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A Sick Woman and a Dead Girl

Part 1

8th December 2012

Matthew 9v18-26
While he was saying this, a ruler came and knelt before him and said, "My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live."
Jesus got up and went with him, and so did his disciples.
Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, "If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed."
Jesus turned and saw her. "Take heart, daughter," he said, "your faith has healed you." And the woman was healed from that moment.
When Jesus entered the ruler's house and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd, he said, "Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep." But they laughed at him. After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up.
News of this spread through all that region.

Mark and Luke tell us that this "ruler" was a synagogue ruler named Jairus. I expect He was considered by his neighbours to be a respectable member of the community, a decent chap, a godly man. He would have turned up at synagogue every Saturday and led worship. But social position and religious observance are no guarantee that tragedy will not come to us. Jairus came to Jesus to tell Him that his daughter was dead.

If you'd like to hear a short discussion of my understanding of the apparent differences between Matthew's account and those of Mark and Luke, regarding the time of death of Jairus's daughter, you can listen to my sermon on this passage. Go to the Stubbington Baptist Church website, click the "Sermons" tab and play the sermon called "Nothing is impossible".

Jairus, then, was a man of great faith! Many of us pray for God to heal the sick but not many of us, in the UK anyway, pray for God to raise the dead. Jairus's experience shows us that faith, too, is no guarantee that tragedy will not come to us. But faith does take us to God, to seek His power and love in our tragedy. Jairus said to Jesus, "My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live".

The Bible, in this passage and elsewhere, tells us that God has power to raise the dead, and that sometimes He does precisely that. I'm sure it happens, but I've never seen it. If you have evidence of God raising the dead in our day, I'd like very much to hear from you.

Jesus got us and went with Jairus to visit his home and raise his daughter from the dead. And His disciples went with Him. And, according to Mark, so did a large crowd of other people. If I'd been there, I'd have been in the crowd! If I'd heard that Jesus was going to raise the dead, I'd have wanted to see it! (And, perhaps for others, If Jesus was going to fail, they'd want to see that). And anyway, it was Jairus's daughter. He was such a good man and it would be wonderful if his dear little daughter could be saved (or, perhaps for others, Jairus was such a religious man - many in western society in our generation considers religious people to be bad people - deluded bigots - and perhaps some in Jesus's day thought so, too. Maybe they hoped to prove to him how useless his faith was).

But on the way to Jairus's house, a woman stopped the procession. She also had a need, and Jesus attended to her need. She was right at the opposite end of the social spectrum to Jairus. Jairus was the leader of the synagogue, a pillar of society. This woman was unclean (according to the law set down in Leviticus) and anything she touched became unclean. She wasn't even allowed in the synagogue. But they were equally important to Jesus.

Are you important to Jesus? You bet you are!

More on this next week.