Faith and Healing: Jesus' Authority Over Life and Death

"Now a woman having a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any, this woman is given no name, just her condition and her situation. Here's a woman who, presumably the same year that Jairus' daughter was born, she came down with a chronic case of hemorrhaging, wherein she lost her health first of all, and Luke tells us that she spent every penny that she had going to doctors trying to find a cure for this chronic hemorrhaging. And so we see a woman who's lost her health and who's lost her wealth, but not only that since she had this hemorrhaging, she would have been made ceremonially unclean and therefore would have lost her status and her reputation in the Jewish community. So everything that was important to her, her health, her money, her status in the community were gone, for a month or twelve months but for twelve years. And she was as desperate in her condition as Jairus was in his, having a daughter who was dying." [00:10:37]

"And we see what this woman did with her need. As Jairus had come and fell down before Jesus, now this woman reasoned in her heart in this manner, 'If I can just touch His garment. I don't need to have Him give me an audience. I don't need to have Him lay his hands on me. I don't need to have Him say anything to me. He's doesn't need to touch me, besides I'm unclear and it would be presumptuous of me to ask Him to touch me. But if I can just get close enough to touch one of the tassels on the edge of His garment, I'm sure that's all it will take.' Now, here's a woman who had no reason at all to trust any man that she had ever met to heal her. Again she'd spent every penny that she had with professional healers who were stymied by her condition and unable to help her at all. And yet she sees Jesus, and when she sees Jesus, she said 'I don't need to go to any more doctors. I just want to touch the hem of his garment, and I'll be healed.' And so she came from behind Him and touched the border of His garment, and instantly the flow of blood stopped, the hemorrhaging finished." [00:12:18]

"And Jesus stopped and he looked around and he said, 'Who touched Me?' This poor woman is now cowering in terror. The last thing she wants to do is to come forward and say, 'I did it.' But in the meantime, Jesus wants to know who touched him and everybody denied it. All the people crowding against Jesus say, 'I didn't do it. It's not me.' And Peter now, impetuous Peter prone to correcting Jesus when Jesus needed to be corrected, he said, 'Master, the multitudes throng and press against You, and You say, "Who touched Me?"' Do you hear the tone in Peter's voice? 'Are you out of your mind? How in the world are we going to know who touched You? There's all these people bumping and pushing against you every second, and You want to know, You're asking us who touched You.' Jesus politely ignored the outburst from Peter and simply said, 'Look, somebody touched me. I know it because I perceived power going out for Me.'" [00:14:04]

"Now this statement that Jesus makes in this particular circumstance can tell us something about Him. That when Jesus used his power to redeem people from whatever condition they were in, it cost Him something. When he calmed the storm, it cost Him something. When He healed the man of a legion of demons, He was drained from the power that left him and now as He's on his way to deal with the dying daughter of Jairus, He feels the power go out of Him again. And He understood that that exit of strength from His body did not occur willy-nilly, but it only occurred when redeeming power was being used in a saving way. He said 'Peter, somebody touched Me. I know that somebody touched Me, because I felt not the touch, but I felt the departure of My power.'" [00:15:31]

"And He said to her, 'Daughter.' You know, I wonder how old she was. She'd had this condition for twelve years. She wasn't a child, obviously. She may have been just as old as Jesus, and yet Jesus called her daughter. Don't miss the significance of that. We are not by nature sons and daughters of God. God is not the Father of us all. In biblical terms, God is only the Father of His Only Begotten Son and all the rest of His children, sons and daughters, are adopted. There's no other way to get into the family of God except through adoption. And the only way you can be adopted into the family of God is through God's only Son. And so this woman who's trembling, telling the story, wondering what Jesus is going to do, the first thing He does is welcomes her into God's family by calling her daughter. 'Be of good cheer. Stop trembling, stop being afraid. You're now my daughter.' He's on his way to heal Jairus' daughter, and instead He stops to heal what is now His own daughter. 'Your faith has made you well. Go in peace.'" [00:18:52]

"It wasn't her faith that was the power to heal her, as some mistakenly believe. But because of her faith, that's a consequence of her faith, because she trusted in Christ she was healed. And so Jesus said, 'Go in peace.' How many times does our Lord say this to people? Is this not His favorite litany for his people? 'Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you, not as the world givest give I unto you.' 'Come to Me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,' and that's not all He gives, He gives peace. And He says to this woman, 'Your body's fine, your soul's even better. So, go now in peace.'" [00:21:24]

"And while He was still speaking, again he's interrupted. For someone came from the ruler of the synagogue's house with bad news for Jairus. 'Jairus, I'm sorry. Your daughter's dead. Jairus don't bother the master anymore. It's too late.' Remember in John's Gospel when Jesus got to the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus, four days after Lazarus died and the women are wringing their hands and saying, 'If only You would've been here Lord, he wouldn't have died. And now You come four days later. It's too late.' Do you know how many millions of people have assumed in their lifetime that it was too late for them to meet Jesus or to have Jesus do anything for them? 'I have been a pagan all these years, and it's too late for me.' Are you still alive? Then it's not too late." [00:21:58]

"When Jesus heard this, He said to him, 'Do not be afraid; only believe, and she will be made well.' 'You didn't hear us Jesus. It's too late. You may be able to give sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf and fix people with legs that won't work, but now it's too late, she's dead.' Jesus said, 'Everything is going to be made well.' And so when He came into the house, He permitted no one to go in except Peter, James and John and the father and the mother of the girl. Now all wept and mourned for her, but He said, 'Do not weep, stop your crying. She's not dead but sleeping.'" [00:22:47]

"But He put them all outside, took her by the hands and called, there it is again – the divine effectual call. The means by which the world, the universe came into being was by divine imperative, divine fiat. God called the universe into being, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. Lazarus came out of that tomb because Jesus called him out of the tomb. If you are in Christ this morning, if you are a Christian, it's because God the Holy Spirit called you out of darkness into light. And He just didn't invite you, that call was not simply the outer call of preaching. It was the inner call of God the Holy Ghost, the omnipotent God who brought you alive from spiritual death, what we call in theology 'the effectual call of God.' How did Jesus calm the sea? He called the waves and the wind to stop, and they stopped." [00:26:21]

"And so now he called this inert, twelve-year-old daughter saying, 'Little girl, arise.' This is a foretaste of the last judgment, when all who are in Christ will hear the same effectual call, and the dead in Christ will rise at the sound of His voice when He says, 'My little ones, little boy, little girl get up.' And we will rise on that day. And then her spirit returned. Again Luke understood that she was not comatose, because when you're comatose your soul doesn't leave the body. If you're in soul sleep, your soul doesn't leave the body. But this little girl was dead because her soul had gone. And Jesus called it back and said, 'Come back here' and reunited her soul with her body, and she arose immediately." [00:27:38]

"And He commanded that she should be given something to eat. 'Feed this little girl, will you?' She's been so sick, she's got to be hungry, so let's get about the daily business of taking care of our kids. Will you parents please fix her something to eat? She's fine, and her parents were astonished, but He charged them to tell no one what had happened, not yet. 'Don't tell anybody yet.' That moment will come when He will charge them and all who receive the grace of Christ to tell everybody. What an incredible day in the life of Jesus." [00:28:58]