Over thirty years ago, I was privileged to visit Israel, the land that Jesus once walked. One beautiful morning we left Tiberias by boat and crossed the Sea of Galilee. As we pulled up to the dock on the other side, we saw the remains of an ancient white temple among the hedges and eucalyptus trees. There was not much more than four columns left standing, a paved court, a doorway that led nowhere, and the usual chaos of broken pillars and fallen stones. They were the ruins of Capernaum's synagogue, the same synagogue that the Roman Centurion built whose slave Jesus healed, the SAME synagogue that one Jairus was an important leader of.

As I strolled among those ruins, I could envision a large crowd of spectators gathered at the shore to greet Jesus from his return trip from the other side of the lake. Only days earlier he had healed the Centurion's servant who lay near death and the day before, he had cast out a legion of demons from a crazed young man. He was developing the reputation of being a wonder worker, a performer of miracles, and the crowds were anxious to see what Jesus could conjure up next.

As Jesus got out of the boat, a well-dressed man charged through the center of the crowd desperately seeking his help. The people of Capernaum knew him well- it was Jairus, the president of the local synagogue and a wealthy and influential person there. To the surprise of everyone, he threw himself down before Jesus and begged that he might come and possibly do one more miracle- for his twelve years old daughter who presently lay dying. Seeing the fear and desperation in his face, it was hard for Jesus to refuse and so, without a word, he was off to his home to do what only HE could for her.

Jairus hadn't come because he was a man of great faith. Rather, he came because he was so DESPERATE for help. It was the same reason that many atheists, even after years of denying the existence of God, or backsliders, who over time have slowly drifted away from their Christian moorings, are driven to their knees when struck by a deep need or terrible crisis. With all other avenues shut off to them and nowhere ELSE to go, God then becomes “the court of last resort.” Thus, having been told by the doctors that they can do no more, Jairus now looks to Jesus as his final hope. 

And yet, how hard it must be for this Pharisee and ruler of the synagogue to have to appeal to CHRIST, of all people. After all, Jairus was a rich and powerful man in the community, a learned and respected leader who was a member of the same religious institution which had earlier branded Jesus a heretic and a trouble maker. Before all his neighbors and the members of his congregation, he is forced to humble himself and beg from one who was everything he was NOT- someone the establishment looked down upon as a poor, itinerant, and untrained teacher. So you can imagine the struggle going on in Jairus's heart here- on the one side, there was his PRIDE: pride in his position as a trusted and respected Jewish leader, pride in his high standing in the community, above all, there was pride in being such a model representative of the Jewish religion with all its history and traditions and laws. On the OTHER side, however, there was his LOVE- love for a daughter he loved more than all his wealth and his status, his respectability and commitment to tradition COMBINED. In that contest between two powerful human emotions, it was LOVE that triumphed in the end. All his prejudices and concern about personal honor were quickly forgotten over his growing urgency to save someone he was more concerned about than LIFE ITSELF.

Seeing the urgency in the man’s plea, Jesus immediately sets out for Jairus’s home. With our Lord, the only introduction he ever required was to sense a person’s deep need and nothing more. But then while wending their way through the crowd, Jesus suddenly stops. In the crush of all those people, a single hand had reached out and touched, of all things, the hem of his garment. “Who touched me?" he asked. How among the crushing throng he could have singled out one person’s slight contact with his tunic, who can know. We DO know, however, that he can sense the most urgent entreaty and it was THAT he was responding to rather than the fact someone had touched him. Turning around, he spies the fearful face of a small woman whom we are told had suffered from an issue of blood for twelve years, a health problem that under Jewish law had rendered her defiled and unclean. Having sought healing throughout the years, she exhausted every possible avenue of help but her condition had only worsened. With every last cent in her savings gone, she has nothing left and nowhere to turn. Like Jairus, she TOO was a person in need of a miracle; she was someone else looking to Jesus as HER last and only hope.

But the woman’s problem wasn’t just physical- it was also religious and it bore tremendous social implications with it. According to Leviticus 15, to be deemed “unclean” meant that the person was not allowed to take part in any religious proceedings, could not come into the temple, could not touch other persons, and had to be kept separated from her husband and the rest of her family. FURTHERMORE, anything she TOUCHED including her bed, her clothing, and her furniture were considered defiled so that if any OTHER person came into contact these things, then he or she was deemed unclean AS WELL. Therefore, such individuals were deemed outcasts, segregated from their home, their family, their friends, their community, and their livelihood until declared healed of their condition. The same held true for persons who had leprosy and even those who came into contact with a dead body. If this was the case, then she had spent the past twelve years of her life alone except for the company of OTHER outcasts. Thus, we can say that our text actually involves TWO persons who were dead and in need of resurrection- a young girl who was PHYSICALLY dead, and an older woman who was dead EMOTIONALLY, SOCIALLY, and RELIGIOUSLY.

Although she knew it was wrong, like Jairus, her desperation was greater than any embarrassment or fear she might have of being discovered. No doubt, she was convinced that with the large number of persons pressing in upon him, she would never be found out, that her touch would never be detected- but she was wrong. Jesus’s penetrating stare was enough to convince her that she’d been caught and was about to be publicly exposed. She knew all-too-well that by reaching out and touching Jesus, albeit the hem of his garment, she had contaminated him and that he was now every bit as defiled as she HERSELF was, that by committing such a seemingly simple and innocent act, she had now condemned HIM to the same life she had endured for the past twelve years. Like her, HE would have to be declared unclean; like her, he would have to be segregated from his family and community until, that is, he was ceremonially restored by the religious leaders in strict accordance to the Mosaic Law. 

But then she had to have been seized by an even GREATER concern for under that SAME Law, she now faced the penalty of being stoned to death for her transgression. Under Jewish law, Jesus could have demanded that she receive the ULTIMATE punishment, that she be put to death for what the Jewish authorities would have considered a “high crime.” In fear and trembling, she threw herself down before Jesus, confessed what she had done, and began to beg for his forgiveness. But before she can even get the entire sentence out of her mouth, Jesus says to her for everyone to hear, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” Jesus not only exonerates her, he HEALS her of her affliction and restores her to a life filled with the same love and joy and family pleasures she once knew.

But there’s still ANOTHER drama going on here. While Jesus was speaking with her, word had arrived from the house that Jairus’s young daughter was dead. "Why trouble the Teacher any further," he is told. Literally translated from the Greek, he is instructed to "stop flaying or tearing off the skin" of the teacher. In other words, the entire time Jesus is ministering to this woman, Jairus has been impatiently pulling at Jesus' arm- "Hurry up, Jesus! PLEASE! My daughter is near death. Time is of the essence! Don't stop to speak with this woman of no account- don't you see that MY need is far more critical than her small trouble. What can be more important than my own dying child!"

Once Jesus has attended to the need of the woman, he continues to proceed with Jairus to his home. When they arrive, it is already filled with friends and professional mourners who have come to offer their sympathy. It is then Jesus makes an unbelievable statement, "Weep no more; she is not dead: she is asleep." This causes them to laugh for they’re sure they know a dead person when they see one. Thus they think he is mad for there was little doubt in THEIR minds that she wasn’t merely sleeping.

Our Lord immediately orders everyone out of the house except for his three most trusted lieutenants- Peter, James, and John, and the girl's parents. Entering the chamber where the daughter lay, Jesus bowed his head and offered up a prayer to God. Then, taking the dead girl by the hand (an act which in the eyes of their religious law would have rendered him defiled and unclean every bit as having come into contact with a hemorrhaging woman), he says to her “Talitha cumi” which is Aramaic for “Little girl, I say unto you, arise.” At that, she immediately got up and walked which left everyone completely amazed. 

Well that’s the story- a tale within a tale. Looking at these two central characters, Jairus and this woman could not have been any more different. TO BEGIN WITH, we are given Jairus’s name indicating that he was a man of great importance while the woman remains anonymous- she appears and then disappears just as quickly only to be heard from no more. SECONDLY, he is rich while her lack of medical insurance has exhausted all her savings leaving her totally impoverished. THIRDLY, while Jairus was a man of distinction and honor, the woman was defiled and had no honor. FOURTHLY, by virtue of his status and position, he could boldly approach Jesus and brazenly ask for his help. SHE, on the other hand, had to remain hidden by the crowd while quietly and surreptitiously approaching Jesus from behind. What they DID have in common though was that they had both heard of Jesus, both found themselves desperately in need of a healing, but both had run completely out of options.

What we learn here is that to Jesus, the need of this woman with the hemorrhaging condition is every bit as important as Jairus's dying daughter. Though she is small, though she is poor, though she is a woman, she has needs and rights every bit as real and legitimate as JAIRUS'S are. God is no respecter of persons; he draws no distinction between rich and poor, strong or weak, male or female. FAITH is the only letter of introduction ever required to get his attention- no matter HOW powerful or powerless the person, no matter HOW great or HOW small the need. Our text assures us that if we come humbly before Christ in an attitude of faith, he will ALWAYS take time to respond to our pleas.

Not only does Jesus act in response to their pleas, but this is the only place in all the gospels where he directly addresses another person as “daughter.” Not just the woman who hemorrhaged blood, but the little girl whom he raised from the dead are suddenly brought into an entirely new, life-transforming relationship- and not just with their families but above all to their new-found LORD. They were now “daughters of God,” and from then on they would be related with Christ for the rest of eternity. But then, this is what faith does- it takes persons who feel lost, lonely, and unloved and even DEAD and brings them into the closest possible relationship with God who promises to never leave or forsake them, even when they depart from this life.

And yet, what seems most curious here is that neither Jairus nor this woman seems to know anything about Jesus other than that he had just returned from the other side of the lake where he had performed some miraculous healings. NEITHER of them are looking for any kind of personal relationship with him, nor do they seem interested in whatever message he has to bring. They are ONLY looking for healing- Jairus for his daughter and the unnamed woman for herself. Jesus, on the other hand, doesn’t require evidence of some faith in him before he responds to their need. He simply meets them where they are and then demonstrates pure and unconditional love towards them. What’s more, he was never concerned about becoming defiled or not, whether being touched by an unclean woman with an issue of blood for twelve years or by reaching out and touching the unclean body of a girl who’d been dead for twelve MINUTES. This is because love is ALWAYS more concerned about the other person than oneself. Thus, here we see how Jesus’s primary interest was in making people well and reconciling them with their families than whether a certain law was broken or what rule or regulation was or was not observed in its entirety.

My friends, the same need that bound Jairus and that woman together binds US to them and us to EACH OTHER this morning. Like them, we ALSO found ourselves desperately in need of a healing, and we TOO had run out of options. But just as there was good news for THEM, there is good news FOR US. In the same way that that woman was no longer an outcast in society but made whole and healthy to be reunited again with her family and friends, we TOO have heard the same words THEY did: “I say unto you, arise!” and “My son, my daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” As a result, we TOO have become a NEW people with a NEW home, and the same love and compassion that woman and that little girl received, is now OURS, AS WELL. 

I would like to end by quoting the words of an old gospel song we used to sing back in college. It’s called “Something good is going to happen to you” and you may remember it as the theme song to Oral Roberts’ weekly television program from years past. The last stanza goes like this:

My friend if you're listening now humbly to me
Yes this is the moment that you can be free
This very same Jesus is right here today;
Release your faith and touch Him, then believe me when I say.

And then came the chorus:

Something good is going to happen to you
Happen to you this very day.
Something good is going to happen to you
Jesus of Nazareth is passing your way.

Yes, Jesus is passing down the aisles and between the pews of the Glenshaw Valley Presbyterian Church this very MORNING, and as we learned from our message, we can reach out to him with any worries or concerns, any needs or afflictions we might have without the slightest bit of fear. All we have to do is TOUCH him as he passes by- not yell for him, not beg from him, nor first offer proof of our great faith before he’ll do anything for us. All that is required is that we reach out and touch ever so slightly the hem of his cloak for that is really all faith is- directing our needs and cares and concerns in the direction of Christ and he will do the rest. Be assured, he will never ignore you and keep on walking but will ALWAYS stop, ALWAYS take the time to hear your complaint. He will dry your tears and then offer you the healing you need, no matter how large or how small, such is his love for you. Believe it, my friends, for as the song promises, “Something GOOD is going to happen to you, this very day!” Amen and amen.