SteemChurch:The daughter of Jairus, and the woman who touched Jesus' cloak

(Mk 5: 21-43) "When Jesus was again in a boat on the other side, a large crowd gathered around him, and he was by the sea, and one of the leaders of the synagogue, named Jairus, came; And when he saw him, he fell at his feet and begged him very much, saying, "My daughter is dying, come and put her hands on her so that she may be saved, and she will live." So she went with him, and a great crowd, and they squeezed him.

But a woman who for twelve years had suffered from blood flow, and had suffered a lot from many doctors, and spent everything she had, and had not taken anything, before she got worse, when she heard about Jesus, she came from behind crowd, and touched his cloak. Because he said: If only I touch his cloak, I will be saved. And immediately the source of his blood dried up; and he felt in the body that he was healed of that scourge. Then Jesus, knowing in himself the power that had come out of him, turning to the crowd, said: Who has touched my clothes? His disciples said to him: You see that the crowd is pressing you, and you say: Who touched me? But he looked around to see who had done this. Then the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had been done in her, came and prostrated herself before him, and told him the whole truth. And he said to her: Daughter, your faith has made you saved; Go in peace, and be healed of your scourge.
While he was still speaking, they came from the house of the synagogue chief, saying: Your daughter is dead; Why do you bother the Master even more? But Jesus, after he heard what was said, said to the synagogue's principal: Do not fear, believe only. And he did not allow anyone to follow him except Pedro, Jacobo, and Juan, brother of Jacobo. And he came to the house of the chief of the synagogue, and he saw the commotion and those who wept and lamented very much. And when he came in, he said to them, Why do you rave and weep? The girl is not dead, but sleeps. And they made fun of him. But he, casting out all, took the father and the mother of the child, and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. And taking the child's hand, he said: Talita cumi; What is translated is: Girl, I tell you, get up. And then the girl got up and walked, because she was twelve years old. And they were greatly appalled. But he commanded them very much that no one should know, and said that he should be fed. "

Introduction

This passage, together with the previous two, complete a series of stories in which the Lord Jesus Christ faced four elements adverse to man and against which he finds himself impotent.
The hostile forces of nature (Mr 4: 35-41).
The spiritual powers of evil (Mark 5: 1-20).
Incurable diseases and death (Mr 5: 21-43).
In all cases, the Lord showed his divine power, overcoming without any difficulty those things that are impossible for man. In doing so, his purpose is to show us in advance some of the characteristics of his Kingdom, in which the limits imposed by the fall are overcome by the Work of Christ. For example, in this passage we will see that pain and death are overcome by their power to heal and resuscitate.
Another of the main characteristics of this passage is that this restorative power of the Lord reaches us through faith. So it was in the case of the woman with the flow of blood, as in that of Jairus, who saw her faith rewarded, the first with the healing of her illness and the second with the resurrection of her daughter. But we will also have occasion to consider that in both cases his faith was tested and he had to overcome great obstacles.

The circumstances

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Jesus had just been rejected by the Gadarenes who begged him to leave his surroundings (Mr 5:17), but now, returning to the western side of the lake, probably to Capernaum, a man named Jairo came to meet him. , principal of the synagogue, who begged him insistently to go with him to his house.
What a contrast! While some reject him and ask him to leave his surroundings, others wait for him in order to approach him and invite him to come to his house. And this same situation is repeated in our days constantly, where people, and even entire peoples, manifest completely opposite positions in front of Jesus.
We are also struck by the attitude of the crowd, which, according to Luke, "when Jesus returned, he received him with joy, because everyone was waiting for him" (Lk 8:40). What were your expectations? Maybe they were led by their curiosity to witness some of Jesus' miracles. We do not know.
"Jairo, one of the leaders of the synagogue"
Jairus was one of those who anxiously awaited the return of the Lord. The reason is that her daughter lay dying and her time was running out and they could not do anything for her. So, as soon as Jesus arrived, he came to meet him and desperately asked him to accompany him to his home. Without a doubt, it was an evident act of faith, but as we said before, his faith had to overcome different obstacles, some of them very difficult.
The evangelist tells us that Jairus was one of the leaders of the synagogue, and as we have already considered in previous passages, at this moment, the synagogues were practically closed to Jesus. Recall that the last time he had been in the synagogue of Capernaum, the Pharisees joined the Herodians in order to destroy him, because on a Sabbath he had healed a man with a dry hand (Mark 3: 1-6) .
And now Jairus, one of the leaders of the synagogue, maybe from that same synagogue in Capernaum, went to Jesus to heal his sick daughter. It is not hard to imagine how difficult it had to be for him to ask Jesus for help.
It is always humiliating to have to ask for help from others, but in this case it was even more painful, because Jairus was one of the Jewish rulers and Jesus was a despised rabbi and held to be demonized by religious leaders (Mark 3:22). How difficult it must have been to overcome "what they will say" of their Jewish co-religionists! And perhaps, if he himself had participated in the rejection of Jesus, he would also have repented and confessed his mistake and sin.
But authentic faith always encounters these obstacles and so that you can get your reward, you will have to overcome them. But how difficult it is for human pride to recognize that we need God, the same God we have often ignored and belittled, and go over the "what they will say" of people when they see us approaching Jesus!
Jairus 'request and Jesus' response
So Jairus, a respectable man in his community, came to Jesus' feet and asked for his dying daughter. All of us who are parents know the pain that is felt when we see our little sick or threatened by death. So, prostrate at the feet of Jesus, with intense anxiety and tender affection, he made his request: "My little daughter is dying, come ..."
It is evident that Jairus had faith in Jesus. Why then did the Lord not do as in the story of the centurion, who with one word was enough to heal him (Lk 7: 1-10), thus avoiding the suffering of the father and the death of the child herself? Surely I wanted to teach Jairo, and also all of us, a fundamental principle: where there is faith, the Lord will try it to grow.
Jairus's faith was that Jesus could heal his daughter who was seriously ill, but the Lord wanted him to advance until he came to understand that he also had the power to resurrect the dead. But to be able to learn this, there was no other way to wait until his daughter died, which undoubtedly turned those moments when Jairo tried to break through the crowd with Jesus on his way home, in an unimaginable anguish.

Something similar happened in the case of Lazaro and his two sisters and that Juan relates. When the news came to Jesus that his friend Lazarus was sick, he still stayed two more days where he was before going (Jn 11: 3-6). This delay was intended to teach Martha and Mary that Jesus not only had the power to heal his sick brother, but that he himself was the resurrection and the life (Jn 11: 21-27).

"A woman who for twelve years suffered from blood flow"
But on the way home to Jairo, the Lord had to stop to tend to another sick woman who was also looking for him. This "delay" was undoubtedly another harsh test for Jairo's faith.
Marcos gives us some information about this woman's illness that helps us to get an idea of ​​her condition. He had been suffering from blood flow for twelve years, so we can imagine that he would be very weak physically. In addition, a disease of such a long duration is always exhausting for both the sufferer and those who care for him.
But the disease had not only undermined his physical strength, but had also ended with all his financial resources, spent uselessly in doctors who had failed to find a solution for his illness, even, "before it was worse." We can get an idea of ​​what that woman had to have suffered at the hands of doctors, at a time when medicine and its treatments had much more superstition than science. And this, so that finally she would lose everything she had and be evicted by the doctors who could not find a solution for her. His situation was totally exasperating, with no possible human solution. For all this, Marcos says that his illness was a "scourge", like a whip used by the Romans to punish the wrongdoers.
In many ways, the case of this woman is a good example of the situation of thousands of people who spend years of anguish in search of peace in their hearts without being able to find it. They seek it through different human remedies without finding any relief. They go from one church to another without feeling any kind of improvement for their spiritual state, before they find themselves more and more disenchanted of everything and discouraged. What they urgently need is to go to Jesus, whatever the cost.
But a disease of this type also had certain religious implications that would undoubtedly increase its pain. According to the Levitical law (Lev 15: 25-27), a woman with a blood flow was in a condition of ceremonial impurity, which prevented her from participating in the worship of God. We can imagine how this illness would have conditioned his relationship with God over the years.
But it also prevented his normal treatment with his fellows, since anyone who had contact with her would be in the same condition of impurity. In fact, when spending his meager strength he managed to break through the crowd that squeezed Jesus, "contaminated" their ceremonial impurity to all of them, and finally, to Jesus himself when he touched him.
What a curious situation! On that road, Jesus was in the midst of Jairus and the sick woman. Given the religious implications of his illness, that woman would never have gone to the synagogue chaired by Jairo, so they would hardly know each other, but now, because of very different circumstances, the two of them were with Jesus, both equally in need of him.
The faith of the sick woman
There is no doubt that the woman deeply felt his need, and it was as a result of listening to talk about Jesus and the wonders he did (Mr 5:27), when faith arose in her. As in the case of Jairo, it was an authentic faith that managed to overcome obstacles.
As we have already said, his faith gave him the necessary strength to make his way through the people and reach Jesus. And when she was finally healed, faith led her to confess the whole truth about the good she had received from Jesus, overcoming the possible criticisms of those who had become ceremonially unclean because of contact with her.
Some have thought, that since what the woman had set out to do was to touch the edge of Jesus' mantle, it was not so much about faith as about superstition. Others have tried to use the incident to justify their trust in the relics, a widespread practice in Catholicism for many centuries. But we should note that Jesus stressed that what had saved him was his faith in him: "Child, your faith has made you safe, go in peace, and be healed of your scourge." The touch of Jesus' cloak was only an expression of the faith that she had in the power of Jesus.

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"Who touched me?"

The woman was healed by touching with faith the edge of Jesus' command, but in doing so, she tried to pass unnoticed in the crowd. His attitude could be reasonable, since the Jews would not have accepted that a ceremonially filthy woman would touch them. But nevertheless, Jesus perceived with total clarity that power had come from him. This is a very interesting fact that we should not overlook.
On the one hand, it is important to note that although there were many people who went with Jesus and who even pressed him, only one of them touched Jesus with faith and was healed. Perhaps the crowd was accompanying Jesus in a festive atmosphere, expecting to see a miracle in Jairo's house. In this somewhat crazy state, they shoved and even squeezed Jesus inconsiderately. On the contrary, the sick woman sought to approach Jesus with a completely different purpose. She was moved by her deep sense of need and with a heart full of faith and hope in Jesus. What a contrast! But this same thing is constantly happening in the church of Christ in the present. Many come to hear about him, but very few are those who approach him with a personal faith that can save them.
We also observed the attitude of the disciples when Jesus asked the question: "You see that the crowd is pressing you, and you say: Who touched me?" This reveals not only a lack of understanding of the disciples, but also reveals a certain lack of respect and sensitivity towards Jesus. If the Master stopped to make that observation, they had to ask themselves the reason why he did it and not criticize him in this way a bit raw and rude in that they answered his question. They also needed to learn something very important.
"Jesus, knowing in himself the power that had come out of him"
The disciples did not understand the "wear and tear" of Jesus for all those healings. They had probably become accustomed to seeing the power of Jesus flow without any limitations and thought it was something "natural" in him. But the Lord had to teach them that there was a cost and that it was high.
Humanly speaking, we could say that when the Lord Jesus Christ created this immense universe, he did not suffer any kind of "wear and tear". But a totally different thing was to deal with the sin of man. In some sense that is impossible to explain and quantify, the salvation of man has meant fatigue, fatigue and much pain for the Son of God. Remember that the same Law of God said that Jesus had remained religiously impure when the woman with the blood flow touched him (Lev 15: 25-27). And all this, as the apostle Paul explains, in order to carry our curse so that we could be saved: (Ga 3:13) "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, made a curse for us (for it is written: Cursed all who are hanged on a tree). " We can not go further in our reasoning for fear of making mistakes, but we must stop to adore God for his love towards each one of us.
We see then, that the disciples who were so close to the Lord, were unaware of what was happening. Therefore, the Lord stopped to teach them a fundamental principle that we must learn as well. We can never do something worthy for the Lord unless we put something of ourselves, of our own life in it. King David expressed it magnificently when he said: "I will not offer burnt offerings to Jehovah my God that cost me nothing" (2 Sam 24:24).
We are incomprehensible those believers who say they are willing to serve the Lord, but "calmly", when they feel like it and feel encouraged, without stress or haste. This attitude is incompatible with what the Lord has done for us and taught us. If we want to follow in his tracks, we will have to be willing, not only to spend our money, but especially to spend ourselves.
"The woman, fearing and trembling, came and prostrated herself before him, and told him the whole truth"
The Lord Jesus fulfilled all the program that his Father had entrusted to him, and although a dying girl was waiting for the touch of his hand, he had to stop to tend to the woman and remove from the incident all the perfume of his faith. For it was necessary that the woman did not remain in the anonymity, but confessed what had happened. It was then that Jesus asked: "Who has touched my clothes?"

Of course, Christ knew who the person who had been healed was, but it was necessary for the woman to identify herself and give public testimony of the work of God in her life. This was necessary for several reasons:

He confirmed the principle that the apostle Paul expressed: "For with the heart one believes for righteousness, but with the mouth one confesses for salvation" (Rom. 10:10).
It allowed Christ to come to have a personal relationship with the woman. It is never his wish that we be saved by his power, but that we have nothing to do with him. That is why, after the healing, he sought personal dialogue with the woman.
Moreover, such a precious example of faith should not be hidden from the eyes of the crowd of onlookers, who should learn that it is only by faith that it is possible to obtain the benefits of Christ.
At first, the woman tried to hide, probably not to have to blush by publicly counting the nature of her illness and the way she had received his healing. But as Christians, we must remember that we should never be ashamed to confess before men what Christ has done for us. In fact, we should strive to find the opportunity to do so.
Finally, the faith of the woman made him overcome all the obstacles and made a moving confession, where marvelously humility and frankness were combined as to his need, and the due gratitude and adoration in view of his healing.
Maybe she expected some rebuke from the Lord for having touched her while being ceremonially unclean, but nothing could be further from that. The Lord encouraged and confirmed his healing with loving words: "Child, your faith has made you safe, go in peace and be healed of your scourge."
We can easily imagine the relief of the woman after having confessed Christ publicly.
And from this moment on, the woman became part of the social and religious life of the people of God.
"Your daughter is dead, why do you bother the Master even more?"
But while the woman felt the profound relief of her healing, we should not forget that Jairus was still at the side of Jesus, impatient, consuming himself in his anguish, wondering over and over again why the Lord was so late with that woman while his daughter was dying.
Many times we come to feel the same, seeing how God solves the problems of others, while we consume ourselves in impatience hoping that it also works in our situation. That is when we must remember that the Lord has different purposes with each one of us.
It was at that moment when the tragic news came from Jairo's house: "Your daughter has died, why do you bother the Master more?"
It is not hard to imagine Jairo's mood. Death is always painful, but if it is a small child, and it is our own child, then it becomes a harrowing experience. In a situation like this it seems that there is no place for hope. As many say: "everything has a solution, except death". In fact, this was the attitude of those who gave the news to Jairo: "Why do you bother the Master more?", There is nothing else that can be done.
But if this was not enough, the atmosphere when arriving at home, with all the mourners crying, screaming, gesticulating, made the despair and desolation total.
But at that moment the Lord intervened: "Do not fear, only believe." If someone could transmit some kind of hope in such a situation, that could only be Christ. When all human resources fail, only the divine ones remain.
We already commented at the beginning, that the purpose of Christ was to raise Jairo's faith to new horizons. I wanted him to come to understand that he not only has the power to heal the sick, but also to resurrect the dead. But for that, he would have to overcome new obstacles. To begin with, he must believe that Jesus could do what all other men consider impossible: to raise a dead person. He had to believe with Christ that death is not the end of all human hopes. And later, when they arrived at the house, she would also have to endure the mockery of the people who laughed at Christ when he said that the girl was not dead but that she was sleeping.
"He did not allow anyone to follow him"
When they reached the house of Jairus, Christ threw everyone out, staying only with the parents of the girl and three of his disciples; Pedro, Juan and Jacobo. Why did not he allow others to enter? Why after resuscitating the girl sent the parents to not say anything to anyone?
Probably, one of the reasons for bringing out the mourners and many others was because their attitude was a hindrance to the manifestation of the power of the Lord. Let's not forget that many of them were making fun of Jesus when he said that the girl was sleeping.
On the other hand, choosing these three disciples was perhaps due to the fact that this was the number of witnesses required by law for a testimony to be valid (Dt 17: 6). Although curiously, this group of three disciples was the same one with whom the Lord also departed on the mount of the transfiguration and later in the Garden of Gethsemane. We have to.

Final reflection
Probably, many of us are thinking at this moment that although Jesus healed this woman and raised this girl, he does not do the same with us at this time. We also have faith in Christ, but nevertheless, although we wish to see our loved ones healed, we do not always see this happening, and in many cases, death separates us from them irreparably. Why does not God act in the same way today?
It is clear that this story is not intended to encourage us to expect the same in this day. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why Christ charged everyone to keep the secret as much as possible so that no one would know.
But what he proposed to teach us through these miracles, is that our faith in him should lead us to have a completely new vision of disease and death, a vision that the world will never share. Neither disease nor death have a permanent power over those who have believed in Christ. Both have been defeated by him and in his Kingdom they will no longer exist.
(Rev 21: 4) "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death, neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, for the first things have passed away." And he who sat on the throne said: Behold, I make all things new ... "