(parallel with Luke 8:41-56)
(Text and Audio)
Title: Death, Blood, and Faith
It is truly an honor to be able to present scripture to you all this morning. With so many of our old friends and family present on a day when I am certainly humbled by your recognition of my joyful service here at Heritage, it is truly good for us to dwell with the Lord, amen?
Today we look at a passage that I’m sure most of us are familiar with, so my challenge becomes to aptly point out that Truth that in this text and hopefully the spirit will show us some things we may not have considered before. I will say this: there is more of a connection here between these events and the people involved, than I realized before I sat down to dig into this text. This was a sermon where I felt personally, truly rewarded and I want to share some of my findings with you.
Shall we?
(read/pray)
Luke’s parallel: 8:41-56
I. Jesus in High Demand
“While he spoke these things to them…” Jesus was in high demand. Word was getting out, and his ministry was creating enough of a stir that “a ruler came and worshiped Him….”
What type of ruler was Jarius? Luke 8:41 tells us he was a ruler of a local synagogue.
I think it is worth noting at this point that Jesus’ ministry was impacting people across societal lines. He wasn’t just the savior to the poor and beggarly masses, to the weak, the oppressed and the downtrodden, but also to this local synagogue ruler, Jarius. What Jesus was teaching and preaching had relevance to everyone who had ears to hear it. This, or course, would become a staple of Christ’s ministry.
II. Jarius’ Action
Notice Jarius’ reaction to his daughters death: He came to Jesus and worshipped Him. He didn’t shake his fist, he didn’t react in anger, he didn’t ask why. He came to the feet of Jesus acknowledging His power and dominion and made a request of his King.
Here is an interesting question: Luke records the events that when Jarius comes to Jesus his daughter is dying, and then the servants make it official as they are on their way, but Matthew records Jarius as saying, “My daughter has just died.” Most likely the answer is that Jarius left his daughter as she was clinging to life, knowing that by the time he reached Jesus she would have died.
How many of us would leave the bedside of our dying daughter to seek Jesus? Well, I’ll tell you what, if I believed that by leaving my daughter and seeking Jesus their was a chance, even a chance, that she could be made well, I’d go, and that’s what Jarius does.
III. Jesus’ Reaction
Jesus arose and followed him. In other similar accounts we see Jesus healing people from a distance, or with just a word. In a moment, while following Jarius, a woman is healed without a word, just by touching his garment. So why does Jesus rise, and take the long walk to Jarius’ house?
- He healed people in different ways depending on the situation to make a variety of points. By following Jarius, taking the time to walk to his house instead of instant healing her from a distance, there is no doubt in anyone’s mind, not Jarius’, not the mourners at his estate, not the disciples who followed Jesus, that this girl is dead. Not dying, not sick, but dead. Christ didn’t just come to heal the sick, he came to raise the dead to life.
- He takes his disciples with Him, knowing they will be his witnesses, in word and in writing of these accounts after Jesus has ascended. His story and proclamation needed to be witnessed first hand to be later shared with the masses. In a way, that’s exactly what we are doing right now. Could you imagine if Matthew had recorded it like this: “Jesus said to Jarius: “Your daughter is healed. No go.” And we all trusted that she was. Would it have anywhere near the impact as the eye-witnesses relaying the events, including the fact that is was known she’d been dead for quite some time. We know from verse 26 that “the report of this went out to all the land.” But Jesus knew that would fade over time, but the word of his disciples, written and sealed in scripture, has survived to this very day.
- The Woman Intercepts Jesus
The woman with the bleeding issue: Think about this woman’s life for a moment. As a Jew, we can assume the following things about her plight.
- She was broke because she’d spent all he money on physicians trying to get well. (Luke 8:43)
- She was constantly weak because of less blood in her system than was normal. (Same idea when giving blood, we need time to restore ourselves. What if that time never comes? Can you imagine constantly feeling that run down?)
- As a Jew, she would have been ceremonially unclean and shut off from synagogue worship, unable to meet with God as the Jews were accustomed to do.
So think for a moment what Jesus represents to her: Not just the chance to regain her financial footing, not just a chance to get her energy, health, and well-being back, but more than all these things, a chance to meet God through Jesus. She, like Jarius, was in desperate need of a savior.
V. The Connection Between Jarius and the Woman
For Jarius, it was a matter of life and death.
For the woman it was a case where she probably wished she were dead, there was no point in living.
For Jarius, his call was to enforce Levitical Law that would have kept this very woman out of his synagogue, and yet, when his need became so great, he turned to this Jesus, believing he was sent from God.
For the woman, her healing meant she would be able to reunite with her people in worship.
Think about that!
There is no mistake to the connection between these two people and their healings. Jesus, by healing both of them, literally brought these two back together, able to worship together again.
Truly, He was showing us what a great physician does.
- The Ultimate Point: “Your Faith Has Made You Well”
Both events involve faith and belief preceding the actual miracle.
The way Matthew records the events in this passage conveys the central theme “your faith has made you well.” Not that the faith contains power, but that the blessings of the Father come to those who see Jesus as the savior to their problems.
Without faith in Jesus these miracles are not signs of the Kingdom, but rather just strange events with no special meaning or purpose. (Reason why Gospel of Peter was omitted: story of Jesus as a boy skipping stones and as he did so they became doves.)
How does this work within the greater framework of Matthew’s Gospel? Matthew’s Gospel’s Central theme: The Kingdom of Heaven
The faith of Jarius gave Jesus’ miracle of healing the girl meaning and purpose.
The faith of the woman with the bleeding issue gave her healing purpose.
Also, the faith of these two people gave their struggles purpose as well. This woman’s bleeding, Jarius’ daughter’s death now have purpose because Christ is to be glorified because of them.
Application: Is your faith a faith that gives meaning and purpose to the events in your life? In other words, what does your faith change?
One final thought. In this passage we see Jesus being mocked by the professional mourners that had gathered at Jarius’ house for saying: “She is not dead, but sleeping.” Compare that to John 11:11 When Jesus says “Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.”
Did Jesus come just to make you well? Or to wake you up?