Power over death
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2012 · 5 August 2012
Turn with me to Matthew 9:18-22, "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.” 19 So Jesus arose and followed him, and so did His disciples. 20 And suddenly, a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind and touched the hem of His garment. 21 For she said to herself, “If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well.” 22 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.
This passage describes Jesus' power over death, raising one from the dead; and on the way to that place, we see the healing of a woman with an issue of blood. If you read the other Gospels, you know that the reason for the healing interlude is to delay Jesus until the little girl is dead, and the funeral has already begun.
Because the other Gospel writers tell us that when first approached, the man said to Jesus in Mark 5, "My little daughter is at the point of death," and by the time He got there, she was already dead; and the funeral was proceeding. So the Lord places this lovely interlude of the woman with an issue of blood as part of the delay to bring about the resurrection.
This is an essential message dealing with a critical theme. We are living in a world where all of us face the inevitability of death. We are deteriorating humans in a deteriorating world. Our world is marked by tragedy, sadness, dying and death. Since the fall of man recorded in Genesis 3, there has been a curse on the earth, which causes tears, disasters, pain, sickness and death.
Just this past week, 12 people died in the theater shootings right here in Denver. I have heard the weeping and the sorrow of the injured. A pregnant survivor was paralyzed from the waist down and lost not only her unborn child but also her 6 year old daughter. And there is a lot of sickness everywhere and wars in Syria and Afghanistan. That's what sin has done to this world. That's the curse in action.
And as we come to Revelation 21:4 we read this, "Behold, God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. There shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying. Neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away." John gives us this incredible vision of the day when the curse is over.
Who can do that? Who can reverse the curse? Who can destroy disease and pain and sorrow, tears of death? The prophets said there would come a Messiah, there would come a Prince, there would come a King, and he would do it. He would have the power to bring back wholeness to life.
Thus when Jesus came into the world He demonstrated that power. Though the fulfillment of those prophecies is yet in the future, the One who will fulfill them has demonstrated His ability to do so, so that when Jesus came into the world He raised the dead and He forgave sin. All of those things that will be true of the glorious coming Kingdom, and Jesus demonstrated that there in His first coming.
The miracles of Jesus were the verification of His power to reverse the curse; the verification of His power to establish the Kingdom, for He had said in John 5, that He would someday raise from the dead all that were in the graves; and if He's going to do that, He must first demonstrate that He has the power to do that. So He did miracle upon miracle to verify His power.
Now, in Matthew 9:18-34, you have three miracles. The first one is raising the dead which we are in the process of discussing now and next week; the second is giving sight to the blind and the third is giving speech to the dumb. First, He raises the whole person from the dead; and then He shows how He can also give life to the dead parts like eyes and tongues that do not function anymore.
G. B. Hardy, a Canadian scientist said, "When I look at religion, I have two questions. Question No. 1, has anybody ever conquered death? Question No. 2, if anyone did, did he make a way for me to conquer it too?" He said, "I checked the tomb of Buddha, and it was occupied; I checked the tomb of Confucius, and it was occupied; and I checked the tomb of Mohammed, and it was occupied.
But then I came to the tomb of Jesus, and it was empty; and I said, 'Here is One who conquered death.' And I asked the second question, “Did He make a way for me to live as well?' And I opened up the Bible, and Jesus said in John 14:!9, “Because I live you shall live also.”
Now, the text has a miracle within a miracle, but the miracle dealing with the issue of blood, is really part of the resurrection miracle, because it provides the delay that is necessary for the death to occur and to make the resurrection dramatic. I want you to see, not only the story of what happened, but I want you to see how Jesus dealt with people, because nowhere is it more wonderfully seen than here.
All of His tenderness, all of His sensitivity, all His loving kindness is here, and all of His power is here, and all the wonder of His majesty is here; and you really get a marvelous glimpse of how he dealt with people; and this should becomes a pattern for us in dealing with people too. So remember that.
When Jesus came back to Capernaum, that little village on the very northernmost point of the Sea of Galilee where Peter lived, after that incident with the demons in Gadara, the disciples of John the Baptist came and said, "Why are all of you disciples and the Lord eating like this? Why aren't you fasting? Why don't you fulfill the traditions?"
So now we come to verse 18, "While He spoke these things to them, behold, a ruler came and worshiped Him." Now think about this a little bit, this speaks about the accessibility of Jesus. People could talk directly to Him. He was not a religious guru who was floating 10 feet up in the air with flowers all around Him. He moved among the people; and, you see, that is the essence of the incarnation. He was accessible to all.
Later in Matthew 9: 35-36 it says, “Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. 36 But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd.” Can you imagine? This shows that God is accessible and compassionate, isn't that great?
And on this occasion two people are in the crowd. One is a ruler and the other, a sick lady. One was wealthy and one was poor. Can you imagine the variety of people who would have been in a crowd like that? The Pharisees were trying to trip and trick Him, condemn Him; and all of the hurting people were there, as well, trying to have all their needs met.
Well, let's see what happens. What's so remarkable? Well, this man was a ruler. Mark adds, "He was one of the rulers of the synagogue." And Luke 8:41 says, "And behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue.” You know what this man was? He was the spiritual leader in the synagogue in Capernaum.
He was to coordinate and make sure everything was conducted properly at the public worship, he appointed the preacher and the one who prayed and the one who read out of the law; and he was responsible to administrate the whole synagogue. And if you know the Gospels, you know that the religious establishment was very much against Christ.
And this guy may even have been a Pharisee. We don't know, but he had a lot of peer pressure to be a faithful Jewish traditional religionist. And yet here he comes to Jesus. Now, you might expect him to come and say, "Sir, I am the chief elder of the synagogue. I'd like to speak to You. Could we please have a private conversation?" But that's not what he did.
Look at verse 18, "He came and worshiped Him." Now that word in the Greek, to worship, means to prostrate oneself before Jesus and either kiss his feet, kiss the hem of his garment or kiss the ground in front of Him. Even though the Pharisees and the religious establishment want to bring Him down; yet this guy does what you only did in that culture to a deity, to someone who was holy.
It's great that Matthew loves to use the word worship. He uses it thirteen times, because it fits a King, doesn't it? The man worshiped. How could you ever get somebody to do that? You know what he said to Him? "My daughter is dead." Now, Matthew's account is very brief. Luke's is longer, and Mark's is even longer; and these Gospel writers tell us tha t the first time the man spoke to Jesus, he said, "My daughter lies at the point of death." And later on, after he was informed that she was dead, he told Jesus she was dead.
Matthew just says, "Now she's dead.” The other writers tell us that the little girl was twelve years old; and twelve years and one day in the Jewish culture meant that you were a woman. For a man it was thirteen years and one day, and that's why you have a bar mitzvah. You know why he came? He didn't care about prestige; he didn't care about the religious establishment.
His daughter was dead, and there were no resources within his mind to deal with that; and God had already been working on his heart; because his faith was incredible. He says in verse 18, "Come and lay Your hand on her, and she will live." He had no doubts at all.
Now this man had a deep need and that's why people come to Christ. I am praying that you too would be in a deep need, that you would know pain. That you would know desperation, that you would know the loss of all your resources that would drive you to Christ. This man in his mind already believed in the power of Christ.
His motive wasn't totally pure. He didn't come just because he had some great love for Christ. He came because he was hurting deeply, and he knew a pain that he had never experienced before in his life. That's why the Gospel is preached and received by the poor and the sick and the weak and the prisoners.
The second thing that made him come was that he believed in Jesus’ power to do this; and that is faith. Do you remember the centurion who said his servant was home paralyzed? And he had enough faith to believe that Jesus could heal his servant by just saying a word. How great is this faith to believe that Jesus could touch a dead person and raise him from the dead when that had never been done?
And then the Lord throws in another miracle that's really wonderful too. Jesus is in the big crowd, and Jesus isn't even involved in the miracle. Somebody just touches Him. He says, "I felt power go out of Me." And then He looks around and says in Luke 8:45, "Who touched me?" God did that to delay the whole move down to the house to wait until the girl was dead.
Well how did Jesus response to Jairus’ need? Look at verse 19, “So Jesus arose and followed him.” The Lord is always sensitive to our needs, and at times He meets our individual need. Look at verse 20, “And suddenly, a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years came from behind and touched the hem of His garment.”
You say, "Is that bad?" Well, women basically did not go around touching men; and the word touch doesn't mean to just touch, it means to grab and hold on. You say, "Well, was that wrong?" Well, the problem she was very severe, you see. She had been "diseased with an issue of blood for twelve years."
Basically for twelve years this woman did not stop bleeding. Maybe this was due to a fibroid tumor or maybe something else. But she was perpetually unclean and doctor Luke says, "She could not be cured." Mark 5:26 says, "she had suffered many things from many physicians. She had spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse."
The Talmud, the Jewish law, says: This is an unclean woman with an issue of blood. Every bed she touches is unclean. Everything she wears is unclean, and every person who touches her becomes unclean. Therefore, she was excommunicated from the synagogue. She was divorced by her husband. She had no one she could have a relationship with. So for twelve years this woman lived alone.
Here she was with a deep need, and this woman was so desperate it says she touched the hem of His garment. The hem is basically a fringe, and it really means a tassel woven in a certain configuration with certain kinds of thread, seven or eight times around. And the threads were put together to represent the Word of God, like a religious ornament.
Verse 21, “For she said to herself, “If only I may touch His garment, I shall be made well.” You know what happened when she grabbed it? Instantly, she was healed; and it says in Mark 5:30, "And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that power had gone out of Him, turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched My clothes?”
She also had faith, didn't she? She said, "If I can just touch His clothes." You say, "Well, it's not exactly a perfected mature faith." But Jesus will take an inadequate faith like the lady's that is somewhat superstitious; and He'll move it from there to saving faith. He had to pull her into the fullness of a relationship.
This woman was not healed by her faith; she was healed by the sovereignty of God. God chose to heal her. Jesus did miracles everywhere, healed everybody of everything, but saved only those who had faith. Jesus wouldn't leave her with a little faith. He drew her out, and He saved her and increased her faith.
How is your faith? How desperate are you for a relationaship with God? Think about it, can you deal with all your sins yourself, think about your life and all your shortcomings, and look at the faith of these two people. I pray that you come to God full of that same faith and humility and ask His forgiveness and mercy.
Let us continue next Sunday to study more about the miracle of Christ’s power over everything, and specifically over the greatest enemy of man, death itself. No one ever has and ever will conquer death except for God Himself, as shown by Jesus, Amen? Let's bow in prayer.