similarly Luke omits the rebuke of Matthew 8:26). 8:44: “ceased,” “stanched,” a medical term.