On Line Bible Study - For the Week August 23-29, 2010

Lesson 454

Luke 8:40-56 (For the full text, click here.) Jesus encounters a ruler of the synagogue named Jairus who begs him to come heal his only daughter who is around 12 years old. As Jesus is on his way, a woman who has been bleeding for 12 years touches his cloak and is healed. Jesus, pressed in by the crowds, senses this touch of healing and inquires: Who touched me? The woman comes forward, and Jesus tells her: Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.

As he continues to Jairus' home, messengers arrive with the news that the girl has died. Jesus says to Jairus: Don't be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed.

⁵¹When 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. ⁵²Meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning for her. "Stop wailing," Jesus said. "She is not dead but asleep."

⁵³They laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. ⁵⁴But he took her by the hand and said, "My child, get up!" ⁵⁵Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up. Then Jesus told them to give her something to eat. ⁵⁶Her parents were astonished, but he ordered them not to tell anyone what had happened.

"If you want proof, you will never be enlightened." This is what Rinpoche Barba Tulku told Eric Weiner when Weiner was traveling in Bhutan.

The passage from Luke's Gospel, also told in Mark 5:21-43 and Matthew 9:18-26, is the only time in the gospel tradition where one miracle is wrapped around another. Darrell Bock suggests this literary device increases the tension of the situation, perhaps because Jesus' delay with the bleeding woman results in his arriving too late (presumably) to heal Jairus' daughter.

Three things are happening in this passage:

1. Jesus' power over illness is once again demonstrated.
2. Jesus' power over death itself is both made manifest and, in an even more spectacular event to come, anticipated.
3. Faith in Jesus is the critical issue.
   

There is another interesting factor to consider - Jairus is just the sort of person Jesus is most critical of - a religious leader. But in this case, Jairus is not antagonistic to the ministry of Christ, but is, at least at some level, a believer. Or, maybe that is pushing it a bit too far. Perhaps Jairus' faith is not so much in Jesus, but in his belief that God worked in a special way through Jesus. Is there a difference?

This is not a matter of splitting hairs; it is a critically important question. Presumably God can use whoever and whatever God chooses; but is Jesus somehow singular? One of the mysteries of Christian theology as it relates to Jesus is this notion of separateness - that is, Jesus is not "God" in the same way as is the God to whom Jesus prays. Yet, there is a unity between Jesus and God such that their individual will is actually one will. In theological terminology - two "persons", one God.

There is an interesting passage in the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of John where Jesus says: Believe in God; believe also in me... John's gospel hits this issue head on; perhaps the synoptic gospels (Mark, Matthew and Luke) come at it more subliminally. In any event, each gospel in its own way pushes us to consider who we believe this Jesus to be. God doesn't provide proof as the foundation for faith; faith is going to have to be strong enough to stand on its own.

For the woman who was bleeding, and the father of the little girl - Jesus was all the proof they needed. Luke tells us their story - one of pain and worry and mortality. "Just believe!" That may not seem like much to go on, but sometimes it's all we've got.