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Luke chapter 8 verses 40 to 56, and we're dipping out of Matthew only because when you read! through the Gospels there comes a time where sometimes one Gospel will explain something! in different detail. Not different in the sense of truth, but just more. Luke being a doctor, I thought it was actually kind of cool to dip into Luke for this one. And that's why we have that read.
And thank you Emma for doing that. That's something I'm going to be doing more of is having people read the passage prior to the teaching. It's a way of getting more people involved and up here. So if that's something that you feel you'd like to do or can do, please come talk to me. I'd like to get as many people up here as possible. I'm going to read verses 40 to 42, then we'll dive in verse by verse.
Now when Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him. And there came a man named Jairus, who was a ruler of the synagogue, and falling at Jesus' feet, he implored him to come to his house. For he had only one daughter, about 12 years of age, and she was dying. And Jesus went, the people pressed, or as Jesus went, the people pressed around him. It's important to kind of set the stage with this.
If you've been to Capernaum, you know that the streets are not particularly wide. That's something that I noticed there. I actually tried to think, okay, how many of me could spend my wingspan across the streets? Not many.
And so you start to realize that that oppressing group of people, I'm going to wait for this to get fixed. Oppressing group of people that comes in would be surrounding Jesus in an uncomfortable way.
They would be all around him, before him, behind him. And with that, before him and behind him, and jostling around, it would be very, very difficult to have a bubble where nobody was touching you.
Very difficult. Jairus being the leader of the synagogue there, Jesus would know him, and Jesus would be known by him. And yet he came with this desperation and this plea. And he walked up to Jesus, pleaded with him to come to his house. We don't know if this was his only child, but it's reasonable to assume that this 12-year-old daughter would have been the light of his life. And she was sick, and she was dying. And he came to Jesus for help. And the funny thing is, the story doesn't stop there. There's this very strange interruption that happens, or as we can see is perhaps an interruption. But it was a desperate father, a sick and only child, and a man. Jesus, would you please come to my house? Would you please come? Please, I'm desperate. Hold on to that word desperate for a moment, because I'm going to ask a question of each of us. When was the last time we were desperate for
Jesus? Just bookmark that for a moment. Verses 43 to 44, and there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for 12 years. And though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone. She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased. Jesus can't even make full strides. If you've ever been in a crowd that's quite like that, you'd be kind of just shuffling along, moving like this. Introvert's nightmare. But this is what was going on. Jesus was shuffling his way through these crowds. And Jesus went, and the multitude surrounded him. It was almost suffocating. He's making his way through all the people. And a woman approached him not trying to make a scene. She was trying to be very careful for some specific reasons, because she had been bleeding for 12 years. We don't know exactly what that means. We know that it's chronic. 12 years is a long time. And it wasn't just the physical that she was dealing with. It was the emotional and the social. Because she would be considered ceremonially unclean, she would have been consistently rejected socially. If someone were to touch her, they would have to be ceremonially clean, as she would have to be. Don't sit where she sat. Don't touch her. Don't invite her over. Don't be near her.
This would have been the very common things that would have been suggested earlier on. Can you imagine going through two weeks of that treatment, let alone 12 years? You'd start to lose your sense of self and value. So she wanted to make her way through this crowd without making a scene.
And she was doing it kind of sneakily. And I'm not even saying that in a negative sense. Because everybody with this kind of throng of people, she would have touched many people in order to get to Jesus. She could have been stoned. She could have been thrown out of town.
People would have been disgusted and reviled and going, woman, why have you touched me? Look what you've done to me. They would have thought only of themselves and not of her plight. So her making her way through this crowd was a significant act of faith. She made her way because I think she was at the end of her rope. She had tried for 12 years all kinds of natural remedies. She had visited rabbis, medicine people. She had visited doctors. And they gave her things to try and help, but they didn't.
And now she knew the healer was in town. She needed to see him. She lived in rejection and isolation and on the margins of society for 12 years. Desperation sets in.
Verse 43, and there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for 12 years. And though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone. She went to the doctors to get better, but she just lost money and nothing helped. Dr. Bills can take everything that you had back then. They can take everything that you have now. It's a reality. She was tired of it. She was desperate for help. And when she heard that Jesus got off the boat, she knew that he was her only hope.
See, I loved what Diana shared because it just so beautifully, well, I probably just could have stopped the sermon right there, quite frankly. Because when we rely on ourselves and we don't see Jesus as our only hope, it's a battle of the will. No, no, I got this. I can do this. No, I'm going to suffer through this. No, Jesus, I don't need to call the elders together to pray over me.
No, no, I can do this. Wrong. So many counts. And this woman knew it. But none of it could help because they needed Jesus. And many of us, we may not have a physical illness, but many of us are soul sick. Soul sick. We spend money on time on many different kinds of doctors. And you may think, well, that's not me. Well, we spend time and money on doctor entertainment to numb us, to help block out time. We doom scroll until we, you know, fall ourselves asleep.
We look for doctors in other ways. It may not be medical doctors, but doctors nonetheless. We'll go to doctor success. If I can just build it high enough, if I can just make it rich enough, if I can just do enough with my hands, maybe I'll get myself out of this.
But that leaves us feeling empty and it robs our money. We can go to doctor self-help if it can't help us because we only end up being able to try and help ourselves. And I've said it before, but the one thing that many religions share in common is this sense of a death to ego.
That's about where they stop. This idea that, you know what? You're not the main character of this story. The Lord is. We are children of God. And when we think, I'm going to keep you over here, Lord, and I'm going to do all of this on my own, we're missing out on his rich provision and blessing and healing and guidance. There are times where we are brought to places where we are desperate.
And I shared a little bit earlier on just how I've had my desperate moments. There was one where I had no words. All I had was groan and grief. And in some ways, I don't think I'll fully heal from that experience this side of heaven. But I'm desperate. I'm desperate for the Lord's justice in this world.
And I know I've got to wait for a while. So maybe you have to wait as well for what you're desperate for. Maybe you're feeling that right now. Jesus is your only healer. He is your only provision.
Our work, our success, our doctor self-help will only go so far. And it'll leave us empty and penniless if we're not careful. We can also look at doctor pleasure to try and numb the pain.
And we can also find doctor religion. Where we think if we just look good enough, if we just present ourselves righteously looking enough, then somehow, someway, it'll make a difference.
But it doesn't quite measure up. It falls short without Jesus. The only one that can heal a lonely soul or someone who is soul sick is Jesus. Knowing her condition and all that was with it, she wanted to keep this a secret. She was desperate to keep this a secret. And people would have freaked right out. They would never have said, oh, sister, come on, we're so glad you made it to the healer.
There would have been even more rejection. So she secretly reached her hand over to Jesus. And the tassels were at the end of what most male Jewish men wore. I actually have, you know, a stole there that rabbis wear in my office. You want to come see it. There's tassels at the end of it.
And she was just thinking, if I just touched this, if I just touched that hem of his garment, then maybe I'll be healed. There's some superstition to that. There really was. But there's also an element of faith, the faith that took her through this crowd, this impossible journey through this crowd.
Amazing. She wanted to be healed, but she couldn't openly ask. How many of us resonate with that? Lord, I'm stuck. I want to be healed. I want this to be fixed. But I just can't reach out to you.
There's something blocking me from you. There's something in the way of me having this conversation with you. And Lord, I'm desperate, but I don't know what to say to you. And sometimes groan and grief is all you have. Let him heal you from the inside out.
I don't know how he will. I don't know when he will. That's between you and the Lord. But if you're soul sick, we can turn that over to the Lord. If you need physical healing, you can turn that over to the Lord. I don't know what he will do with you. I don't. But I do know he is the great healer. And there are plenty of stories just like this one where the Lord has healed people. And for her, it took work. She had to make a decision. One last chance, one last hope to make her way through this impossible crowd. She wanted to be healed, but she couldn't openly ask. She couldn't yell at him in the crowd and say, Jesus, I'm here.
Please heal me. She couldn't do that because I would expose her. She felt like there might be something powerful in this fringe, but like I said, it's a bit superstitious. And even though there's an element of superstition, there is also great faith that she worked her way through this crowd. Some of us have superstitions as well. Some of us think that certain things don't happen a certain way. Well, God can't be in it. Well, let's look towards what the Bible says in all things, because there was an element of faith for her because she had genuine faith. Verse 44, she came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment and immediately her discharge of blood ceased. According to the thinking of that day, her touching Jesus made Jesus unclean to the thinking of the day. But that's not how it works. Jesus makes us clean. And we may be thinking, man, my sin is just way too scary to talk out loud about. My issues are just way too big for me to risk saying them out loud. And maybe that's you sitting here today. Maybe that's all of us that are here today. That there's something we just can't risk saying out loud or even saying to God because we're afraid. Well, Jesus made her clean. And that is the way it happens. We reach out to Jesus and he makes us clean. It doesn't matter what we bring to him. It doesn't matter where we've been or what we've come from. The Lord makes us clean. He made this woman clean in a moment. Jesus transforms us. And this woman was made whole. Verses 45 to 48, and Jesus said, who was it that touched me? When all denied it,
Peter said, master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you. Now I got to stop there for a second because there's two things I think that are really funny and important. One, I don't think Jesus was confused as to who touched him. I personally think that he looked right at her and said, who touched me? Who is this that's come before me? It was direct. It was intimate, knowledgeable.
That's what I believe to happen there. And then you hear the sarcasm from Peter. What do you mean? Who touched you? Everybody touched you. There's everywhere, people everywhere, master. I said that the moment of the two was just striking to me. But Jesus said, someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me. And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, falling down before him, declaring in the presence of all the people why she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed. And he said to her, daughter, your faith has made you well, go in peace. Jesus stopped everyone. Despite the sea of people, he stopped everyone. He said something to her that we have no evidence that he had ever said before and had ever said afterwards. He called a woman his daughter. What an intimate thing. Daughter, I see you. You've been rejected for 12 years.
You've been hurt and harmed for 12 years. No more. I see you. Wouldn't your heart be so glad right now if Jesus looked into what you're going through and said, son, daughter, I see it.
How soothing to your soul would that be? That's what happened to this woman right now. There was only one who reached out to him with a hand of faith to receive something only Jesus could give her. I'm sure there were many people that wanted something from Jesus that day.
Come and save us from Roman occupation. Come and save us. If you're the Messiah, come and do these miracles, do these wonders, because we read about how people were looking for the wrong things from him constantly.
Daughter, I see you. What an intimate moment. And isn't it amazing to think that that's how the Lord looks at you and me? Son, daughter, I see you. Verse 45, and Jesus said, who was it that touched me?
When all denied it, Peter said, master, the crowds surround you and are pressing against you. See, Jesus was trying to teach them something that they did not understand. Something that many people do not understand today.
That we can be close to Jesus, but not have the nearness of Jesus. Let me explain. We can come to church.
We can do all of the right things. But our hearts can be a locked closet to the Lord. They didn't understand that we can, if Jesus was here right now, and I believe he is, but in bodily form, as he was back in the old days, wouldn't we all be surrounding him right now?
And just like at his feet and wanting to worship? And we can be that close and still not have our heart open because we're afraid to share with him that which we need healed.
Lord, I need this. Lord, I need you in this way. I need to be healed in this way. I need forgiveness for this thing. Help me to forgive someone else for that thing, whatever it is.
All of this stuff that burns within our hearts that we desperately want the Lord to see and save us from. He can. What are we waiting for? We hold him off at arm's length sometimes.
No, Lord, that's uncomfortable. It means I'm going to have to do different things. There's a story that we can look at and we'll get to eventually here, but Jesus healed a man who could not walk.
And the man was by a place where superstition ran wild and he was wanting to get healing. And you know what Jesus asked him? Do you want to be healed?
Seems like kind of a stupid question, right? The guy's there looking for healing. Of course he wants to be healed. But here's what it actually means. You see, if you are healed, this guy would then have to get a job.
Right? He'd have to provide for himself. He wouldn't be able to take alms and things like that, not in the right way, because now he could provide for himself. If we are made well, if we are made whole, that means we might have to forgive someone or be forgiven by someone.
Do you want to be healed? Really? Because sometimes we can be so stuck in our discomfort and in our pain that we might say, no, Lord, this is too familiar for me.
I don't want to be healed. And our heart remains a locked cage to God. And we can be close to him, but miss his nearness. And this is something that the Lord was trying to teach the apostles.
Yes, there are crowds everywhere. They're pressing in. They're all around me right now. But this daughter right here is desperate. And I see her.
She's not missing my nearness as a healer. So let's not miss that in him. It's possible to hear the teaching of God's word and have true and sincere worship.
And if we have our heart as a locked cage, it can just rotate around us. It's possible to be around people who love God and want to grow. And you only make a casual contact.
You're just bumping into him as we go along. You're not trying to reach out and say, Father, I'm desperate. I need you. I need you. Maybe our pride says, oh, that's too feeling based.
Well, you know what? If you're not feeling something of the Bible, you're dead. I need you, Lord. Resurrect the dead man, the dead woman inside of me.
Because I need you. It's one thing to bump up against him in a crowd. It's another thing to reach out to the Savior with a hand of faith and say, save me now.
I need you. Just let that sink in for a moment. Maybe one of us, maybe all of us need to hear this. We're not able to articulate it.
But we might say, I don't know why people seem to be blessed all around me. And I don't. I don't know why people seem to engage in worship and seem to really be in it. And I'm not.
Have you asked, Lord, to come into that part? There's a wonderful, Charles Hummel wrote this thing. It's about like millimeters thick. I think I have a few left in my office called Christ, My Heart's Home.
And it talks about just this simple journey where Jesus enters this guy's house as a guest. And he shows him the living room and he sees the things on the mantelpiece and the little pieces of this guy's life.
And, you know, he brings Jesus into other rooms and shows him. See, this is my kitchen. This is where I entertain people. And then he walks down the hallway and there's this one closet that's locked.
And Jesus is like, well, what about this one? I said, I can't open that. You wouldn't love me if I opened that. So Jesus opens it. And the man is healed.
That's the snapshot. There's more to it. I really encourage you to read it. But you see where I'm going? We can come to church. We can do all the right things. But if our heart is a locked cage for Jesus, we're missing on something very valuable.
The nearness of him. Be desperate. Be desperate. Know our need. Be willing to be brave and say, Father, I need help.
And I don't understand how it's going to come. I don't know when. Lord, if it be your will, I need your help right now. The woman knew she was healed.
And Jesus knew something had happened. And I think Jesus was staring right at the woman. Like I said, I wonder sometimes what it would have been like to walk around with Jesus and have him look you straight in the eyes.
What would it be like for our creator, our love, our father, our savior to look you in the eye and say, I'm so glad you're here. You belong to me.
What a healing, loving thing that would be. Maybe we need to hear that today. She was called out. And I have to say, this might have been a fairly embarrassing moment for her.
Especially after 12 years of rejection, she was called out. Now all eyes were fixed on her. The woman wanted to come quietly and sneak away with a blessing and remain anonymous.
But she knew she was healed. Why would Jesus call her out like this? I think there's a few reasons. One, so that she would know that she was healed.
One and done. 12 years of desperation, of mishaps, of misdirection, of doing things the wrong way, of going to the wrong people. Now you're healed, my daughter.
You're healed. I think that's why Jesus did it. One of the reasons. The other is so that others would see that she was healed. You no longer should reject this woman. It wasn't right then, but it certainly isn't right now.
There's no need for her to be ceremonially cleaned. She is healed. And I think Jesus did it so that others would notice this. Also so that she would know why she was healed.
Because what if she still thought it was because I reached the hem of his garment. Wouldn't that garment become this holy object that people would worship more than the healer? I think it was to show, no, no, no.
No, no, daughter. It wasn't that. That might have brought you here. But I healed you. And there was also a particular onlooker.
Have we forgotten, Jairus? Have we forgotten the beginning of the story? I don't know about you, but it's so easy to be thrown into it and just enraptured with this whole story of this woman.
We forget what actually was happening in the first place. This desperate man came. Please, my daughter is sick and dying. Will you come and heal her? And yet here we've had this whole little mini story that was going on.
I think Jesus did this to give Jairus hope. Believe what he's about to tell Jairus. Believe. I'm going to show you why and how that healing is real in Christ.
I think one of the reasons was to show this man who was waiting. If I were him, I'd be waiting rather impatiently at this point. But right there in front of him, Jesus gave Jairus a reason to believe.
And Jesus did this again because he was identifying her as a daughter. Something beautiful. Can you imagine being rejected and a social pariah for 12 years?
And the Lord looks at you in the eye and says, you're my daughter. I don't know about you, but if he said, you're my son. I don't want to be called a daughter.
But if he looked at me and said, you are my son. All of that 12 years of rejection would have washed away. And maybe that's what he was doing for her. This was a special relationship of tenderness.
I love you. You're like a daughter to me. And there are times when being a faithful follower of Jesus will mean that you're embarrassed in front of other people at times. There are times when our faith will be called out.
Well, you're a believer of Jesus, aren't you? And we need to say, yeah. Yeah, what do you want to know? God wanted nothing for blessing, but blessing for this woman.
He wants nothing but blessing for you and me. Verses 49 to 50. And while he was still speaking, someone from the ruler's house came and said, your daughter is dead.
Do not trouble the teacher anymore. But Jesus, on hearing this, answered him, do not fear. Only believe and she will be well. How can you believe those words after hearing your daughter died?
I wonder at times if there wasn't this sense of resentment. Divers was watching this whole thing. Yeah, this is really nice. This is really beautiful. You weren't fast enough, Lord.
I wonder if you're like me. There have been times where you're thinking, Father, I'm desperate for help. I'm crying out to you. I'm doing everything I can. You're not fast enough. And yet, as it always seems to be the way, God has something in mind.
There is a plan afoot. And it's rolling out in his time by his will. And it's always going to be better than anything we try and do on our own or plan for ourselves. And this is another story just like that.
Jesus gave him two things to do. One, do not be afraid. Those might sound a little rough after the news that your daughter is dead.
It might even come off like, get over it. It could come off as very, very cold if we're not careful. But Jesus knew something.
And this is something that we need to wrestle with as well. And I'm sure you've heard it a million times before from a million other people. But it's worth saying again. Faith and fear cannot live in the same heart at the same time.
They simply can't. You can't be fearful and say you have faith. And faith will be there. And sometimes things happen when fear pops up.
And it makes us afraid. What do we do with that? Because fear happens. You could head into a Tuesday morning and something can happen. It'll make you fearful. That's okay. Surrender it to the Lord. It's just that we have that wrestle between us.
Are we going to be faithful people or fearful people? Because we can't be faithful, fearful people. Right? So Jesus is saying, just believe. Because the Lord knew what was about to happen.
Only believe. I mean, that's powerful. Don't try and believe and be afraid at the same time. Don't try and believe and make sense of the delay. Like don't, what Diana was saying earlier, it's like, you know, don't have this space where it's like, I'm going to make a list of things that I can do to get this going, to fix it, or whatever.
You know, I have one of my personal stories is that I was called to ministry, you know, when I was 16 years old. It took about 20 years to get beaten up emotionally, carved in a lot of ways, because my character was not ready.
It's not ready now. It's an ongoing process. But I'll tell you right now, that punk was not ready. It took 20 years of learning under people, submitting to the Lord, realizing where I stop and start.
Sometimes it will take a while for you. Learn to be a part of the wait and have gratitude in those moments. Because when the Lord does his thing, it's awesome.
And he's working on us now. And even though he was making Jairus wait, something beautiful was about to happen. My daughter is dead. She's been sick.
Jesus is too late. And all that told Jairus was simply just to say, forget it. There's no point. The one thing he had to cling to was Jesus' promise.
Don't be afraid. Only believe. Verses 51 to 53. And when he came to the house, he allowed no one to enter with him, except Peter and John and James, and the father and the mother of the child.
And all were weeping and mourning for her. But he said, do not weep, for she is not dead, but sleeping. And they laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. Can you imagine how the tone of the crowd just changed?
At one point, they were just psyched for Jesus to come over. And this was going to be a miracle. And the kid's going to get up and run around, all that kind of stuff. And now the child is dead. There's a difference between resuscitation and resurrection.
And we get these terms, you know, sometimes mixed. And it's important to know. So when they're sleeping, this resuscitation is this girl was about to be raised to the life that she had prior.
When we are resurrected in Jesus, it is into our glorified body, like Jesus. It's different. This girl was made alive again, but she was dead.
All the air would have gone out of the room. And Jesus gets to the house, a small house.
And some of those places in Capernaum are pretty small. Peter's mother-in-law's house is actually pretty tiny, you know. And I can imagine this, that just there was some cramped quarters there.
And they had only a few people to be able to get in. And I like how Jesus just cleared out the mockers. The people were just laughing at him. Just get out of here. And sometimes when we mock what the Lord is doing, we miss out on the really beautiful things that he's about to do.
We really do, because we're too busy caught up in our own selves. And Jesus does this when people mock what he's on about. And they miss out because of blindness. Verses 54 to 56, and I'll close after that.
But taking her by the hand, he called her saying, Child, arise. And her spirit returned. And she got up at once. And he directed that something should be given her to eat.
And her parents were amazed. But he charged them to tell no one what had happened. Can you imagine all of this? The girl is dead.
She's raised up. The parents would have been beside themselves, freaking out. And I honestly think, and this is just me looking into it, so take this with a grain of salt.
I think the mother was having a crash out, and Jesus looked, Can you make her some food? Sometimes when people are really losing it, you've got to give them a very specific job so they can redirect emotionally. I wonder if that's not what happens.
She needs some food. Okay? Just, okay, okay. Maybe it was like that. Jesus didn't fail Jairus. Jairus.
And he didn't fail the woman who needed healing. But there's some interesting parallels between the two. And I want to highlight them just before I close. Jairus' daughter was 12 years old.
This woman had been bleeding for 12 years. Jairus had 12 years of sunshine with his daughter's life. She was a ray of sunshine in his life. This woman experienced 12 years of being a social pariah and rejected by everybody.
Jairus was an important man. We know his name. This woman was known by no one. We don't even know her name from this story. Jesus met both of their needs.
Jairus came publicly. The woman came secretly. Each of them were, in a special way, daughters. Daughter of a ruler. Daughter of a king. Daughters.
Jairus' daughter and this woman, Jesus called daughters. Isn't it beautiful that the Lord knows how to respond to our individual needs? Whether we are like Jairus, a ruler.
Whether we are like his daughter. And we need to be raised. Or whether it's like a woman who has been suffering for something for so very long that needs healing.
Inside and out. Emotional healing as well as physical. That amount of rejection is brutal. From psychology circles, rejection actually hits the brain in the same way as a physical blow.
Like you're being punched. That's what rejection feels like or does to the brain. So you imagine 12 years of that. You're going to feel a little beaten up. But the Lord healed her. Jesus knows how to meet each individual need.
He can speak to where we are at this morning. He can speak into those moments and those thoughts of desperation that we're too afraid to raise up. He can speak into that locked cage heart we might have where we come close to him, but we miss the nearness of him in our lives.
Jesus will meet your need where you're at. So reach out to him in faith. Reach out to him now just like this woman did.
You're here. What are you waiting for? Don't have a locked cage heart. Have an open heart towards him. So as we get into this last song, I'd like just to encourage everyone, pray through the words, worship, but maybe also just take a moment and cry out and say, Lord, I need you.
I'm desperate. And I pray that the Lord will answer you exactly the same way as he answered Jairus. It might be to wait. And it might also be with this woman who just looks, he looks at you and says, son, daughter, I see you.
I see you. Let's pray.