Matthew 9:18-26: Compassion and Cleanliness

If you have your Bibles turn to Matthew 9:18. In the red hard back KJV Bibles it is on page 1000. In the blue softcover ESV Bibles it is on page 475.

It’s been a while since we have been in Matthew so let’s do a little recap of chapter 9 so far. In the beginning of the chapter Jesus raises the ire of the scribes and pharisees by proclaiming a paralyzed man’s sins to be forgiven (because only God can forgive sins). He then proves that he has this authority by performing an incredible miracle, completely healing the body of the paralyzed man before them.

Chapter 9 continues with Jesus calling Matthew the tax collector, the one who betrayed his own people for some money, to follow him and become one of his disciples. Matthew’s response is immediate, immediately leaving everything behind to follow Jesus. We then see Jesus’ compassionate heart toward those who know they are far from God and yet want to be redeemed. In response to the judgement of the Pharisees, Jesus gives the great proverb that, “It is the sick who need a physician and not the healthy”.

Then Jesus is challenged again, but this time by the disciples of John the Baptist, his cousin and the great prophet! They challenged Jesus, asking why they and the pharisees are practicing fasting, but Jesus and his disciples do not? To this Jesus responds with a couple examples of how the old and new do not mix and that Jesus is coming to do a new thing among the Jewish people and the world! Namely, the enacting of the New Covenant!

And that brings us to our text this morning. So let’s go ahead and read Matthew 9:18-26 together.

Matthew 9:18–26 (ESV)

18 While he was saying these things to them, behold, a ruler came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” 19 And Jesus rose and followed him, with his disciples.

20 And behold, a woman who had suffered from a discharge of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, 21 for she said to herself, “If I only touch his garment, I will be made well.” 22 Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well.

23 And when Jesus came to the ruler’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, 24 he said, “Go away, for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. 25 But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose. 26 And the report of this went through all that district.

This is a story that is recounted in each of the synoptic gospels (Matt, Mark, Luke), the ones that mostly run side by side in their accounts of Jesus, and Matthew has easily the shortest telling.

About half of Luke and a third of Mark

v. 18-19

Ruler came and knelt before Jesus (KJV says “Worship” but the word means “kneeling like in worship”)

Matthew Explanation of the Text

He would be a wealthy patron and member of the synagogue board who was responsible for the order and progress of worship. He apportioned tasks in it like the reading of Scripture or giving of the homily and was in charge of finances as well as of maintaining the building.

Matthew Explanation of the Text

For a highly respected community leader like this to fall down at the feet of Jesus was unusual and shows both his desperate plight and the incredible esteem he has for Jesus.

Faith of direct touch

His simple and profound faith in Jesus - Like the centurion in chapter 8

- but touching a dead body is unclean!

Jesus and Disciples go

Matthew Explanation of the Text

The compassionate response of Jesus is immediate.

v. 20-22

An interruption! - The bleeding woman

When you see another story sandwiched into the main story, it is meant to tell you to use the stories to interpret each other and learn from both of them. It is a Hebrew way of adding complexity and emphasis on a point.

12 years of menstrual bleeding!

Men I won’t ask you if you could imagine it, but ladies, can you? the discomfort of the situation, especially without our modern hygiene products?

Mark tells us she spent all her money on physicians who could do nothing to help her!

But it’s much worse than discomfort and physical uncleanness!

Lev 15:25-30 said she was ritually unclean for that entire time. In other words, she was a virtual leper who would have had to leave family and village, lest contact with her render everyone unclean. She couldn’t even go and sacrifice at the temple!

It is impossible for us to imagine the agony of heart and soul this poor woman had been through all that time!

Faith of indirect touch

Matthew Explanation of the Text

There is a progression of faith from the synagogue ruler (implicit in v. 18) to the woman (explicit in v. 21 and the center of the episode). The courage it took to steal into the town and sneak behind Jesus is also astounding, for if detected she would have been thrown out of the area as unclean. She reasons that with Jesus as a powerful healing prophet (perhaps Messiah), she did not have to have direct contact. Just a touch would be enough.

The phrase “she was saying” pictures the woman saying this to herself as she approaches Jesus. This is a step forward from the ruler. He believed that Jesus’ touch was sufficient; she believes that even an indirect touch by her (apparently without the direct knowledge of Jesus) will suffice.

Compassion of Jesus

Jesus looks on her with compassion and says “Take heart, daughter!” This is the only time in Matthew that jesus uses the affectionate term to speak to a woman! It shows his great compassion for the woman.

Faith and Healing

Matthew Explanation of the Text

Finally, Matthew emphasizes the finality of the healing by relating that she was saved “from that very hour.” This is not a temporary healing with a future relapse (like many in our day!).

v. 23-26

Jesus makes it to the ruler’s house and the scene is rather chaotic

Matthew (Explanation of the Text)

The emphasis in Jewish funerals was on loud mourning, and families would hire professional mourners and musicians. The Jewish people did not embalm corpses and so had to bury them within twenty-four hours. Jesus is walking into a mess

Jesus then says something audacious!

He tells the mourners to leave because they’re not needed anymore

Like Jesus said in the previous passage about fasting, there is no more need for grief but only for joy.

He then says, “this girl isn’t dead, she’s just sleeping”

Then they mocked him because they knew she really was dead! They had been there for hours doing their professional mourning!

But Jesus puts the crowd outside, the word is the same as “casting out” like with demons, so this is a forceful removal!

Then Jesus touches the lifeless and unclean child, tenderly taking her by the hand and she immediately rose with him.

Just like with the hemorrhaging woman, the dead child is healed with a touch!

This is a tender scene, as he almost gallantly takes her by the hand and raises her up, except this is a resurrection from the dead! As Jesus promised in 9:19, she “rises” not just from her bed but from death!

This is the first of three resurrections that Jesus performs, a sign that the messiah has come!

His fame spreads which seems to be a positive in our fame obsessed culture, but in thinking of the context, that means that more attention from enemies will also be upon him. Jesus is going to be facing more and more opposition the more famous he becomes.

What incredible stories that show us the heart of Christ! Matthew clearly shows once more that

Jesus is the Promised Messiah!

He has all the authority of God to do the miracles he does. Never before had anything like this been seen, both in the quantity and the quality of the miracles. We’ve now seen Jesus calm storms, cast out demons with just a word, and heal with a word and a touch. Gone are the lengthy incantations and the elaborate ritual! Gone are all the ways that people tried to manufacture miracles, here is the Messiah!

If there was any question, Jesus is indeed the Son of David! The Promised Messiah who heals the ills of the nation. In John, Jesus says his miracles are witnesses to the reality that he really is “God with us” (Matt 1:23) and Matthew is making it clear that he agrees!

Compassion and Cleanliness

But a major theme in the first set of miracles was the compassion of Jesus and we see that compassion again in verses 9-13 when he shows compassion for the tax collectors and sinners instead of the expected shunning of the unrighteous.

In this passage we see that Jesus steps into two separate situations that would have made him ceremonially unclean and this is where we see the great compassion of Jesus!

When the woman who experienced 12 years of menstrual bleeding came to Christ in faith, he didn’t shirk away from her uncleanliness and he didn’t scold her for risking his ability to come into the temple by touching him! He turns to her, tenderly calls her “daughter”, and heals her!

And when Jesus was faced with the uncleanliness of death itself, he didn’t turn away there either! Even as he was mocked for his words and his actions, he was compassionate toward the girl and her father. The father was the ruler of the synagogue - he knew he was asking Jesus to break the Jewish taboo of touching the dead and making himself ritually unclean! Jesus himself knew this and yet he still went and touched the girl!

And something wild happened in both these instances! Jesus, being the very source of life and cleanliness himself, stepped into these unclean situations and took the uncleanliness onto himself. But rather than the dirtiness transferring to Jesus, Jesus’ cleanness transferred to the unclean woman and girl, healing them and granting them new life in the light of the reality of who he is.

And for those of us who are Christians, who take Jesus’ title upon ourselves, we are told that we too must be willing to enter situations that society tells us are unclean so that we may bring in the cleanliness of Christ! We have given up so much ground to evil because we have long chosen to sit in our comfortable churches instead of seeking out the dark and dirty places and bringing the light and cleanness of Christ into all the earth!

Now you might be saying, “listen, I struggle with sin and I’m afraid that if I go to places where sin is so on display then I will fall myself” but that’s only valid to a certain extent. What if we took the bible seriously when it says to put our sin to death? What if we stopped thinking that the problem is the bar and so I need to avoid it and started thinking that the problem is my own sin so I need to put that sin to death? What if we stopped thinking that the thing our sin fixates on is the problem and realize that we, in our sin is the problem? If we started to realize that the problem of sin is our problem first then we would be working a whole lot harder to kill it in ourselves instead of simply avoiding the places that encourage it to make itself known!

We make excuses to not go out into the dark places because they’re dirty and dark and then we complain when the world seems to be going to hell in a handbasket. What do you expect when Christians refuse to have the same compassion that was shown to them in their namesake, Jesus Christ, and go out to the dark and dirty places to bring the light of the Gospel and cleansing power of Jesus’ blood?! Jesus knew we were dirty and in the dark and yet still had compassion for us and reached out to us! He saved us from our sin and brought us to new life! He didn’t stop saving you because it was uncomfortable for him!

We have given up so much ground to the enemy because we have refused to get uncomfortable, to get unclean! How long have we avoided the bar across the street? How long have we neglected to go speak with neighbors? How long have we been complaining about problems and refusing to get our hands dirty and actually work on bringing the Gospel to bear on the problems?

And it is scary and unknown and uncomfortable when we step into these places, but that’s the whole point of faith! Faith is not about being comfortable, but rather faith is truly a dependency on God!

Faith is Dependency

Both the woman who was bleeding and the father of the girl are shown as humble and dependent on Jesus for their hope!

Are we dependent on Jesus, or do we seek to perform rituals like the pagans? Are we willing to step out of the areas in our lives where we have found comfort in order to depend on God to care for us and lead us onward?

As we close out 2023...

The new year is upon us! It seems only a couple months ago we were moving into the parsonage, but we’re nearly a year in and the Lord has blessed us immensely. We are now mere hours away from closing out 2023.

And as the New Year comes, many of us make resolutions. According to a poll, most Americans are making resolutions to save more money, get healthier, and reduce stress.

Resolutions are not a new thing. They’ve been going on for at least 300 years, because in 1722 Jonathan Edwards wrote up a list of 21 resolutions (and later expanded it to 70 resolutions) that have been encouraging Christians for centuries.

But instead of resolving to exercise or stop bad habits, the 18 year old Edwards started his resolutions with this.

Jonathan Edwards (1722-23)

1. Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time… Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many and how great soever.

2. Resolved, to be continually endeavoring to find out some new invention and contrivance to promote the aforementioned things.

If the couple dozen of us in this room all resolved to do this in the New Year, what would our town look like by the end of next year? What changes would be made to the homes of our neighbors? What changes would be made in the businesses around us? What changes to our church? What changes to our own lives?

May we, like Jonathan Edwards, resolve to do whatever will bring God the most glory (without consideration of time), whatever will bring the most good and advantage to all mankind, to persevere no matter the difficulty, and to continually strive to find new ways to promote these things! And may we do so following Jesus into the dark and dirty places, bringing light and the cleansing power of the Gospel!

Physical vs. Spiritual Healing

Matthew 4. Being Raised Physically as Well as Spiritually

This miracle is not only proleptic of Jesus’ resurrection but of the greatest miracle of all—the raising of a soul to eternal life. John 14:12 says it best: “All who have faith in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” What is the “greater” miracle? Bringing eternal life to the lost. Then those who have found life in him will experience the final raising of the dead at the eschaton (1 Cor 15:22–23, 51–53; 1 Thess 4:16–17).