The Raising of Jairus' Daughter

Matthew 9:18-26

Matthew 9:18–26 NKJV

While He spoke these things to them, behold, a ruler came and worshiped Him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay Your hand on her and she will live.” So Jesus arose and followed him, and so did His disciples. And suddenly, a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind and touched the hem of His garment. For she said to herself, “If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well.” But Jesus turned around, and when He saw her He said, “Be of good cheer, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And the woman was made well from that hour. When Jesus came into the ruler’s house, and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd wailing, He said to them, “Make room, for the girl is not dead, but sleeping.” And they ridiculed Him. But when the crowd was put outside, He went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose. And the report of this went out into all that land.

The gospel text for this morning in the Lectionary is actually two different sections from the 9th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. The first is Matthew 9::9-13 which deals with the calling of Levi (Matthew), the feast he invited his fellow tax-collectors to, the reaction of the Pharisees that Jesus was at the table with notorious sinners. Jesus responded that he had come to heal sinners and bring them to repentance, I already have treated this passage in the sermon “Keeping Bad Company” in this sermon archive, so I will concentrate my message on the second passage.

The second text is the account of two healings, the one of the woman with the issue of blood, and the other of the healing of Jairus’ daughter. The healing of the woman with the issue of blood comes in the middle of the account of the healing of Jairus’ daughter. It acts as an interruption. Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue had desperately come in person to Jesus, and urged Him to come immediately and heal his daughter who was at the point of death. He believed that if only Jesus would come and lay her hand upon her that she would live. As the ruler of the synagogue, he was a man of influence and authority. He also had a legitimate need which only Jesus could heal. One could note that the Roman Centurion in Matthew 7 had a great need, yet he believed that Jesus could heal his servant from a distance. Jesus need not have to come and enter a Gentile house which would have made Him unclean to the Jews. If they complained about Jesus eating with publicans and harlots, they would have complained about Him coming under the Centurion’s roof. But we must remember about the ministry of Jesus, the unclean did not defile Jesus. Instead, the touch of Jesus healed and cleansed the unclean.

The woman who touched the hem of Jesus’ garment had been unclean for twelve years or as long as Jairus’ daughter had been alive. She seems to have had constant hemorrhaging, likely in the female area which would make her untouchable and unclean. Instead of the few days a month that a woman of childbearing age would sequester herself, she was in isolation for twelve years. She had a legitimate need. The Gospels of Mark and Luke give much more detail on the plight of the woman. She had spent every dime she had with the physicians seeking a cure, Instead of Jesus coming to her to touch her, she came to Jesus. she had said that if she could just but touch the hem of His garment that she would be healed. The Gospel of Matthew just tells us that she was healed. Jesus told her that her faith had made her well. What joy must have filled her heart. As Matthew only gives a brief account, we will cover this in more detail when we look at the passage in Mark.

The account of the healing of Jairus’ daughter is short and to the point. Matthew does not mention that someone from the house had come and told Jairus not to bother about Jesus as his daughter is dead. Instead, it picks up with Jesus entering into the Jairus’ house to the sound of professional mourners playing the flutes and making a commotion over the dead. Jesus’ response was that they should not worry. She was not dead, but only sleeping. The faith of Jairus when he first came to Jesus is contrasted by the unbelief of the occupants of the house. Their response to Jesus’ words was to laugh Him to scorn. The other Gospels show that Jesus forcefully threw these skeptics out of the house.

Some modern commentators claim that the daughter had not actually died but was in a deep coma. The moderns laugh to scorn the simplicity and credulity of the ancients. They did not have all the modern medical technology we have today. This is why wakes were held in old times, to make sure no one was buried alive, which did happen on rare occasions. The modern world would doubly scorn at Jesus’ words. They scorn Jesus, the Son of the Father, through whom the worlds are created. Certainly Jesus knew the young maid was dead. The fact He said “asleep” means nothing as this was used in those days as an euphemism for death as it was less harsh. Make no mistake! The girl was dead. She was dead long enough for the professional mourners to come and make their racket. These mourners had mourned over many a dead body. they knew she was dead.

The Gospel of Mark shows here that Jesus forcefully threw the professional mourners out. He only let her parents enter. We saw earlier that Jairus had come to Jesus in faith, believing that if He came, He could heal his daughter. There is nothing in any of the accounts which showed that Jairus had lost this faith, even when the report came that his daughter was dead. I can answer for everyone, but it might have come into my mind that if it weren’t for the woman with the issue of blood’s interruption of the procession, that Jesus might have gotten there before she died. We can look at Martha and Mary’s sad statement to Jesus: “If only you had come here, our brother would not have died.” The professional mourners can be found in this account of the raising of Lazarus in John 11. It says there that Jesus bristled with anger at their unbelief. They were as the comforters of Job. Little did they realize that in each of these cases, God had something greater to show. Jesus delayed three whole days before coming to Bethany. Here, He was held up by the woman with the issue of blood. Jesus came not to heal a sick girl, but to raise her from death, even as He would later do for Lazarus.

The Gospel of Luke then tells us that He spoke to the damsel, saying “Daughter, I say to you, ‘Arise.”” In Aramaic, the words are “Talita Coumi.” It is interesting in the 10th chapter of Acts, Tabitha is raised by God through the agency of Peter. He spoke the words “Tabitha Coumi.” So there is an odd parallel here to note.

The brief account in Matthew simply says that Jesus took her hand and raised her up. Luke 8:55-56 adds that Jesus commanded the parents to give the girl something to eat, which is additionaly touching and showed that Jesus cared for her. What follows in Luke is that the parents were commanded to tell no one what had happened in the room. Only they and Peter, James, and John knew. This is interesting because Matthew states that the report of what had happened was noised abroad. It is hard to hide the fact that a little girl which everyone knew was dead came out of the room alive. The Greek word for report is the word we get “fame” from. We could say that His fame spread over all the land. We see this Greek word in Matthew 4:24 as well which notes that His fame went out through all Syria. Even the Gentile lands had heard of the miracles of Jesus.

What can we learn from this passage? First of all, we learn that Jesus desires us to believe on Him. We have noted how the woman of the issue of blood demonstrated her faith. It says that Jairus believed that Jesus could heal his daughter. After the transfiguration, Jesus came to a man whose child was greatly tormented, The challenged that man to believe. His response: “I believe; help my unbelief” is so characteristic of us as well. We are challenged to believe what is impossible for a man unaided by the Holy Spirit. The world challenges us to laugh the idea of miracles and signs to scorn. they tell us to believe science instead. there have been advances in science. What had once been thought impossible such as landing men on the moon has happened long ago. But science has to own up to many failures as well. Satan would have us say as Job’s wife suggested: “Curse God and die!” This we must not do. We must throw such thoughts out of the room.

Secondly, we should notice that there is no set way or method that Jesus uses when dealing with people. The woman with the issue of blood touched the hem of the garment. Jesus spoke and took Jairus’ daughter by the hand. He spit on the ground and applied mud to a blind man’s eyes. We also see this in Jesus’ work of evangelism as well. He takes a different approach to the woman at the well that He did with Nicodemus. what is in common is that Jesus is personal in His dealings with people, Jesus was no magician who used spells and formulas to heal. We should also be personal in dealing with hurting people.

We also learn that there is something we need which is greater than bodily healing. This is all that a lot of people in Israel who just wanted to be healed without making any personal commitment of faith to Jesus. A leper is cleansed when He asked Jesus to heal Him. Jesus had compassion and told Him: “I will be thou cleansed.” Then He bristled with anger at Him and threw the man, telling him to tell no one but do what the Law prescribed and be declared clean by the priest. Why the change? The only thing I can see is that Jesus realized this man had a spiritual need far more important than being cleansed of leprosy (See Mark 1:40-45). Luke records the cleansing of ten lepers, but only one returned to give thanks. It was this Samaritan who was truly healed. The man by the pool of Bethesda had his paralysis healed, but Jesus found the man in the Temple later and warned him of an even greater punishment if he continued to sin.

The last thing I would like to remind us concerning the passage is to reiterate that Jesus makes the unclean clean. Our uncleanness does not defile Jesus. It says that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all unrighteousness. How amazing that the blood of Jesus does this. Blood is one of the unclean taboos of the Law. But not the blood of Jesus. Any person who had done laundry knows that if one gets a stain on a white garment that it would be ridiculous to cleanse the stain by soaking the garment in blood, which is one of the hardest stains to remove from cloth. But the blood of Jesus makes our formerly stained and ruined garments as white as snow. For Jesus, there are no untouchables, not a leper, not a woman with and issue of blood, not a dead person, not the Gentiles,and not all our sin which cannot be made clean in the blood of the Lamb. In this we rejoice.

Let us keep in mind that if there are to untouchables with Jesus, neither should there be any untouchables beyond the reach of our ministry. If Jesus kept company with tax-collectors and sinners, so should we in its proper context. We are not to be like them, We were like them once. But we pray that God can use us to touch them with the Gospel, even as God raised up others to minister to us the cleansing power of the Gospel. This is indeed a great challenge. We must not be like the Pharisees who criticized Jesus for making company with tax-collectors and harlots. Jesus could do this without collecting taxes or resorting with harlots in their usual trade. May God keep us faithful from the temptations of the world and empower us with the transforming gospel of Jesus Christ.