Luke 8:40-56
I want to start today by talking about time. We in our culture are very aware of time; perhaps only Japan is more obsessed with time than we are. One way you can see how different cultures reflect on time is by seeing what they mean by “officially” or “offensively” late when it comes to coming to a meeting or gathering. For many parts of the world, a few hours late can be acceptable. In America, I think it is more like 10-15 minutes when it comes to business meetings, perhaps even less.
Speaking of being late, perhaps some of you have had an experience similar to mine when traveling by airplane. Your travel requires two or more separate flights, and your schedule shows a one-hour layover at the connecting airport. You check at the airport, and it shows that your first flight shows an on-time arrival. So far, so good. But as you get to within a few minutes of when your flight is to take off, you notice the plane isn’t at the gate yet. Of course, they don’t update the information on the TV screens at the gate. It turns out that the flight arrives right when you were to take off. They announce that they will try to get everyone on the plane as quickly as they can and don’t expect any significant delays. “Good,” you think. But by the time they close the flight door, you are already 20 minutes late. Your flight seems somewhat slow in leaving the gate, but you aren’t really paying attention. But you do start paying attention when it seems like you have been waiting in line behind other planes for a very long time.
Finally your flight gets into the air, a full 45 minutes later than what your ticket said was the departure time. The captain announces on the intercom that they will make up time in the air, and you should only be 20 minutes late. “Great,” you think. Forty minutes is a tight connection, but you will walk really fast and should be able to make your connecting flight on time. You don’t pay any more attention to the flight until hours later you notice that the flight seems to be circling the airport. You look at your watch and see you are already 15 minutes late. Now you start to get nervous. Finally, they announce they are on final descent but you are now 30 minutes late. You think, “If they can just get down really quickly, I’ll still have about 20 minutes.” But final descent takes longer than you would think, and you are on the ground with 18 minutes until your next flight was to take off. It seems to take forever to get to the gate – when they finally shut the engine off you only have 13 minutes. You feel sweaty now – your body is primed for a mad dash through the airport. But you are in the back of the plane and have to wait for everyone else to get off first. When you leave the plane there are only 7 minutes and 30 seconds remaining. (Notice how your observation of time becomes more and more precise?) With a quick glance at the computer screens – it shows your next flight says “on time” – you run as quickly as you reasonably can, dodging left and right, hoping and praying that you will catch your connecting flight. At this point you don’t want to slow down to look at your watch – you don’t really want to know anymore – but you can’t help noticing a digital clock on your way that shows it is 47 seconds until your flight is to take off. “I can’t make it,” you think, imagining the headaches associated with missing your flight – perhaps you won’t even make your destination until tomorrow. Breathing in gasps, feeling completely sweaty, you come to the gate and … do you want the good ending or the bad ending? (1) You discover that although the TV screens say “on time,” they haven’t begun boarding yet, and indeed, the plane isn’t even at the gate yet! (2) You find that although you are only 3 minutes and 27 seconds late, they have finished boarding. The plane is still there – you see it, but they won’t let you on because they have closed the doors. Either way, when you finally get to your destination, you wonder why air travel seems to make you so sore and tired.
I tell you this story because I think it captures emotions that had to be present in the story we will read today. Our passage begins with Luke 8:40.
Now when Jesus returned, a crowd welcomed Him, for they were all expecting Him. Then a man named Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, came and fell at Jesus' feet, pleading with Him to come to his house because his only daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying. – Luke 8:40-42
Where did Jesus return from? He returned with his disciples from their grand sailing adventure. This was the adventure we talked about two weeks ago that included the ferocious storm and Jesus’ sudden and complete control and calming of the storm and wind and waves. And this was the adventure we talked about last week that included the ferocious man who was infested with thousands of demons and Jesus’ complete control over these demons, sending them into pigs which then stampeded to their deaths by drowning. And so not only did Jesus calm a ferocious storm, He also calmed a ferocious man, who was immediately eager to follow Jesus wherever He went. The townspeople, however, were consumed with fear and demanded that Jesus and His disciples leave. They did leave, and Jesus instructed the man to stay and share what Jesus had done for Him.
And so, straight from these incredible adventures, which had to be pretty overwhelming for the disciples, they went right into another adventure. Some townspeople waited presumably at the shore for hours, watching for Jesus, and when they saw His boat, probably shouted, “There He is! It’s Jesus! He’s come back!” And immediately a huge crowd started to form, people who wanted healing, people who had questions for Him, people who just wanted to see some kind of miracle, and people who came simply because there was a commotion.
And a man who had managed to get to the front of the crowd wasted no time and, literally, fell at Jesus feet. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I have ever fallen at someone’s feet. Even when guys ask their gals to marry them, they normally just go down on one knee. So why did this man, Jairus, do this? It had to be because he felt desperate. Here is a man who has been on a mission – a mission much more serious than trying to catch your connecting flight – a mission to save the life of his daughter, his only daughter.
Can you imagine the events that led up to this moment? Notice that he is a ruler of the synagogue – an important man who knows the priests and other important people. His daughter becomes ill, and it progresses to where it is obviously a serious illness. He tries the local physicians, but nothing they do helps. He prays to God, but she is still sick and getting worse. He makes sacrifices at the temple, but still she is getting worse. He is becoming desperate. He is running out of time. It seems that her daughter has an appointment with death, but he won’t allow himself to consider this. And then he hears about Jesus – all the miracles He has done – the miraculous healings, again and again, in town after town. And now Jesus is here! Perhaps when he first inquires, he learns that Jesus is away with his disciples on a boat trip. But now, Jesus is here! Determined he gets right to the front of the crowd. The whole time, he has had a growing sense of dread, of urgency. Time is running out! And now is the chance! His emotions that he has kept bundled up inside him for a long time suddenly overwhelm him, and he drops to the ground, and he begs Jesus to come to his house to save his precious daughter.
In Mark 5:23, the words of Jairus are recorded: "My little daughter is dying. Please come and put Your hands on her so that she will be healed and live!" There is no question that Jairus knows how serious this is. There is no question that he knows it is a matter of life and death.
As Jesus was on His way, the crowds almost crushed Him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind Him and touched the edge of His cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. – Luke 8:42-44
And so Jesus agrees to help Jairus, and begins to go with him to his house. But the crowds are huge, and oppressive. Can you imagine people pressing in, saying, “What about me?” “Hey, He’s leaving!” “Follow Him!” “This way!” And if you have read about some of the tragic accidents at rock concerts, you know that people really can be crushed, and even killed, when a large crowd presses forward and there is nowhere to go. It is interesting that the Greek word for crush is the same word used in the parable of the soils when the thorns are described as choking out the plants.
Imagine how it feels to be Jairus. Because of the crowds, the going is slow, and Jairus no doubt wishes they could go more quickly. He knows that with his daughter, every moment counts.
And in the midst of this craziness, a woman comes. She has endured nonstop uterine bleeding (for that is what the Greek words mean) for twelve years. According to the parallel passage in Mark, “She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.” (Mark 5:26) Imagine what the past 12 years have been like. Going to doctor after doctor, paying bill after bill, trying treatment after treatment, and yet nothing improves. Indeed it became worse and worse. Now, she is broke. She doesn’t go to doctors any more, because she has no more money and because she has no more hope that they can help. Note that even today, doctors often cannot solve this problem except with a hysterectomy. That, of course, was not an option back then.
But not only did she have this significant medical problem, she also had the problem that according to Old Testament Law, women were ceremonially unclean while having uterine bleeding. This is described and explained in Lev. 15:25-27. Not only was she ceremonially unclean, so was her bed, and so was anything she sat upon. Anyone who even sat where she had sit would also become ceremonially unclean and would have to wash his clothes and bathe himself, and he would be ceremonially unclean until that evening.
So people who knew this woman would probably shun her. She could either try to hide her condition, risking severe punishment if she were found out, or she could abide by the Law, which would prevent her from participating in almost any public activity, including attending services at the synagogue.
It is interesting to compare Jairus and this woman. Both are determined. Both are, to varying degrees, desperate. But it is about there that the similarities end. Jairus is well-respected, a temple leader. Probably he as also well off financially, because of his position. From a worldly point of view, it made sense that Jesus chose to help him over others. The woman, first of all, is a woman. Women did not command respect in that culture; they were to mind their own business and keep out of the way. In many events, we see Jesus really break with tradition by giving undivided attention and total respect to women. In addition, this woman was poor, moneyless; quite a contrast to Jairus.
But on top of all this, this woman was also unclean. A general principle of the Law back then is that the unclean do not touch other people; to do so would be to make them unclean. By choosing to touch Jesus, she chose to violate this law and she chose to risk making Jesus unclean.
In the passage in Mark, it expands on her thoughts. “If I just touch His clothes, I will be healed.” (Mark 5:28) She had a lot of faith to think this. It reminds me of the centurion we read about a number of weeks ago who said, “Just say the word, and I know that the healing will happen.”
Note that she doesn’t want to ask Him in public, probably because she doesn’t want to admit her condition in public. Besides, she may have thought, “why would He want to help me? He might even rebuke me for getting in a crowd like this while being unclean. And even if He didn’t rebuke me, no doubt the crowds would.”
It says she followed after Jesus, and then she touched His cloak. What happened next? I like to think of it this way – what should have happened is that she touched Him and made Him unclean. But Jesus could not be made unclean. Jesus is the perfect, sinless, Lamb of God. Uncleanness can not reside in Him in any way. And so, instead of the woman making Jesus unclean, Jesus made the woman instantly clean! She was totally healed! Twelve years of bleeding put to a permanent end. I believe that not only did the bleeding stop, but whatever caused the bleeding to occur was healed as well. And according to the passage in Mark, she immediately knew it. “Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.” (Mark 5:29) Perhaps she had previously been quite anemic, and always felt fatigued. Suddenly she had more energy than she had felt in twelve years. Or perhaps she felt something like a shock of energy flow through her body.
Note that in this crowd, tons of people were pressing around Jesus, bumping into Him, touching His clothes, etc., but only this woman was healed. She had faith, and God answered her faith that day.
"Who touched Me?" Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, "Master, the people are crowding and pressing against You." But Jesus said, "Someone touched Me; I know that power has gone out from Me." – Luke 8:45-46
From the passage in Mark, we know that Jesus turned around to address the crowd. In other words, the procession stopped. Let’s turn back to Jairus for a moment. He is now forced to endure a delay. We don’t know what he was thinking; we don’t know if he became impatient, but it was true that they weren’t getting any closer to his dying daughter.
This reminds me of some instances in our home where something bad has been done, like writing on a wall, and I ask “Who did it?” Silence. Looking at the ceiling. Fidgeting. But no answer. Similarly, here, Jesus stops and asks, “Who touched Me?” “Not me.” “Me neither.” Perhaps a hush comes on the crowd. And then Peter, understandably, says, in effect, “What are you talking about? A zillion people have touched You! We’re in this giant crowd being crushed!”
But Jesus replies that He means a different kind of touch – a touch with the faith and intent to be healed. Not only does the woman know she is healed, so does Jesus. An interesting question is whether Jesus knew the answer to His question. Perhaps He did. If so, this reminds me of Genesis when God asks Adam, “Where are you, Adam?” The purpose of the question is not to learn information, but to encourage a confession.
Then 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. Then He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace." – Luke 8:47-48
This had to be difficult for this woman to do. In front of this crowd she had to confess that she deliberately touched Jesus and was a part of this closely pressed-in crowd even though she was unclean. And her uncleanness was of an extremely personal nature. She too, like Jairus earlier, falls at Jesus’ feet. And then she confesses all.
How does Jesus address her? Does He condemn her? What word does He use? Daughter. This is not a word of condemnation but of acceptance, of tenderness. And He has declared her clean. I think His answer also makes it clear that this wasn’t about magic, but about faith. Her faith had healed her. Not her faith in clothing, but her faith in Jesus.
How did Jairus feel watching this all take place? We aren’t told, but I imagine He was encouraged – after all, here was firsthand proof that Jesus could do miraculous healings. If He could just hurry up and get to his house…
While 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." Hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus, "Don't be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed." – Luke 8:49-50
Let’s take these packed verses one at a time. First this person came from Jairus’ house and said “Your daughter is dead. Don’t bother the teacher any more.” Wow! This guy does not have the gift of showing mercy!
But perhaps I am being a little too harsh on this guy. There is a Biblical precedent for this attitude: David. After David had sinned with Bathsheba and the prophet Nathan had confronted David over his sin, David and Bathsheba’s child became terribly ill. The story continues in 2 Samuel 12.
David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and went into his house and spent the nights lying on the ground. The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused, and he would not eat any food with them. On the seventh day the child died. David's servants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they thought, "While the child was still living, we spoke to David but he would not listen to us. How can we tell him the child is dead? He may do something desperate." David noticed that his servants were whispering among themselves and he realized the child was dead. "Is the child dead?" he asked. "Yes," they replied, "he is dead." Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate. His servants asked him, "Why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!" He answered, "While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, 'Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.' But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me." – 2 Sam. 12:16-23
So what we saw in David was a pragmatism based on the assumption that dead is dead. Once somebody is dead, don’t bother God any more. And so this man from Jairus’ house has a similar mindset – your daughter is dead, so don’t bother Jesus any more. Dead is dead.
I see two real problems with this man’s attitude. First of all, dead is not necessarily dead! As we shall see! But the second problem I have generalizes to us as well: sometimes we may be tempted to think that our prayers are a bother to God. Our family some time ago watched an episode of Little House on the Prairie, and Laura was asking some big questions about why God didn’t seem to answer her prayers. A number of people gave very wrong and very damaging answers along the line of “Well, God is very busy, you know, holding the universe together. You can’t expect Him to hear everything.” And “You have to be close to God if you want God to hear you.” Laura takes this literally and goes off by herself to a mountaintop to be closer to God.
Do we think just like this? Probably not. But we can think variations of it, like “God, I cannot even come to you – I know you are angry with me, because I keep falling into sin.” Or “God, how can I even ask you to help me with this sin area again? You have heard me ask a hundred times.” It’s not exactly the same context, but a message can begin to run in the back of our minds: “Don’t bother Him any more.”
But does God see our prayers as a burden? Does He grow tired of us? Does our coming again to Him asking for help make Him angry? No! No! No!
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. – Hebrews 4:14-16
God is eager to show mercy to us. He is eager to give us grace. He is eager to help us. Always. We can never be a “bother” to Him. That idea is straight from the pit of hell. Don’t entertain it, even for a moment.
And what is Jesus’ answer to Jairus? Here is the passage again.
While 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." Hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus, "Don't be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed." – Luke 8:49-50
I love this response. In the case of the woman with bleeding, she had strong faith. In contrast, Jairus’ faith, understandably, begins to falter. I would say it takes a greater faith to believe God will bring a dead person back to life than to believe that God will heal someone. At least I would say that was true then. Again, keeping in mind the story of David, dead is dead.
What was it like to be Jairus through all this? Talk about a roller coaster ride! In a few seconds he went from hope to despair to… what? Is Jesus asking the impossible? “Just” believe? Believe in the impossible? Yes! Miraculous healings and coming back from the dead are equally impossible. But with God, nothing is impossible. I love Jesus’ response because on one hand He calls on Jairus to have faith, but on the other, He boosts his faith. When someone says, “just believe, and she will be healed,” that is a tremendous faith-booster.
The same is true for us – on one hand, Jesus calls on us to have faith in Him, but on the other, He boosts our faith – through reading His Word, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and through the encouragement of other believers. I find it so encouraging to remember that even our faith is something that is something that is nurtured and grown by God.
When 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. Meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning for her. "Stop wailing," Jesus said. "She is not dead but asleep." – Luke 8:51-52
Notice that by excluding others with Him except Peter, John, James, and the girl’s parents, He was basically excluding people with no faith. Still, they had to go past all the people wailing and mourning for her. We have talked about funerals at the time of Jesus in past messages from Luke. To be a good neighbor meant to wail at the top of your lungs when your neighbor had a death in the family. I mentioned that people even hired professional mourners to make an even louder noise. Flutes were also played – the parallel account in Matthew 9 mentions that flute players were here already.
Now why does Jesus say “She is not dead but asleep”? I don’t want to disagree with Jesus, but she is dead. You can also call her asleep if you want, but she is dead. What I think He meant is that dead is not dead. Dead means hopeless, impossible, unchangeable. But this situation was none of these things.
They laughed at Him, knowing that she was dead. But He took her by the hand and said, "My child, get up!" Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up. Then Jesus told them to give her something to eat. Her parents were astonished, but He ordered them not to tell anyone what had happened. – Luke 8:53-56
What hypocrisy! To laugh at Jesus while pretending to truly mourn for this girl’s death! To laugh at the words of Jesus is to be filled with pride and a coldness and hardness of heart. In reality, it is the mourners who are dead!
But now Jairus and his wife are with the girl, with Jesus, and with His three disciples in her room. There she is, the wrong color, not breathing, dead. Dead is dead. But then Jesus takes her hand and using the Aramaic described in the Mark passage, Jesus says, “Talitha koum!” “Little girl, I say to you, get up!” The wind and the waves obey Him. Thousands of demons obey Him. And now, a dead spirit obeys Him.
Her spirit returned – by this I picture her normal, healthy color immediately returning to her face and body, her lungs immediately beginning to breathe, her heart immediately beginning to beat, her brain immediately beginning to fire those synapses again, and at once she stood upright. She is not just alive again, but healed completely from the disease that had killed her.
I find humor in Jesus’ next instruction – bring her some food! It is likely that while she was getting sicker and sicker, she had stopped eating. Now she is famished! What joy to know she is truly well again! And eating also is a kind of proof – a proof that someone really is alive. Ghosts don’t eat. I think this is why Jesus ate with His disciples after His resurrection, to convince them that He was truly alive and no ghost.
And again we see Jesus tell them not to say what had happened. One possible reason is that, as we have already seen how huge the crowds were, it would truly become dangerous if they became much larger. After healing a leper, Mark records that Jesus couldn’t even enter a town anymore. The other reason I see is that it wasn’t His time yet, not for the events that were to come. Jesus’ death on the cross, His resurrection, and by these things our only path to eternal life – that by believing in what He has done, we could live with Him forever – had an appointed time, and this time was not yet.
When I think about lessons from this passage that strike me, I have four:
1. We are never a bother to Jesus. Never! He always wants to hear from us!
2. Jesus desires to build our faith. We were never meant to build up our faith alone.
3. It is a falsehood that for God some impossibilities are bigger than others. With God all things are possible.
And the fourth lesson takes a bit more explaining. In Greek there are two main words for time; this is a big contrast to English where there is only one. These two words have very different meanings. The first word for time is chronos. Chronos means time always on the move, like a train passing before us. The car right in front of us is the present, the ones that have already rushed by are the past, and the ones yet to come are the future. This is how our western society generally thinks of time. Time is always rushing past. We get a number of English words from chronos; something that lasts a long time is called chronic, an arrangement of events in time is called a chronology, a device that measures time, including time elapsed from a certain point in time, is called a chronograph, and a history of events ordered through time is called a chronicle.
The key feature of chronos is that it can be measured. Chronos is quantifiable; it has units (second, hours, days, months, years, etc.). In chronos thinking, a minute is a minute is a minute, regardless of what goes on in that minute. It is ever running, uncontrollable. The Greeks personified it as a god and believed it ate its own children.
Our culture is a slave to chronos. Chronos says things like “You are too late!” Chronos says that dead is dead.
But the Greeks had another type of concept of time; that of kairos. Kairos is time standing still. It is time as a moment, an important moment. Kairos deals with quality of time, not quantity. When we ask someone, “How was your birthday,” this is a kairos question, not a chronos question. The chronos answer is “My birthday was exactly 24 hours. It took place 18 days ago.” The kairos answer is “My birthday was a lot of fun. I was given a surprise party, and I was truly surprised.”
We can live life in the chronos way, or in the kairos way. The chronos way is to say “I have been sick, or sinning, for 12 years now, and I will never change.” The chronos way is to say “It’s too late for me.” But the kairos way is to say, “Now is the time of change. By God’s grace I will change. Lord help me now!” The kairos way is to say, “I am going to talk to Jesus now.”
Imagine if the woman who had bleeding for 12 years had never come to Jesus; she would never have been healed. Imagine if Jairus had not gone to Jesus – his daughter would have stayed dead. The chronos way is to dwell on the regrets of the past, or to always wish about the future, or to rush around in the present always worrying about the next thing (like catching a plane); but the kairos way is to live in the present and take advantage of every moment (like telling the person on the plane in the seat next to you all about Jesus). And so,
4.Let us live in the kairos, not in the chronos.
As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. For He says, "In the time of My favor [kairos] I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you." I tell you, now is the time of God's favor [kairos], now is the day of salvation. – 2 Cor. 6:1-2
Speaking of being late, perhaps some of you have had an experience similar to mine when traveling by airplane. Your travel requires two or more separate flights, and your schedule shows a one-hour layover at the connecting airport. You check at the airport, and it shows that your first flight shows an on-time arrival. So far, so good. But as you get to within a few minutes of when your flight is to take off, you notice the plane isn’t at the gate yet. Of course, they don’t update the information on the TV screens at the gate. It turns out that the flight arrives right when you were to take off. They announce that they will try to get everyone on the plane as quickly as they can and don’t expect any significant delays. “Good,” you think. But by the time they close the flight door, you are already 20 minutes late. Your flight seems somewhat slow in leaving the gate, but you aren’t really paying attention. But you do start paying attention when it seems like you have been waiting in line behind other planes for a very long time.
Finally your flight gets into the air, a full 45 minutes later than what your ticket said was the departure time. The captain announces on the intercom that they will make up time in the air, and you should only be 20 minutes late. “Great,” you think. Forty minutes is a tight connection, but you will walk really fast and should be able to make your connecting flight on time. You don’t pay any more attention to the flight until hours later you notice that the flight seems to be circling the airport. You look at your watch and see you are already 15 minutes late. Now you start to get nervous. Finally, they announce they are on final descent but you are now 30 minutes late. You think, “If they can just get down really quickly, I’ll still have about 20 minutes.” But final descent takes longer than you would think, and you are on the ground with 18 minutes until your next flight was to take off. It seems to take forever to get to the gate – when they finally shut the engine off you only have 13 minutes. You feel sweaty now – your body is primed for a mad dash through the airport. But you are in the back of the plane and have to wait for everyone else to get off first. When you leave the plane there are only 7 minutes and 30 seconds remaining. (Notice how your observation of time becomes more and more precise?) With a quick glance at the computer screens – it shows your next flight says “on time” – you run as quickly as you reasonably can, dodging left and right, hoping and praying that you will catch your connecting flight. At this point you don’t want to slow down to look at your watch – you don’t really want to know anymore – but you can’t help noticing a digital clock on your way that shows it is 47 seconds until your flight is to take off. “I can’t make it,” you think, imagining the headaches associated with missing your flight – perhaps you won’t even make your destination until tomorrow. Breathing in gasps, feeling completely sweaty, you come to the gate and … do you want the good ending or the bad ending? (1) You discover that although the TV screens say “on time,” they haven’t begun boarding yet, and indeed, the plane isn’t even at the gate yet! (2) You find that although you are only 3 minutes and 27 seconds late, they have finished boarding. The plane is still there – you see it, but they won’t let you on because they have closed the doors. Either way, when you finally get to your destination, you wonder why air travel seems to make you so sore and tired.
I tell you this story because I think it captures emotions that had to be present in the story we will read today. Our passage begins with Luke 8:40.
Now when Jesus returned, a crowd welcomed Him, for they were all expecting Him. Then a man named Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, came and fell at Jesus' feet, pleading with Him to come to his house because his only daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying. – Luke 8:40-42
Where did Jesus return from? He returned with his disciples from their grand sailing adventure. This was the adventure we talked about two weeks ago that included the ferocious storm and Jesus’ sudden and complete control and calming of the storm and wind and waves. And this was the adventure we talked about last week that included the ferocious man who was infested with thousands of demons and Jesus’ complete control over these demons, sending them into pigs which then stampeded to their deaths by drowning. And so not only did Jesus calm a ferocious storm, He also calmed a ferocious man, who was immediately eager to follow Jesus wherever He went. The townspeople, however, were consumed with fear and demanded that Jesus and His disciples leave. They did leave, and Jesus instructed the man to stay and share what Jesus had done for Him.
And so, straight from these incredible adventures, which had to be pretty overwhelming for the disciples, they went right into another adventure. Some townspeople waited presumably at the shore for hours, watching for Jesus, and when they saw His boat, probably shouted, “There He is! It’s Jesus! He’s come back!” And immediately a huge crowd started to form, people who wanted healing, people who had questions for Him, people who just wanted to see some kind of miracle, and people who came simply because there was a commotion.
And a man who had managed to get to the front of the crowd wasted no time and, literally, fell at Jesus feet. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I have ever fallen at someone’s feet. Even when guys ask their gals to marry them, they normally just go down on one knee. So why did this man, Jairus, do this? It had to be because he felt desperate. Here is a man who has been on a mission – a mission much more serious than trying to catch your connecting flight – a mission to save the life of his daughter, his only daughter.
Can you imagine the events that led up to this moment? Notice that he is a ruler of the synagogue – an important man who knows the priests and other important people. His daughter becomes ill, and it progresses to where it is obviously a serious illness. He tries the local physicians, but nothing they do helps. He prays to God, but she is still sick and getting worse. He makes sacrifices at the temple, but still she is getting worse. He is becoming desperate. He is running out of time. It seems that her daughter has an appointment with death, but he won’t allow himself to consider this. And then he hears about Jesus – all the miracles He has done – the miraculous healings, again and again, in town after town. And now Jesus is here! Perhaps when he first inquires, he learns that Jesus is away with his disciples on a boat trip. But now, Jesus is here! Determined he gets right to the front of the crowd. The whole time, he has had a growing sense of dread, of urgency. Time is running out! And now is the chance! His emotions that he has kept bundled up inside him for a long time suddenly overwhelm him, and he drops to the ground, and he begs Jesus to come to his house to save his precious daughter.
In Mark 5:23, the words of Jairus are recorded: "My little daughter is dying. Please come and put Your hands on her so that she will be healed and live!" There is no question that Jairus knows how serious this is. There is no question that he knows it is a matter of life and death.
As Jesus was on His way, the crowds almost crushed Him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind Him and touched the edge of His cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. – Luke 8:42-44
And so Jesus agrees to help Jairus, and begins to go with him to his house. But the crowds are huge, and oppressive. Can you imagine people pressing in, saying, “What about me?” “Hey, He’s leaving!” “Follow Him!” “This way!” And if you have read about some of the tragic accidents at rock concerts, you know that people really can be crushed, and even killed, when a large crowd presses forward and there is nowhere to go. It is interesting that the Greek word for crush is the same word used in the parable of the soils when the thorns are described as choking out the plants.
Imagine how it feels to be Jairus. Because of the crowds, the going is slow, and Jairus no doubt wishes they could go more quickly. He knows that with his daughter, every moment counts.
And in the midst of this craziness, a woman comes. She has endured nonstop uterine bleeding (for that is what the Greek words mean) for twelve years. According to the parallel passage in Mark, “She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.” (Mark 5:26) Imagine what the past 12 years have been like. Going to doctor after doctor, paying bill after bill, trying treatment after treatment, and yet nothing improves. Indeed it became worse and worse. Now, she is broke. She doesn’t go to doctors any more, because she has no more money and because she has no more hope that they can help. Note that even today, doctors often cannot solve this problem except with a hysterectomy. That, of course, was not an option back then.
But not only did she have this significant medical problem, she also had the problem that according to Old Testament Law, women were ceremonially unclean while having uterine bleeding. This is described and explained in Lev. 15:25-27. Not only was she ceremonially unclean, so was her bed, and so was anything she sat upon. Anyone who even sat where she had sit would also become ceremonially unclean and would have to wash his clothes and bathe himself, and he would be ceremonially unclean until that evening.
So people who knew this woman would probably shun her. She could either try to hide her condition, risking severe punishment if she were found out, or she could abide by the Law, which would prevent her from participating in almost any public activity, including attending services at the synagogue.
It is interesting to compare Jairus and this woman. Both are determined. Both are, to varying degrees, desperate. But it is about there that the similarities end. Jairus is well-respected, a temple leader. Probably he as also well off financially, because of his position. From a worldly point of view, it made sense that Jesus chose to help him over others. The woman, first of all, is a woman. Women did not command respect in that culture; they were to mind their own business and keep out of the way. In many events, we see Jesus really break with tradition by giving undivided attention and total respect to women. In addition, this woman was poor, moneyless; quite a contrast to Jairus.
But on top of all this, this woman was also unclean. A general principle of the Law back then is that the unclean do not touch other people; to do so would be to make them unclean. By choosing to touch Jesus, she chose to violate this law and she chose to risk making Jesus unclean.
In the passage in Mark, it expands on her thoughts. “If I just touch His clothes, I will be healed.” (Mark 5:28) She had a lot of faith to think this. It reminds me of the centurion we read about a number of weeks ago who said, “Just say the word, and I know that the healing will happen.”
Note that she doesn’t want to ask Him in public, probably because she doesn’t want to admit her condition in public. Besides, she may have thought, “why would He want to help me? He might even rebuke me for getting in a crowd like this while being unclean. And even if He didn’t rebuke me, no doubt the crowds would.”
It says she followed after Jesus, and then she touched His cloak. What happened next? I like to think of it this way – what should have happened is that she touched Him and made Him unclean. But Jesus could not be made unclean. Jesus is the perfect, sinless, Lamb of God. Uncleanness can not reside in Him in any way. And so, instead of the woman making Jesus unclean, Jesus made the woman instantly clean! She was totally healed! Twelve years of bleeding put to a permanent end. I believe that not only did the bleeding stop, but whatever caused the bleeding to occur was healed as well. And according to the passage in Mark, she immediately knew it. “Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.” (Mark 5:29) Perhaps she had previously been quite anemic, and always felt fatigued. Suddenly she had more energy than she had felt in twelve years. Or perhaps she felt something like a shock of energy flow through her body.
Note that in this crowd, tons of people were pressing around Jesus, bumping into Him, touching His clothes, etc., but only this woman was healed. She had faith, and God answered her faith that day.
"Who touched Me?" Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, "Master, the people are crowding and pressing against You." But Jesus said, "Someone touched Me; I know that power has gone out from Me." – Luke 8:45-46
From the passage in Mark, we know that Jesus turned around to address the crowd. In other words, the procession stopped. Let’s turn back to Jairus for a moment. He is now forced to endure a delay. We don’t know what he was thinking; we don’t know if he became impatient, but it was true that they weren’t getting any closer to his dying daughter.
This reminds me of some instances in our home where something bad has been done, like writing on a wall, and I ask “Who did it?” Silence. Looking at the ceiling. Fidgeting. But no answer. Similarly, here, Jesus stops and asks, “Who touched Me?” “Not me.” “Me neither.” Perhaps a hush comes on the crowd. And then Peter, understandably, says, in effect, “What are you talking about? A zillion people have touched You! We’re in this giant crowd being crushed!”
But Jesus replies that He means a different kind of touch – a touch with the faith and intent to be healed. Not only does the woman know she is healed, so does Jesus. An interesting question is whether Jesus knew the answer to His question. Perhaps He did. If so, this reminds me of Genesis when God asks Adam, “Where are you, Adam?” The purpose of the question is not to learn information, but to encourage a confession.
Then 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. Then He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace." – Luke 8:47-48
This had to be difficult for this woman to do. In front of this crowd she had to confess that she deliberately touched Jesus and was a part of this closely pressed-in crowd even though she was unclean. And her uncleanness was of an extremely personal nature. She too, like Jairus earlier, falls at Jesus’ feet. And then she confesses all.
How does Jesus address her? Does He condemn her? What word does He use? Daughter. This is not a word of condemnation but of acceptance, of tenderness. And He has declared her clean. I think His answer also makes it clear that this wasn’t about magic, but about faith. Her faith had healed her. Not her faith in clothing, but her faith in Jesus.
How did Jairus feel watching this all take place? We aren’t told, but I imagine He was encouraged – after all, here was firsthand proof that Jesus could do miraculous healings. If He could just hurry up and get to his house…
While 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." Hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus, "Don't be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed." – Luke 8:49-50
Let’s take these packed verses one at a time. First this person came from Jairus’ house and said “Your daughter is dead. Don’t bother the teacher any more.” Wow! This guy does not have the gift of showing mercy!
But perhaps I am being a little too harsh on this guy. There is a Biblical precedent for this attitude: David. After David had sinned with Bathsheba and the prophet Nathan had confronted David over his sin, David and Bathsheba’s child became terribly ill. The story continues in 2 Samuel 12.
David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and went into his house and spent the nights lying on the ground. The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused, and he would not eat any food with them. On the seventh day the child died. David's servants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they thought, "While the child was still living, we spoke to David but he would not listen to us. How can we tell him the child is dead? He may do something desperate." David noticed that his servants were whispering among themselves and he realized the child was dead. "Is the child dead?" he asked. "Yes," they replied, "he is dead." Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate. His servants asked him, "Why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!" He answered, "While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, 'Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.' But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me." – 2 Sam. 12:16-23
So what we saw in David was a pragmatism based on the assumption that dead is dead. Once somebody is dead, don’t bother God any more. And so this man from Jairus’ house has a similar mindset – your daughter is dead, so don’t bother Jesus any more. Dead is dead.
I see two real problems with this man’s attitude. First of all, dead is not necessarily dead! As we shall see! But the second problem I have generalizes to us as well: sometimes we may be tempted to think that our prayers are a bother to God. Our family some time ago watched an episode of Little House on the Prairie, and Laura was asking some big questions about why God didn’t seem to answer her prayers. A number of people gave very wrong and very damaging answers along the line of “Well, God is very busy, you know, holding the universe together. You can’t expect Him to hear everything.” And “You have to be close to God if you want God to hear you.” Laura takes this literally and goes off by herself to a mountaintop to be closer to God.
Do we think just like this? Probably not. But we can think variations of it, like “God, I cannot even come to you – I know you are angry with me, because I keep falling into sin.” Or “God, how can I even ask you to help me with this sin area again? You have heard me ask a hundred times.” It’s not exactly the same context, but a message can begin to run in the back of our minds: “Don’t bother Him any more.”
But does God see our prayers as a burden? Does He grow tired of us? Does our coming again to Him asking for help make Him angry? No! No! No!
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. – Hebrews 4:14-16
God is eager to show mercy to us. He is eager to give us grace. He is eager to help us. Always. We can never be a “bother” to Him. That idea is straight from the pit of hell. Don’t entertain it, even for a moment.
And what is Jesus’ answer to Jairus? Here is the passage again.
While 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." Hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus, "Don't be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed." – Luke 8:49-50
I love this response. In the case of the woman with bleeding, she had strong faith. In contrast, Jairus’ faith, understandably, begins to falter. I would say it takes a greater faith to believe God will bring a dead person back to life than to believe that God will heal someone. At least I would say that was true then. Again, keeping in mind the story of David, dead is dead.
What was it like to be Jairus through all this? Talk about a roller coaster ride! In a few seconds he went from hope to despair to… what? Is Jesus asking the impossible? “Just” believe? Believe in the impossible? Yes! Miraculous healings and coming back from the dead are equally impossible. But with God, nothing is impossible. I love Jesus’ response because on one hand He calls on Jairus to have faith, but on the other, He boosts his faith. When someone says, “just believe, and she will be healed,” that is a tremendous faith-booster.
The same is true for us – on one hand, Jesus calls on us to have faith in Him, but on the other, He boosts our faith – through reading His Word, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and through the encouragement of other believers. I find it so encouraging to remember that even our faith is something that is something that is nurtured and grown by God.
When 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. Meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning for her. "Stop wailing," Jesus said. "She is not dead but asleep." – Luke 8:51-52
Notice that by excluding others with Him except Peter, John, James, and the girl’s parents, He was basically excluding people with no faith. Still, they had to go past all the people wailing and mourning for her. We have talked about funerals at the time of Jesus in past messages from Luke. To be a good neighbor meant to wail at the top of your lungs when your neighbor had a death in the family. I mentioned that people even hired professional mourners to make an even louder noise. Flutes were also played – the parallel account in Matthew 9 mentions that flute players were here already.
Now why does Jesus say “She is not dead but asleep”? I don’t want to disagree with Jesus, but she is dead. You can also call her asleep if you want, but she is dead. What I think He meant is that dead is not dead. Dead means hopeless, impossible, unchangeable. But this situation was none of these things.
They laughed at Him, knowing that she was dead. But He took her by the hand and said, "My child, get up!" Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up. Then Jesus told them to give her something to eat. Her parents were astonished, but He ordered them not to tell anyone what had happened. – Luke 8:53-56
What hypocrisy! To laugh at Jesus while pretending to truly mourn for this girl’s death! To laugh at the words of Jesus is to be filled with pride and a coldness and hardness of heart. In reality, it is the mourners who are dead!
But now Jairus and his wife are with the girl, with Jesus, and with His three disciples in her room. There she is, the wrong color, not breathing, dead. Dead is dead. But then Jesus takes her hand and using the Aramaic described in the Mark passage, Jesus says, “Talitha koum!” “Little girl, I say to you, get up!” The wind and the waves obey Him. Thousands of demons obey Him. And now, a dead spirit obeys Him.
Her spirit returned – by this I picture her normal, healthy color immediately returning to her face and body, her lungs immediately beginning to breathe, her heart immediately beginning to beat, her brain immediately beginning to fire those synapses again, and at once she stood upright. She is not just alive again, but healed completely from the disease that had killed her.
I find humor in Jesus’ next instruction – bring her some food! It is likely that while she was getting sicker and sicker, she had stopped eating. Now she is famished! What joy to know she is truly well again! And eating also is a kind of proof – a proof that someone really is alive. Ghosts don’t eat. I think this is why Jesus ate with His disciples after His resurrection, to convince them that He was truly alive and no ghost.
And again we see Jesus tell them not to say what had happened. One possible reason is that, as we have already seen how huge the crowds were, it would truly become dangerous if they became much larger. After healing a leper, Mark records that Jesus couldn’t even enter a town anymore. The other reason I see is that it wasn’t His time yet, not for the events that were to come. Jesus’ death on the cross, His resurrection, and by these things our only path to eternal life – that by believing in what He has done, we could live with Him forever – had an appointed time, and this time was not yet.
When I think about lessons from this passage that strike me, I have four:
1. We are never a bother to Jesus. Never! He always wants to hear from us!
2. Jesus desires to build our faith. We were never meant to build up our faith alone.
3. It is a falsehood that for God some impossibilities are bigger than others. With God all things are possible.
And the fourth lesson takes a bit more explaining. In Greek there are two main words for time; this is a big contrast to English where there is only one. These two words have very different meanings. The first word for time is chronos. Chronos means time always on the move, like a train passing before us. The car right in front of us is the present, the ones that have already rushed by are the past, and the ones yet to come are the future. This is how our western society generally thinks of time. Time is always rushing past. We get a number of English words from chronos; something that lasts a long time is called chronic, an arrangement of events in time is called a chronology, a device that measures time, including time elapsed from a certain point in time, is called a chronograph, and a history of events ordered through time is called a chronicle.
The key feature of chronos is that it can be measured. Chronos is quantifiable; it has units (second, hours, days, months, years, etc.). In chronos thinking, a minute is a minute is a minute, regardless of what goes on in that minute. It is ever running, uncontrollable. The Greeks personified it as a god and believed it ate its own children.
Our culture is a slave to chronos. Chronos says things like “You are too late!” Chronos says that dead is dead.
But the Greeks had another type of concept of time; that of kairos. Kairos is time standing still. It is time as a moment, an important moment. Kairos deals with quality of time, not quantity. When we ask someone, “How was your birthday,” this is a kairos question, not a chronos question. The chronos answer is “My birthday was exactly 24 hours. It took place 18 days ago.” The kairos answer is “My birthday was a lot of fun. I was given a surprise party, and I was truly surprised.”
We can live life in the chronos way, or in the kairos way. The chronos way is to say “I have been sick, or sinning, for 12 years now, and I will never change.” The chronos way is to say “It’s too late for me.” But the kairos way is to say, “Now is the time of change. By God’s grace I will change. Lord help me now!” The kairos way is to say, “I am going to talk to Jesus now.”
Imagine if the woman who had bleeding for 12 years had never come to Jesus; she would never have been healed. Imagine if Jairus had not gone to Jesus – his daughter would have stayed dead. The chronos way is to dwell on the regrets of the past, or to always wish about the future, or to rush around in the present always worrying about the next thing (like catching a plane); but the kairos way is to live in the present and take advantage of every moment (like telling the person on the plane in the seat next to you all about Jesus). And so,
4.Let us live in the kairos, not in the chronos.
As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. For He says, "In the time of My favor [kairos] I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you." I tell you, now is the time of God's favor [kairos], now is the day of salvation. – 2 Cor. 6:1-2
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