What Jesus did #16: he led people from death to life
I can’t imagine anything worse as a parent than believing that your child is about to die. That never changes. I remember my grandma saying to me after my mum died that it is a deep sorrow for a parent to outlive their child, That is not the normal order of things. And watching your child approach death before you is heartbreaking. Back in September 2014, my friend Amanda shared in The rainbow makes all the difference how it was for her. And the miracle of healing that God worked in her son’s life.
In today’s account of healing from the book of Luke, the man’s daughter is 12 years old. His only daughter. As a synagogue leader, a bigwig in the Jewish faith, it can’t have been easy for Jairus to approach this radical teacher who was challenging everything he’d been brought up to believe. But all Jairus wanted was for his daughter to be healed. He would face the backlash from his peers later. Nothing else mattered. He may have been clutching at straws for all he knew but this was his only hope and he was not going to let it pass him by.
Now when Jesus returned, a crowd welcomed him, for they were all expecting him. Then a man named Jairus, a synagogue leader, came and fell at Jesus’ feet, pleading with him to come to his house because his only daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying.
As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.
“Who touched me?” Jesus asked.
When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.”
But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”
Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”
While Jesus was still speaking, someone came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” he said. “Don’t bother the teacher anymore.”
Hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed.”
When he arrived at the house of Jairus, he did not let anyone go in with him except Peter, John and James, and the child’s father and mother. Meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning for her. “Stop wailing,” Jesus said. “She is not dead but asleep.”
They laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. But he took her by the hand and said, “My child, get up!” Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up. Then Jesus told them to give her something to eat. Her parents were astonished, but he ordered them not to tell anyone what had happened. Luke 8:40-56 (also found in Matthew 9 and Mark 5)
The bit in the middle is fascinating too, isn’t it? You can’t get the healing without the connection, without the conversation. It doesn’t work that way. Jesus needs to connect with every single person seeking healing. Touching his cloak and walking away is not enough. The woman is too ashamed about her condition to speak up before she is healed, but once the healing has taken place and she’s brought out of the shadows into the light, she’s prepared to explain what has happened in full detail. She has been worthy of being healed and that has given her the confidence to speak up and say ‘This is me and this is what Jesus has done for me’.
And then Jairus’ daughter dies. He hasn’t made it to her in time. There’s no point in him coming to the house any more. Or is there?
Death is not an obstacle for Jesus. He does not fear death. He knows God and he is God and he knows that death has no power over God. Everyone is already mourning the loss of this child, but Jesus has not finished his work yet. There is still more to come. The girl gets up and her appetite has returned. She is not a ghost. She is healthy and whole again.
This was not the only occasion Jesus brings people back from the dead. He raises the widow’s son in Luke 7 and he raises Lazarus in John 11. He is the resurrection and the life.
And what he does here in a physical way, he’s been doing in a spiritual way ever since. Just as he led these individuals from death to life, he’s been leading people spiritually from death to life ever since.
There’s an awakening that occurs in a person’s life. ‘I’ve never felt more alive!’. When they get to know Jesus and his way of living life to the full, life is never the same again. The life they had been living before was not really life at all. They’d been going through the motions, unaware of the divine energy in and around them, coursing through the whole of the universe.
We consider bringing someone back from the dead to be an unbelievable miracle and yet the greater miracle is bringing us all into the way of eternal life, a way of light and love and life that starts now and lasts forever – because that physical life will only last a while, that person will still die at some point, and yet Jesus talks about a life we can all enter into that will never end.
Be fully alive!
That’s the call this day and every day.
Be grateful for this new day, grateful to be alive.
Live every moment of this day to the full, for each moment is a gift from God.
