The Power of Our King Over Death

Matthew 9:18-26

Scene 1. Everyday people face all sorts of challenges,                                   

The car might break down.

The dog might get sick.

The hot water system might stop working.

A job might be at risk.

Some challenges can be defining moments.  

Serious chronic disease is often a defining moment in a person’s life.

Most if not all of us have met people who have suffered all their life from a significant illness.

For many it defines their life.

The constant treatment.

The constant pain.

And for many financial ruin as they are unable to work.

Over the years I have met a few people who in spite of their best efforts and the latest in medical treatment just have to live with a debilitating illness.

Some bear it well, others do not.

Another defining moment in people’s lives that I have come across is the terminal illness of a child.

I remember one young lady that Toni and I met during our college days.

She had cystic fibrosis.

She was always unwell.

And constantly having to struggle along short of breath.

When we visited her she was at home, not able to go out.

There was nothing that doctors could do for her, except hope that when a donor became available that she would be well enough for a heart lung transplant.

She ran out of time.

Her older brothers Peter and David made up the famous local clown act Peebo and Dagwood.

They suffered from the same disease and in 2020 Peter died from liver cancer.

The double lung transplant for Cystic fibrosis and the ongoing kidney complications meant that the normal treatments just weren’t possible.

Scene 2. Two biblical examples of people who faced such defining challenges were Jairus the synagogue ruler and a woman.  

We find these two people’s stories in Matthew 9:18 - 26

Jairus was an important man; he was the ruler of the synagogue.

He was responsible for the management and maintenance of the synagogue and the day to day operation of its regular activities

Probably this is the synagogue at Capernaum.

Matthew just summarizes the story into nine verses, saying that Jairus’ daughter has died; the fuller accounts in Mark 5:22 and Luke 8:41 give a lot more detail.

The girl is gravely ill and only 12 years old.

She is his only daughter.

Jairus comes to Jesus and falls at his feet pleading with him to come and place his hands upon the girl so that she will be healed.

Now we need to understand what an incredible thing this was for Jairus to do.                 

He was an important dignitary in the town.

In Jewish circles he was the senior figure.

For him to come and bow at the feet of a visiting controversial teacher was a very big deal.

Next we read of a woman.

We know nothing about her except her medical situation.

For twelve years this woman had suffered with chronic hemorrhaging.     

Mark 5:26 tells us that visiting physicians had only given her more pain, depleted her funds, and left her worse than when she began.[1]

The Scriptures don’t tell us but almost certainly she would have been anaemic from the blood loss.

Weak, broke and desperate she has to do something.

To make matters worse the constant flow of blood made her ceremonially unclean.

She should not have been around other people; to make her way through a crowd broke every social and religious rule.

She certainly shouldn’t have been planning to touch a visiting rabbi.

For Jairus the situation just gets worse.    

Mark and Luke both tell us that on his way there Jesus is delayed and messengers arrive to tell Jairus, to not waste the teacher’s time, the girl has died.      

It seems that all hope is lost.

When Jesus finally reaches the house it appears that it is well and truly too late.

The girl is definitely dead.

The mourners have arrived.  

In the ancient world, paid professional mourners.

Came and joined a family to help them express their grief.

They composed poems or dirges praising the deceased.

They would chant these dirges to the accompaniment of a flute or other musical instrument.

The whole idea was for everyone to get a bit worked up.

They usually wore sackcloth and scattered dust in the air and on their heads.

Weeping, wailing, and beating their breasts, they created an unmistakable tone of grief.[2]

When we were in Tully there was a fellow known as the town’s professional mourner.

He was on basically every committee of every community group in town and Tully had a committee for everything.

He would go to every funeral and express great sorrow to the family and tell them how wonderful their departed loved one was.

He would let everyone know how grief stricken he was even if he didn’t know the person who had died.

He would go on and on to everyone.

Eventually some hard tough bloke died who had the guts to tell his relatives and the town’s leaders beforehand that under no circumstances was this man to attend the funeral.

I think they feared he might come back if they didn’t do something about it so they told this man that he wasn’t welcome.

Committee meetings of every community organisation got a little easier for a while after that.

For Jairus the synagogue ruler and the haemorrhaging woman life wasn’t so easy.

Scene 3. In natural terms both of these people’s situations were hopeless, but both were willing to reach out to Jesus in faith and the result of that faith, incomplete though it was, was a miracle. 9:21-22, 23-25.       

For the woman that hope, if I can just touch the hem of his outer garment.

Hoping no one, including Jesus, would notice.

We are not told whether she felt unworthy to talk to Him, fearful because of her uncleanness (see Lev. 15:25–33), or concerned that there would be no chance of an audience with Him in such a crowd.

We are told that she had enough faith in the person of Christ to believe that just touching His clothes would prove life-changing, and she was right.

Though the passage makes clear that her body was healed at the time she reached out to him that was not enough for Jesus.

He wanted to give her more.

Jesus came to an abrupt halt and demanded, “Who touched me?”

The disciples were incredulous. “What was He talking about?”

They saw the many, but He saw the one.

Power had gone out of Him, but His power had not been depleted.

The healing had not been completed.

She was more than a hemorrhaging body; she was a needy woman.

When this woman contacted God—He knew and she knew, though no other was aware.

Jesus would not move until she approached Him.

Her approach was three-faceted:

She came forward trembling with fear, fell down at His feet, and told the whole truth.

He responded in love:  

He called her “daughter” (an intimate and endearing term), assured her that her body was healed (by her faith, not His clothes), sent her away free from all anxiety (go in peace), and healed (Gk. sozo, “saved,” Mark 5:34) her soul.[3]

For Jairus, that hope.  If Jesus will just reach out his hand and touch her seemed to have been wasted, the news arrived that his daughter was dead.

But Jesus didn’t accept that.  If you look at Luke chapter 8 verse 50 Jesus plainly tells Jarius to not be afraid and to just believe.

Jesus continues to Jarius’ house and makes the bold announcement that the girl is not dead, just sleeping.     

Now everyone there knows she is dead, they are absolutely certain, so they laugh at Jesus.

But Jesus is telling them that she is at rest, dead yes but waiting to be bought back to life.     

This is an enormous claim.

A claim that incidently put everything about Jesus on the line.        

Taking Jarius, his wife and the disciples Peter, James and John, Jesus goes into the house to the child takes her by the hand and tells her to get up.

Her spirit returns and she is raised back to life.

Jesus orders that she be given some food, apparently being dead and be raised makes you hungry.

The woman and Jarius both reached out to Jesus in faith and when they did, miracles happened.

Scene 4. Sometimes I have reached out to Jesus in faith with the challenges of my life and the results have surprised me, sometimes I haven’t.    

Faith is a strange thing.

The Bible indicates that you don’t actually need a lot for God to act. 

You just need to expect that God will do something.

Maybe it will be what you want.

Maybe it will be totally different to what you expected.

And maybe God won’t fix the situation, but he will help you to go through it.

Faith is a bit like this story I read of a helicopter pilot who flew from an aircraft carrier in the Pacific.

He said, "I was flying the helicopter back to the ship when a blinding fog rolled in. Flying at a low altitude, I knew that a single mistake would plunge my crew and me into the ocean. Worse yet, I was experiencing a complete loss of balance -- which is common for pilots flying by instruments. This loss of balance was so bad that despite the instrument readings I was certain that I was lying on my side. For 15 minutes I flew the helicopter by its instruments, fighting the urge to turn it according to my feeling. When we finally broke safely through the fog, I was deeply thankful I had been trained to rely upon my instruments rather than on my feelings." That is what people who live by faith do -- they remember that feelings can be misleading, but the truths in God's word are reliable, trustworthy, and consistent. The Christian life, like walking on water, is humanly impossible. It can only be lived by the power of the Holy Spirit. Storms are going to come. When you're in a storm with the wind raging and the waves pounding, and you feel like you're sinking, know this: The same Lord who stills the storm allows the storm. (Source: From a sermon by Bill Scott, "Boat Potatoes" 7/14/08, SermonCentral.com)

Scene 5. We rely on feelings and not on the truths of God.

We don’t expect results. 

So I challenge you today.      

Reach out to Jesus in faith, miracles can happen!

I did that one day and God acted.

Look at the result.

[1]Thomas Nelson, I. (1997). Woman's study Bible. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

[2]Radmacher, E. D., Allen, R. B., & House, H. W. (1999). Nelson's new illustrated Bible commentary (Mt 9:18–26). Nashville: T. Nelson Publishers.

[3]Thomas Nelson, I. (1997). Woman's study Bible. Nashville: Thomas Nelson.