Luke 8:40-56

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Luke 8:40-56

“And it came to pass, that, when Jesus was returned, the people gladly received him: for they were all waiting for him. And, behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue: and he fell down at Jesus’ feet, and besought him that he would come into his house: for he had one only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she lay a dying. But as he went the people thronged him. And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, came behind him, and touched the border of his garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched. And Jesus said, Who touched me? When all denied, Peter and they that were with him said, Master, the multitude throng thee and press thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me? And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me. And when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came trembling, and falling down before him, she declared unto him before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately. And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace. While he yet spake, there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him, Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master. But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole. And when he came into the house, he suffered no man to go in, save Peter, and James, and John, and the father and the mother of the maiden. And all wept, and bewailed her: but he said, Weep not; she is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead. And he put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid, arise. And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway: and he commanded to give her meat. And her parents were astonished: but he charged them that they should tell no man what was done.”

“‘Father we settle our hearts as we continue, Lord, thank you for a great time, Lord, of singing your praises and worshipping you in song. Lord, we look at this changing world that we live in, Father, what a privilege it is for us to be part of the Redeemed, Lord. We look at the darkness, Lord, spiritually, we look at this world, and those that are hopeless, Lord, searching in so many empty places, Lord, to try to satisfy the yearning that’s within them. And Lord we praise you that we can gather here and know the truth, Lord, around your Son, around your Word, Lord, being ministered to by your Holy Spirit. And Father, we know that if you saved us, you can save anyone, Lord. So as we look around us, Lord, we see the harvest is great, the labourers are few, Lord. We lift our lives to you this evening, Lord, with all of our imperfections Lord, with all that’s within us, we give our lives to you anew, Lord, and ask that you would fill us afresh with your Spirit, Father, that you would lead us, Lord, as we continue our study in Luke’s Gospel, that you would speak to our hearts, Lord, that you would send us away more in love with Jesus than when we came. And Lord, we know that we’re praying according to your will, Lord. We lift these things to you as we continue Lord. We look for your presence in our midst, your work, the power of your Spirit, Father we pray in Jesus name, amen.’

Jairus Seeks Jesus---Who Jairus Is

Luke chapter 8, verse 41, begins by saying, “And, behold,” consider this, a record that most of us are familiar with, of course, the record of Jairus and his daughter, who was raised from the dead, and a woman with a blood-flow that is healed. But I appreciate the fact as I begin looking at familiar territory, the Lord begins by saying “And, behold,” ‘consider this, think about this.’ Because when I find when I come back to places in the Scripture that I feel that I’m familiar with, there is always some new thing, there is always something there that I have never seen before. There is always something that the Lord has for me, because his Word is alive and is powerful, it says. As I look at this record of a religious man, who found himself in a crisis, because of the thing that he loved the most in this world was being ripped away from him. And how he reacted, and how Jesus responded, I always find something new, because I think of myself in his position. And I realize that all of us, all of us, if we continue to breathe and the Lord tarries, we’ll face a situation where something that is dearest to us will be being taken away from us, and we will have to seek him. And I look at a woman, not religious, but who has been cut off by religion, she’s been placed outside the paths of religious people, and where they worship, and how they esteem things. And she is the off-scouring, as it were, in Israel, and how the Lord touches her life, forever. One religious, one not religious, both facing a crisis. One crisis seems to be arising all of a sudden, the other crisis, a long crisis, one of those crisis’s that wear you down, a 12-year crisis, two words that are bad together, twelve years and crisis. And that is what she is going through. And the Lord begins by challenging us to behold, think about these things, consider. Yes, these people we’re familiar with, we’ve read it before, but to think about it again, to think about it anew, to look into it. He says “And, behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was the ruler of the synagogue: and he fell down at Jesus’ feet, and besought him that he would come into his house: for he had one only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she lay a dying. But as he went the people thronged him” (verses 41-42). So this man, Jairus, is introduced to us. His name means Yahweh-enlightens, Ja-irus, his name is a compound of two words which means “Jehovah reveals, Jehovah enlightens” or the LORD enlightens, certainly that’s what we want as we look at this. He’s coming to find Jesus. He is the ruler in the synagogue in Capernaum. We were there, in November. Many of you have been with us before, in that synagogue in Capernaum, we stood inside of the synagogue, in the same precincts where Jesus stood, where this man lived, he was the ruler of that synagogue. He made sure that it was locked and unlocked, that it was kept clean, he made sure the Scrolls were taken care of. He probably appointed those who would come and speak. No doubt, Jairus was there when Jesus came into the synagogue, and there was a man with a withered hand, and all stood by to see what he would do, and Jesus was angry because of the hardness of their hearts. [see both http://www.unityinchrist.com/luke/Luke4-14-5-11.htm and http://www.unityinchrist.com/luke/Luke5-27-39.htm for these synagogue accounts in Capernaum.] And he takes the man and puts him in the midst where everybody can see him, puts him in the spotlight, and then says to the man ‘Stretch forth your hand.’ Jairus had been there and watched this guy’s hand go snap! crackle! Pop! and straighten out and become useful again, in just a miraculous moment of time. He had seen enough of Jesus, that at this point in time he’s coming to Jesus to fall down in front of him. Mark tells us he fell down at Jesus’ feet, and you have to understand what’s taking place, because in John 9:22, we have already been told that anybody who had anything to do with the carpenter from Galilee, with Jesus, was being excommunicated from the Temple, and from the religious life of Israel [Judah, Judea]. The Sanhedrin and the religious leaders in Jerusalem decided anybody who paid him homage or listened to his teaching or had anything to do with him would be cut off. And for Jairus, at this point in time, he faces a situation that religion is inadequate to deal with. He faces a situation where this 12-year-old girl, and when in Mark when he comes to Jesus and falls down, he says, ‘My little daughter is home, dying.’ And any of you who have had a 12-year-old girl, you know what it fills your house with, having a 12-year-old girl. It fills it with life, I’ll tell you that. Jairus is putting, as it were, for you and I, everything at risk, his career, his money, his home, his family, everything that he has he’s putting at risk by falling down in front of Jesus. You know, isn’t it interesting, what does the risk matter when you’re facing a life-and-death situation, and nothing else has the answer that you need? Religion doesn’t produce the answer that you need at that point in time. You know, it doesn’t matter if you read the Upanishad, or meditate on your navel, or if you swallow wooden nickels or crawl on your knees to a statue, when somebody you love is dying, religion does not have the answer. And then everything else in life you thought was important, you’re willing, if you would weigh it in the balances against this one person you love with all of your heart or this one crisis that is calling for the greatest need that you have ever imagined, you know it’s nothing to take everything you thought was important and put it at risk over against that one thing that you’re longing for that’s breaking your heart. And that’s what’s happening in the life of Jairus right now, and as we look at this story, it isn’t just the resurrection of his daughter. It is what Jesus will do in the life of this man, and in our lives, and the thing that we are to behold, as we consider the story, that it’s important that we go away with. Here’s Jairus with everything that people probably thought was enviable, and he’s putting it all at risk, to bow down in front of Jesus, his last hope, and say ‘Lord.’ You know, maybe he had been there, mocking, and planning how to kill Jesus when he healed the man with the withered hand. It was immediately after that, that the religious leaders sought how they might slay Jesus. [Be sure to go back and read those accounts at those two links to get this background.] And there’s a lot of people who would liked to have killed Jesus in you. If you’re anything like me, you know what it’s like to get saved and tell your friends and relatives about Jesus and some of them would like to kill you and Jesus. You know, they just get so tired of hearing about what you’re saying, but you know what it’s like when all of a sudden their mother’s dying, or their wife, when the report comes back for positive cancer tests and all of a sudden they’re coming to you and saying, “Pray for me, pray for me.” When all they thought of value that they held onto, and their wisdom and their mockery of Christ, all of a sudden that’s gone, they’re willing to set all of that aside, to see if he’s real. ‘Now’s the time I need you to talk to him for me.’ [Now that has happened in my family, and my kids grew up knowing the truth, and they’ll come to me for prayer, but still want to hold God and Jesus at arms length, even though I’ve received some pretty astounding answers to prayer on their behalf. Guess Jesus is gonna have to knock a little bit harder. Would hate to have to think what that will be.] And as crazy as the situation seems, as we look at it, it will be the illness of this girl that will produce the salvation of the family. Remarkably, verse 42 says he had only one daughter, she was 12 years of age, she was at home dying. But as He, that’s capital “H”, Jesus went, the people were thronging him. Isn’t it remarkable, it just tells us in all the Gospels that Jesus went with him. Jesus doesn’t say ‘Oh, now you need me, what about when we were in the synagogue and I healed the guy’s hand? Ah, you wanted to kill me, huh? Now you know, what happened to your religion?’ You know [laughter]. And sometimes, you see, we think that. We think that when we get into that crisis, and we’ve dissed God, you know, we’ve snubbed him our whole life, and all of a sudden we’re going to him or crying out, we think he’s going to give us what a human would give us if we had treated him the same way. And he never does that. It says he went with him, remarkably.

Divine Interruption---The Woman With An Issue Of Blood

“And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, came behind him, and touched the border of his garment” (verses 43-44a). Now Luke is a little more gracious in his description, because he was a physician. Mark says, that this woman saw many physicians, spent everything she had, and was worse for it. Luke just says ‘she saw many physicians and couldn’t be healed.’ Mark says ‘she got worse spending her money on doctors.’ Now you have to understand, in this day, there’s a whole page in the Talmud that tells us things that are prescribed for a woman with a blood-flow. They say that if, and this was the medicine of the day (and this is why when you spent your money on doctors you didn’t get any better) you were told to take the ashes of an ostrich egg, you took an ostrich egg and you burn it, you took the ashes of the ostrich egg, if it was summer, the woman would put them in a linen cloth, as a menstrual cloth, if it was winter, she would put them in a cotton rag, and use that, and that those ashes of the ostrich egg would produce a healing effect. They also said, that if that didn’t work, you could take a barley seed found in the dung of a white female donkey [laughter], and insert that, and that that would…now these are things that are in the Talmud. You can imagine why she spent all her money on doctors and didn’t get any better. But there’s a whole page of things like that prescribed for this problem. Now imagine 12 years. Leviticus chapter 15, we went through that together, it tells us that in this kind of a prolonged blood-flow, that she was placed outside the camp. She was unclean. She couldn’t be around her husband, she couldn’t be around her children. Anything she sat upon was unclean. If she touched a wall it was defiled. And she was kept outside the camp until this blood-flow ended, and then she would offer a sin offering and a trespass offering. So, on top of that, those of you who have been here we’ve seen people this year spend, and thank God for insurance, untold money on a doctor, having to go from one thing to the next, and you get worse. And imagine going through this for 12 years. She doesn’t have any money left. It’s been 12 years since she’s felt maybe the arms of her parents or her husband around her. It’s been 12 years since, if she’s had children, she’s held them on her lap, or took care of them when they had a fever. It’s been 12 years since people looked at her with any respect, or care, because you see, on top of everything else, the Talmud said that if you had this kind of an affliction, it was because there was immorality in your life, and God was judging you. So placed on top of all of her other pain, was the stigma of an adulteress, and that her blood-flow and that her difficulty was the judgment of God. How would you like to have lived under that for 12 years? She must be anemic by this time, she must be tremendously weak, for 12 years she’s been in pain. Now, at the same time, she must have heard something about Jesus, because she’s willing to come in this crowd. And maybe you heard something about Jesus, and were willing to come in this crowd tonight, and she’s willing to slip in there without anybody knowing, and it tells us in the other Gospels she saying within her heart, ‘If I can just touch the hem of his garment, I know that I will be made whole.’

The Communities of the Less Fortunate

You see, there was a community amongst the less fortunate. Years ago, we would go downtown to 9^th and Arch, and we would take down big pots of stew and soup to the stew-bums and to the drunks, and when you get in there you discover there’s a society, there’s hobo’s which are different than stew-bums, and there’s alcy’s which are different from stew-bums, they all have their own societies and stories. Some of them were medical doctors, some were military officers. You hear their life-stories and they’re so sad, you see how they’ve been degenerated as a human being and worn away by alcohol, and their life has been eaten away. And yet some of them are not alcoholics, they’re just the hobos, they’ll ride the rails, they have their own little communities. You find that there are these separate communities, because these people are kind of outside society. And this woman was part of something like that. And somewhere in that community she had heard from others that were less fortunate, ‘We went to this Jesus, this teacher, and he’s touched out lives, and he healed us. And he’s given us dignity again, and he’s changed us.’ And you and I, many of us, were part of a community like that, whether it was cocaine, whether it was drugs, whether it was gambling, whether it was alcohol, we were part of a community that was outside the accepted norms of religious circles. They had no power or ability in our lives, and if you were anything like me, you began to hear about this Jesus, who would come to us where we were. We didn’t have to cut our hair, change the way we dress, we didn’t have to change all of those things that religious people, those external things they try to force on us. You and I started to hear about a Jesus that would come to us where we were, who would reach down from heaven to us, and love us with our problems, and take us, broken, and not wait for us to be fixed before we came, like the religious community was telling us. We heard about this Jesus who would love us right where we were. And many of us slipped into some crowd somewhere or we were around some people, and we thought the same thing, ‘If this is true, if I could just touch this, or I could just take hold of it.’ [Jesus had said earlier ‘I came to heal the sick, not those who are well.’ That is the group that Jesus is mainly calling people from, cf. 1^st Corinthians 1:26-29.]

‘If I Could Just Touch The Hem Of His Garment’

And this woman says that, ‘If I could only just take hold of the hem of his garment.’ Verse 44 says, she “came behind him, and touched the border of his garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched.” In the Law, in the book of Numbers it made this prescription for Jewish males, I’ll read it to you. Numbers chapter 15, you don’t have to turn there. “The LORD spake unto us saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them, that they make fringes in the border of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribbon of blue. And it shall be unto you for a fringe that you may look upon it”---the blue fringe, which typified heaven---“and remember all the commandments of the LORD and do them, and that you seek not after your own heart or your own eyes, after which you used to go a whoring, that you may remember and do all my commandments, and be holy unto your God. I am the LORD your God which brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am the LORD your God.” When she looked at Jesus, she saw that ribbon of blue, for the first time in her life she understood, here was a man with a connection to heaven. Jesus said of the Pharisees and Sadducees, ‘You love to make broad your phylacteries and to make large the borders of your garments. That is the way he was talking about them, they liked to put their great big blue borders on their garment to show everybody how spiritual they were. I’m sure Jesus just had a little blue ribbon around the border of his garment. This woman looked at that and said this symbolizes everything that God said someone’s life that’s consecrated to him should be. And when she took hold of it, she didn’t just touch it, the grammar gives the idea she took hold of it in her hand and she clenched it, and she must have thought ‘LORD.’ She must have seen the connection of Jesus and his life with heaven. And by the way, people should see that when they look at us. If you’re saved, and you’ve come out of the world, the Bible says “Let those who name the name of Christ depart from iniquity”, when people look at your life, without you saying anything they should see a border of blue, they should see a strip of heaven somewhere in your life. They should see something about you that is different than the way you were before you professed Christ, and they should see something different about your life than the lives of people who don’t believe. [see http://www.unityinchrist.com/whatisgrace/whatisgraceintro.htm] And when she looked at Jesus she saw that border on his garment, she reached out and she took ahold of it. And it says, as soon as she took ahold of it, she felt her blood-flow stop. It came to an end.

“Who Touched Me?”

Jesus says “Who touched me? When all denied, Peter”---we can depend on Peter---“and they that were with him said, Master, the multitude throng thee and press thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?”---‘Lord, there’s five thousand people touching you, how can you say ‘Who touched me?’ “And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me.” Now, ‘Who touched me?’ She’s slinking away from the crowd. The procession is going toward Jairus’ house, everybody’s thronging. She reaches through, she’s alone in the crowd, she’s solitary because she’s been alone and lonely for so many years. You know how somebody can be in the middle of a crowd, and be completely lonely [I’m that way living with my unconverted family, day in and day out, there’s that enmity because of what Romans 8:7 says, “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” That spirit of enmity also goes, sadly, against those who are of Christ, by those who are not of Christ. And that spirit of enmity can make a believer all alone within his own household. Oh how I long to be with someone who is of Christ. Sorry, just commiserating. But the point is well-taken.] They can fool everybody else, they can slip in, they can slip out, she’s used to loneliness. And she reaches through, and she touches and she feels, ‘Yes, there’s something different.’ She knows it, and would have been content to slip away. And you can imagine her starting to creep away, and hears from behind her “Who touched me?” The whole crowd, errch, stops! And it says when all denied, so she must have been standing there with everybody else, ‘Who? I don’t know. Mmm, not me.’ Everybody’s saying, ‘I haven’t touched anyone.’ She was one of the deniers, evidently. Peter says, ‘What do you mean, who touched you? Everybody touched you.’ He says, ‘No, somebody’s touched me, “because I perceive that virtue has gone out of me.” Now, it says “And when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came trembling, and falling down before him, she declared unto him before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately.” You have to understand, it tells us in Mark’s Gospel that Jesus said “Who touched me?” Everybody denies. Peter says ‘What do you mean, everybody touched you.’ And Jesus it says ‘Turns around and looks at her and said ‘No, somebody’s touched me, because I perceive that power’s gone out of me.’ Now she sees then that she can not be hid, that helps us understand. And let me tell you something this evening, you can’t be hid either. I mean, anybody can hide from us. You can even try to hide from yourself. But I know, the Bible says, that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. And I pray tonight that he’s going to say to someone here, ‘Who touched me? Did you touch me?’ I pray you do. So she comes trembling.

What it means to ‘Come As You Are’ to Christ

Notice her perspective of God. You know, I remember before I was saved, thinking God was the Big THOU SHALT NOT that lived in the sky. And if you messed with him, he shot lightning bolts down and said ‘Dance! Dance!’ You know, that’s who he was, and that he was up there with his Law, and he did not like me because I was outside of his Law. And she’s got the same impression, she feels the healing, now she knows she’s on the spot, it says she comes trembling, no doubt weeping, and falls down in front of him. Because Leviticus had said she had defiled the Master, Jesus is now unclean in her mind. ‘If he had known about my problem, he’d have never let me touch him.’ And some people say that, we have people like that every week, they think ‘I’ll defile the Master, I want Jesus, but oh man, my life is so messed up and I have so much lust in my heart and so much anger and so much selfishness, I could never reach out, he could never let me touch him just the way I am, I’d defile him. I need to get it together first.’ No, that’s the way she thought, she thought the same thing. So she comes trembling, and she falls down in front of Jesus, you see the crowd there looking, and then she tells the whole story. [Comment: There are some parts of the Body of Christ that tend to be on the legalistic side of the fence, which require a prospective member (PM) to learn all the doctrines “of the Church” (which usually tend to be pretty accurate Bible doctrines), and repent of all the visible sins they can see in their lives (or the minister can see in their lives), and then they can be baptized and receive the Holy Spirit. They base that on what is written in the book of Acts, where is says “repent and be baptized and you’ll receive the Holy Spirit” (cf. Acts 2:38), but these folks are missing an important point. What Peter was calling for in this verse, to the crowd he was addressing, taking it in context with the whole chapter, was for them to repent of the attitude which had led them to call for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. If you read to the end of Acts chapter 2, you’ll see these folks, about 3,000 of them, were baptized on the very spot, before the day was over with. So their ‘repentance and baptism to receive the Holy Spirit’ was almost instantaneous, with no long drawn out screening procedure to guarantee the sincerity of the prospective believer. Scripture taken out of context can often lead to warped or twisted doctrine. If you have a real problem, a sin, like drug addiction or alcoholism, or any sin “that so easily besets us,” (mine, at the time, was smoking) there is no way in heaven or on earth that you are going to overcome it on your own power, without God’s empowerment through the Holy Spirit. The whole lesson of ancient Israel was that they couldn’t obey God’s Laws all on their own, through their own will-power. No, accept Jesus into your life and get baptized right away, and receive the indwelling Holy Spirit that will empower you to lead a life of continued repentance and sanctification, and so you will be granted an entrance into eternal life at the 2^nd coming of Jesus Christ. This is the whole subject of law & grace. For more on this, see http://www.unityinchrist.com/whatisgrace/whatisgraceintro.htm and http://www.unityinchrist.com/baptism/What%20is%20Baptism.htm. Although people do successfully come to Jesus Christ after going through all this rigermoral, they in reality probably were given the Holy Spirit upon their sincere, personal acceptance of Jesus Christ as their Saviour, which by the way, may not have been in front of any witnesses, but in personal prayer. To really overcome sin, which is called “to repent,” takes the Holy Spirit working within a person.]

‘Sweetheart, Be Of Good Cheer’

‘Twelve years ago,’ Jairus is going ‘Twelve years, my daughter, my daughter’s 12’, [Then the woman’s probably saying to Jesus] ‘twelve years ago this started, Master, and I’ve been accused of all kinds of things, immorality, I’ve been cut off, I’ve lived without hope, and I felt my life draining away slowly over the years.’ Now, all of you here this evening, even if you’re a Christian, you feel your life leaking away. I am 47 [he’s 63 now J], my life does not feel like it did when I was 30, my physical life. It’s leaking. It takes me longer to focus. When I get up in the morning and throw water on my face and try to focus, it takes me longer to focus. And then when I finally can I wish I hadn’t. [laughter] My hair’s sticking up like this, doesn’t lay down anymore, just stands right up like that, and there’s big bags under my eyes, and I’m thinking ‘Wow, you look different than when you went to bed.’ I draag my bones out of bed now, they don’t just jump up anymore. You know if you’ve got little kids at home, you rattle a dish and they jump out of bed. And that’s all of us, if we’re honest. You know, but the wonderful thing is, of course, as a Christian, I know what this is all about. I know where it’s all going. If he tarries, one day, I’ll breathe my last, I’ll feel it leak completely away, and angels will come, and take me into the presence of the One in whom I have believed. [There are various interpretations within the Body of Christ about heaven and hell. To read about a few of these, log onto: http://www.unityinchrist.com/plaintruth/battle.htm. Where we all end up, even by Pastor Joe’s interpretation, is in the 1^st Resurrection to Immortality. See http://www.unityinchrist.com/corinthians/cor15-16.htm to learn more about this awesome event.] And that’s where life will begin. If the Lord doesn’t tarry, I’ll live, today, tomorrow, whatever, at some point in maybe the twinkling of an eye, that will all change. But everyone in this room, you have to be honest, if you do not know Christ tonight, even if you’re religious, you’re life is leaking away. She tells the whole story. ‘Slowly, but surely, I was dying, I’m more weak, I’m anemic, I spent every cent I made on doctors, and none of them made me better, my Blue Cross & Blue Shield ran out…’ People in the crowd are going, ‘Oh man, I understand the way she feels…’ She tells the whole story, and then at the end she says ‘As soon as I touched you Master, I was healed.’ Now, Jesus says to her, “Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace” (verse 48). Now, take note of this, it’s the only place in the New Testament where Jesus calls a woman “Daughter.” It is an endearing word. It is a word that’s used for your little girl at home. It is equivalent to Jesus looking at her and saying, ‘Honey, sweetheart’, the only woman in the New Testament he calls by this term. She thinks he’s going to look at her and say ‘You what!? You were bleeding for 12 years, and you touched me!? Blamm!! Now I can’t heal anybody till the sun goes down! I’ve gotta wash myself!’ Imagine her trembling, she tells her story, she looks into his eyes. You know, I’m sure that one thing this woman never forgot for the rest of her life was the look in the eyes of Jesus when he said to her, ‘Sweetheart, be of good cheer.’ It isn’t ‘cheer up’, it’s literally “there is nothing to be afraid of.” He betrays her heart in his statement. ‘Sweetheart,’ Imagine all the people, ‘Sweetheart?’ People can’t believe he said that to us, can they? ‘That guy!? He was found bowled down the street, that looser tried to date my daughter, he’s talking about Jesus now, he was a junky and a druggie, he was no good for nothing, don’t tell me about this Jesus love stuff, he’s going to go to heaven and I’m going to go to hell!? What are you trying to say!?’ ‘That’s right, dad, that’s right!’ [laughter] You know, people can’t believe he just looked at us and said that to us, either. He looked at this woman, he said “Sweetheart, there’s nothing to fear, thy faith hath made thee whole.” And literally, “Go into peace.” Not just “go in peace,” “Go into peace.” Because I’m telling you, for the rest of her life, no matter what came her way, the most dynamic impression in her mind was the voice of the Saviour, the look on his face, saying, “Sweetheart, there’s nothing to be afraid of.” If she got a report ten years after this from the doctor saying ‘You have cancer,’ what overwhelmed her was the look in his eyes and his voice saying “Sweetheart, there’s nothing to be afraid of.” It was worth more than all of the money she had spent on doctors. I guarantee you the woman never looked back and regretted a day of those 12 years of suffering, she would not have traded away the look of Jesus to have passed by those 12 years of difficulty. I know if you’d have asked her, she’d have said it was all worth it. “Go into peace.”

‘Don’t Be Afraid, Only Believe’

Now, where’s Jairus? Jairus is standing there saying, ‘Right. Daughter! I have a daughter! I thought you cared about my daughter. What do you mean calling her Daughter, we put her out of the synagogue, you’re calling her daughter, what about my daughter, she’s been bleeding for 12 years, I have a daughter that’s been living for 12 years.’ You can imagine he’s thinking, ‘The Lord doesn’t care about me, he cares about everybody else.’ He never said these things, I’m just trying to put words in Jairus’ mouth, you know, and in his mind. ‘Lord, why me? Here I am waiting, everybody is more important than me…’ And in the middle of his complaining, good news comes, verse 49, “While he yet spake [to the woman], there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him, Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master.” Just imagine what must be going on in Jairus’ mind, ‘You’re daughter is dead.’ He’s thinking, she died without me, one twelve-year-old daughter died alone, and I wasn’t even there. Not only that, I have given up everything to fall down in front of this Jesus, and what has it gotten me? I’ve put my career at risk, my home, I’m going to be excommunicated, everything’s gone now. The thing I love the most, my life, my future, this is what I get for falling down at the feet of this Jesus. There was a cost to it. You know, it’s interesting, there was a girl who worked with the Calvary’s years ago in Israel, her name was Esther, and she had been excommunicated from her family, because she was Jewish and she had turned to Christ, and that’s what’s happening here, this man is Jewish, and he’s falling down at the feet of Christ. Her husband, an Israeli, a believer was deathly ill, and I don’t know at this point whether he’s dead or alive, she had two young boys, one of them had leukemia, it had gone into remission, and the last I had heard of the story, it had come back with a vengeance. Her father was an extremely wealthy man, the wealthiest man in his community, had a home in Israel and had a huge estate on the East Coast of the United States in New England. And when she came home and told her father about Jesus, he said, “I no longer have a daughter named Ester.” And he put her out and never talked to her again. Whenever she called she couldn’t get past the maid or the butler to talk to her father. They would say “You’re daughter Esther is on the phone.” He would say, “I do not have a daughter named Esther.” He would buy up the homes around his property, and tear them down, just so he had more land around his estate. I mean, the homes he tore down were homes we haven’t put up yet, I mean, he tore down other mansions just to produce more land around his property. And you see, with one denial of Jesus, she could have had it all back. You know, what does it cost us to follow Christ? Jairus at this point is looking at his life, saying ‘Everything is gone.’ But you know what? Jairus will thank this woman throughout eternity for interrupting his journey. Because if Jesus had gotten to his house when his daughter was still alive, Jesus no doubt would have healed her. But Jairus had a much more important lesson to learn than healing, and that was resurrection. And by the time Jesus gets there, she’s dead. And what happens is way more glorious. And this woman will be the most blessed interrupter he would ever have. Now, that’s a hard lesson for me to learn. I don’t like to be interrupted, unlike you. I plan my day, it’s busy, I have things to do, and Boom! interruption---Boom! interruption---Boom! interruption, it’s at the end of the day, you’re no further than when you started, your briefcase is not open yet, you haven’t done anything, you have the phone going off, interruption after interruption. Sometimes you have to look at him and say, “Lord, let me get done what I need to get done, and give me patience when I get interrupted, let me understand the host of blessed interruptions you’re going to send to me today, Lord.” “…don’t trouble the Master.” Now by the way, nobody can trouble the Master, don’t ever listen to that. Nobody has ever troubled the Master. “…Thy daughter is dead.” “But when Jesus heard it,”---he spins around, he looks at Jairus, and he says this---“he answered him, saying, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole.” Now he had just heard this, he just said to this woman, “Daughter, be of good comfort, don’t fear, they faith hath made thee whole.” He’s hearing the same phrases. Now he turns to Jairus and says ‘Jairus, don’t be afraid.’ Man, man, just imagine the thing you love most in life has just slipped away, your whole life has fallen apart. I don’t know how willing I am to listen to his voice when I’m under those huge pressures, saying to me, ‘Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid.’ You know, the amazing thing is, he doesn’t depend on us for that to happen. He’s so faithful to get through to us, I remember when I was watching Joshua bleed to death, and I thought he was dying in front of me, my son, racing to the trauma unit, 90 miles an hour, 100 miles an hour, going through red lights, and just watching his life fade away in front of my eyes. And all of a sudden I thought, ‘This is not good-bye, I’m going to see you again, Joshua. This is just good-bye for now.’ I just thought, this is what the Gospel is all about…This is going to go by just like this snap! and we’re going to be together again, I just remember it [that thought] flooded into my heart, and I was overwhelmed with this peace. [I take it Joshua didn’t die.] And Jesus spun around and looked at Jairus and said, ‘Don’t be afraid, only believe, she’s going to be made whole.’ “And when he came into the house, he suffered no man to go in, save Peter, and James, and John, and the father and the mother of the maiden. And [they] all wept, and bewailed her: but he said, Weep not; she is not dead, but sleepeth.” It says, “And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead.” Now, by the way, to God, to the Lord, she was sleeping! Because he’s going to tell her to get up, and she’s going to get back up again. And by the way, to all of us, our physical bodies, as far as he’s concerned, they’re sleeping. In the New Testament, when the Bible talks about the death of a believer, it refers to our physical bodies [as] sleeping, because Jesus is going to tell them to all get up. Doesn’t matter if it’s an hour or 2,000 years, as far as he’s concerned, your body is sleeping in the dust of the earth, and when he says “Get up” you’re getting up, the most wonderful alarm clock in the history of mankind ‘Get up!’. Now he shows up, there’s a big scene there. Everybody’s mourning and wailing, and it tells us in the other Gospels there are professional mourners there.

You Must Put Out The Scorners

Now, in that culture, you have the burial the same day, preferably---very late the next day at the very latest, because of the humidity, and the body begins to stink, and they didn’t embalm the body. They wrapped it in linen, as Lazarus was wrapped, and as soon as possible they take it to the grave, to the sarcophagus. So as soon as there’s a death, all of a sudden the professional mourners come. And you pay them, and if you’re more wealthy you had more of them there. And if you are from a Mediterranean family from that part of the world, you know how emotions run, so this big scene is there, everybody’s carrying on, wailing away. You can just imagine this scene, there’s some people who are sincere, and some people are getting paid to cry. Jesus says, ‘Don’t cry, she’s not dead, she’s sleeping,’ and it says “they laughed him to scorn”, the tenses are “they continued to laugh and to scorn.” They began to mock him. They go right from weeping to laughing. ‘We’re professionals, this is our fourth weeping today! We’ve seen millions of stiffs. You’re telling us she ain’t dead, she is dead, don’t tell us she ain’t dead!---Aha, they’re laughing. I love this verse, because it says “And he put them all out,” Very important. And you see, it’s more difficult if the scorners are in your own house [tell me about it, it hurts]. They’re in his house. It’s more difficult if the scorners are in your own church, or in your own circle of friends, makes it harder [again, tell me about it]. And especially if they’re experts, you know, professionals. And what you need to do is put them out, or ask Jesus to put them out, if you don’t want to [or you can’t] put them out. But it happens, in our own homes. How difficult is it for us when we come home, talking about resurrection, and we receive the scorn of those around us, in our own homes. Or what’s it like for you to be in the church here, and in your circle of friends there are people who are mocking Christ. They’re not here because they really want to be here, they’re here because it’s their social circle, or they’re here to pick up a guy or pick up a girl, they’re here for all the wrong reasons. And when you’re alone somewhere with that group of people, you try to say something spiritual, say, ‘Let’s pray, there’s an accident, let’s do this,’ all of a sudden you get all this nonsense from them, all of this scorn. And you need to put those people out of that circle. You can love them and pray for them, but you are not going to get what you need from continuing to live in that. You know, it says in the Book of Proverbs “put out the scorner, and contention will cease.” [The exact quote is Proverbs 22:10, “Cast out the scorner, and contention shall go out; yea, strife and reproach shall cease.” (King James Version)] There’s a huge contention in the heart of Jairus at this time. The voice of Jesus is saying ‘only believe, don’t be afraid, this is going to be straightened out.’ I don’t know what you’re facing this evening, it may be that your life seems to have fallen apart, everything you’ve ever worked for, and the most precious thing to you has been taken away from you. And you may think with all of your religion that God has forsaken you, ‘Why is he doing this?’ And you may have this huge contention where in one side of your heart tonight you’re saying, ‘Hey, this screwball in a Hawaiian shirt, I wonder if what he’s saying is true?’ Let me tell you something, it is true. It’s true all the way across the board, I’m a screwball in a Hawaiian shirt, and what I’m saying is true. Jesus is coming, and he’s going to raise us from the dead, and if you believe in him you can have everlasting life. It’s true. It happened. Behold, think about this, we were in this synagogue in November, we were there, it happened, it’s a record, it’s true. And the world is filled with scorners, and they surround us, and Jesus is going to put them out. But, we were all scorners, at one point. I remember before I was saved, I loved to argue with Christians, especially if I was on LSD. [laughter] I just loved to get them mad and watch them blow their witness. I didn’t know what a witness was, but I just liked to get Christians mad. Part of my fallen nature, I didn’t know I had one then. I remember when my daughter was a year-and-a-half old, she could barely talk, one of the first things she learned to say was ‘Dad, don’t antagonize me!’ [laughter] We were all scorners. Jesus puts them out, and I hope he puts out of our minds and our lives those things that would war against genuine belief. Because all of us will face a crisis, it will come sooner or later. It may be in our own lives, it may be a loved one, they will come, this is earth, this is not heaven. And he is the same yesterday, today and forever. And when they come to us, his voice is there, if we will listen, saying, “only believe, fear not.” He has not changed. He put out those who scorned, and so we need to do the same thing.

Jairus’ Daughter Raised From The Dead

“and [he] took her by the hand”---now she’s dead, her arm must be limp---“and called, saying, Maid arise.” That’s an amazing phrase to me “and he called”. To where? It’s a long-distance call as far as I’m concerned. In Luke it says “Maid arise”, in Mark it says, gives us the Aramaic phrase “Tabitha cumi”, “little lamp, arise.” So he takes this dead 12-year-old girl by the hand, lifts up her hand, and he calls to the spiritual realm, where she’s gone [and as Solomon said in Ecclesiastes, the spirit of the dead goes back up to God who gave it. The Body of Christ has various differing beliefs about this. To read some, log onto http://www.unityinchrist.com/plaintruth/battle.htm. It’s a fascinating study.] “Tabitha cumi”, you know, it must have gone through the spiritual realm, she heard him, he called her back, and said to her “arise.” “And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway: and he commanded to give her meat” (verses 54b-55). Now the same thing is going to happen to us. It says ‘That if the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in your mortal body, it will quicken (or bring to life) again your physical body too.’ That’s the same hope that we have. Just as Jesus was raised from the dead he’s going to raise us from the dead incorruptible, the Bible says that. What a hope, what a hope. Do you have it? With the people that you love, my Dad almost two years ago, almost went home to be with the Lord, 78^th birthday, they cracked his chest open, triple bypass, thought he was going. Doped him up a little bit in the hospital, stood around him, gave him a gospel rendition of Happy Birthday, then the guy who was going to wheel him to surgery said, ‘You’re the boss, what can I do for you?’ He said, ‘Bring my car around the back.’ They wheeled him away, I didn’t know if it was the end. You know what, we had said what we needed to say to each other, and I knew my Dad was a believer, and I will not feel robbed. I will feel broken-hearted, but I will look forward to seeing him again, and so many we sent on this year that we loved. He calls, her spirit comes back into her again, and she arose immediately, and he commanded them to give her something to eat. So Jesus knows Junior High kids, doesn’t he? She probably hadn’t eaten in a long time, she had been sick, she dies, Jesus calls her back, wakes her up and says ‘Feed her, will ya.’ That’s the first thing we’re going to do when we come to heaven, Marriage Supper of the Lamb, I like this arrangement. [Comment: There is a very interesting Bible study about the events leading up to and surrounding this Marriage Supper of the Lamb, which appears to put this ‘Going to heaven’ stuff into proper Biblical context. See http://www.unityinchrist.com/revelation/Pentecost-Revetion1.htm] It isn’t the miracle of the girl being raised, it is the lesson for Jairus. Jairus on his way, a religious man, sees this woman who he thought was defiled and unclean called the Daughter of God, he’s discovering that God has more than just his daughter, that there are other people that God loves, that he calls his own, his sons and his daughters. And Jairus gets to see this miracle, this woman being healed and restored, almost the same words, and then when he hears ‘You’re daughter is dead,’ then he hears Christ speak to him and say, ‘No, don’t be afraid, just believe.’ And maybe this evening you came with a friend, and your friend is a believer, you saw their life change, and you saw them cleansed. And maybe Jesus is saying to you this evening, ‘Just believe, don’t be afraid.’ “And her parents were astonished: but he charged them that they should tell no man what was done” (verse 56). And I guess they were. ‘Yeah, she looks great, but she’s still dead, trust us.’ How could you not tell anybody? Your daughter was dead, she’s alive again. ‘He charged them they should tell no man what was done.’ And you know, Dr. Luke, I like to read him, these are the kind of things that blow a doctor’s mind---dead, alive at his spoken word. The Bible says the same for us. Jesus says “I am the resurrection and the life, he that liveth and believeth in me shall never die…and he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” Jesus said, ‘The day is coming when all that are in their graves are going to hear the voice of the Son of man, and arise, some to everlasting life, and some to everlasting contempt and destruction.’ If you don’t know Christ this evening I want to challenge you, the Bible says that you’re going to live past the grave. Do you believe that? Or do you think when you’re dead, you’re dead? And what are you willing to bet on that? The Bible says, when your physical body dies, you don’t die. You’re going to continue to live. Look, when you’re in a dream, your eyes are closed, but you see light, there’s no noise in your room, but you hear noises. You know what it’s like to be in a dream, ‘Gotta run from a monster, but you can’t go any faster than this, monsters are always fast, and you can’t get away from him.’ Or you get in a fight with someone, and your fist can only go this fast…I mean, there’s no light, but you’re seeing light, there’s no noise, but you’re hearing sound. You’re body’s unconscious, but you’re experiencing, that part of you lives on past the grave. [see comment below] And the Bible either says it will be separated from God because you refuse to accept Christ as your Saviour, or it will be with God forever. Don’t ask me. People will always say, ‘What about the guy on the island, what about the guy who never heard about Jesus.’ Nobody ever worries about this guy whoever he is, until somebody preaches the Gospel to him, all of a sudden we’re real concerned about the guy on the island. I don’t know who this guy is. He’s famous amongst unbelievers. But I believe Jesus loves him, whoever he is. And don’t you worry about him. A friend of our family’s was just dying in the hospital, he died, brilliant man, an engineer, couldn’t accept the Christian faith because of how hard it was to believe. His wife a Christian, witnessing to him. They cut his legs off, they took more and more, neuropathy, his body was fading away, it was amazing he lived as long as he did. His wife walked in one day, this just happened in November, his wife walked in, and the doctor said “he’s called for the chaplain four times.” She said, “My husband?” She said, “Honey, you’re calling for the chaplain?” He said, “Yeah, the chaplain I’ve been talking with,” he said, “I’ve asked Christ into my heart.” She said, “What happened?” He said, “The other night I was laying here in bed, and I opened up my eyes, and Jesus was standing in the corner, and he talked to me, and I was saved.” Don’t worry about the guy on the island. [laughter, applause] Worry about you. I’m going to have he musicians come…[Comment: He’s quoting John 5:28-29, where Jesus says, “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation” (King James Version). Strongs Concordance lists that word translated “damnation” as coming from the word krisis, which is Greek for “decision.” This second resurrection (the Bible only teaches two major resurrections back to life) is to be a resurrection “to decision.” The Body of Christ has various beliefs about heaven and hell. To read about some of these, see http://www.unityinchrist.com/plaintruth/battle.htm.] [connective expository sermon of Luke 8:41-56, given by Pastor Joe Focht, Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia, 13500 Philmont Avenue, Philadelphia, PA, 19116]