Trust me when I say, you WANT to read this passage.  Two beautiful stories are interwoven and the message is so full of compassion and hope.  I LOVE this passage.

If you don’t have a Bible handy, read it here: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%208%3A40-56&version=NLT

Luke 8:40-56 Two daughters, twelve years, lives restored.  Like I’ve mentioned before, these gospels are compilations.  The writers either sat down and wrote their recollections of events that had happened over a three year period not long past, or they wrote about what they had learned from first hand witnesses.  Memories are never perfect and inevitably, people remember different details of the same event.  My family regularly bickers over the sequence of events of some vacation or situation in which we found ourselves.  So when we all agree about how something went down, you can be pretty sure it happened that way.  All three synoptic gospels tell this story, these two stories really, and the level of agreement in the details is remarkable.  The girl who died was about twelve.  The woman had been bleeding for twelve years.  And they were both dearly loved daughters whose lives Jesus restored.  

Let’s back this up.

Jesus’ boat lands back in a town where everyone had heard of him.  Before his toes hit the sand, word is out and people are waiting in crowds on the shore.  We are back on the chaotic side of the lake.  (Ironic since Jesus had faced a “legion” of demons on the other side). Among the excited fans pushing to be near him, there are some faces wearing desperation.  One is a dad whose only daughter is about to die.  She’s still just a girl, about 12 years old.  Her whole life is ahead of her, except it’s ending today, and no one has been able to help.  When he heard Jesus was on his way back across the lake, he tore himself from the dying side of his baby girl.  He pushed his way to Jesus feet and fell there pleading for help.  

Jesus recognized the panic in his face and followed him, only the enthusiastic crowds hadn’t got the memo and they nearly crushed Jesus as he tried to get through.  Chaos.  And as Jesus is trying to race to this child’s side, pushed and bumped and almost tripping over people, he suddenly stops.  Doubtless, several people who had been racing to keep up slammed into one another and him. 

“Who touched me?”

Have I mentioned that I love Peter? You can see the look on his face.  “Are you kidding me right now? Who didn’t touch you?  This is a mob scene Jesus. Why are we stopping? This man’s baby girl is dying!”

But suddenly, Jesus is going nowhere.  Why did he stop? The fact is, when this poor woman who had been sick and isolated for twelve years touched the edge of his robe, she was healed. Why stop? She was fine now. There was a little girl dying. Why stop? 

I think the answer is in the word he used to address her.  The crowd has stopped, confused.  Jesus explains he has felt power go out from him.  He insists someone touched him, and it wasn’t an accidental bump.  Someone wanted his healing but was too humiliated to ask.  She didn’t want his attention or anyone else’s.  No doubt she was trying to avoid recognition because, by ceremonial law, the fact that she was bleeding made it wrong for her to be out in public.  Other accounts mentioned she had spent everything she had on doctors who couldn’t help her.  She was destitute, she was sick and she wasn’t allowed to be out in society. Blood, as we now know, carries an awful lot of pathogens, it was also a symbol of death.  There were a lot of reasons behind the rule, but what it boiled down to was that if you were bleeding you weren’t to be among other people.  You definitely shouldn’t be touching anyone. So she had lived much of the previous 12 years in isolation. She was not supposed to be in that crowd at all.  So when Jesus stopped and looked for her she was terrified.  She fell at his feet just like the little girl’s dad. She was so sorry, but she needed his help.  She had no choice.  Her life wasn’t even a life anymore.  She told him her whole story desperately hoping that she could be forgiven.  She expected wrath, censure.  She didn’t get it.  

Instead, Jesus called her daughter.  Daughter!  The entire crowd was excitedly racing to watch Jesus help a daughter. They knew how precious a daughter was.  They were watching a living illustration of fatherly love frantically pushing through the crowds to help Jesus get to his little girl.  They were all cheering for him.  Save the little girl! Save this man’s daughter!

Jesus stopped to save another daughter.  Just as precious.  Just as much in need of life. 

I think Jesus knew that healing her body was only half the battle.  After twelve years of illness, she was a woman whose company no one wanted.  She had nothing to offer anyone.  She was worthless.  

Except, she wasn’t.  

Jesus recognized that she was precious. He called her daughter, even after her confession would have embarrassingly revealed who she was and her condition.  Jesus wasn’t content to simply stop her bleeding.  He wanted to give her life back.  When Jesus called her “daughter” and told her she was healed, he told the whole crowd that.  And he told her she was free to go in peace.  Not humiliation, not isolation, peace.

But speaking of peace, there was another disturbance in the crowd. A servant arrived to announce that the girl had died. Nothing more could be done.  Jesus may just as well stop there and go back to teaching the crowds. 

I picture a change of scene here.  Before, Jairus had been pushing the crowd aside so Jesus could get through, but now he has stopped, frozen in grief.  Jesus stares into his face until he meets his gaze.  “Don’t be afraid.  Trust me.  She will live.” And he resumes his journey to the house.  Now Jesus is leading the way, and maybe the crowds are a little less excited, a little less enthusiastic so they part more easily.  They were hoping to see a daughter healed but it’s too late.  

But Jesus isn’t stopping.  At the door of the house, surrounded by mourners, he takes three friends and the girl’s parents. There’s only so much room in there.  The crowds had seen a daughter’s life restored.  They got what they wanted, whether or not they understood that they had.  Jesus had defeated sickness for all to see, but he was facing death now and he didn’t want an audience, and for crying out loud (literally) would you all stop wailing!

Just a side note, are you aware that Jesus hates death? He does.  He doesn’t hate much, but death is an enemy, and he hates it.  We were not designed for death.  Go take a look at Genesis.  We were designed to eat from the Tree of Life forever.  If you’re unfamiliar, that’s a story for another day.  I hope God gives me time and insight to write through Genesis one day, but the book is there.  You don’t need me to tell you any of this.  God gave us perfect healthy bodies and an unblemished world in which to enjoy them, but we thought there was something he was keeping from us, so we broke everything.  And death became a part of life.  God knew it would happen.  He already had a plan to fix our mess that is still in the works today.  Jesus came to this broken planet, and he went to great lengths to destroy death. He took this moment to remind death how this would all end. 

Jesus takes the girl by the hand. He calls her his child.  She was precious, his child, just like the woman in the crowd. And he tells her to get up. And she does. And she had a snack, which makes me smile a lot.  So simple, so practical.  She’s not sick any more, but she is hungry.  Fix that. 

Just one more thought that I can’t resist sharing before I move on to the next passage is this.  Death made people unclean.  Remember how the woman was unclean because of her bleeding?  Death would have made everyone who touched the girl unclean for a period of several days.  Again, in addition to all the symbolism of the relationship between death and sin, there was a reason people died.  Sometimes it was because they had nasty illnesses that could spread to others.  When you touched dead bodies, you risked sharing disease around.  Jewish law required that you keep to yourself along with anyone who had touched the body.  It kind of made sense. 

In the case of both of these beloved daughters, the fact that they came into contact with Jesus should have made him unclean.  Touching their death and disease would have contaminated anyone else.  But instead, his touch made them clean.  He made them whole. He healed them and restored their lives.  Jesus is like no one and nothing else.  We can’t make him dirty.  We can’t corrupt him.  We can’t reduce him in any way.  But he can heal us.  And at our dirtiest and most isolated and helpless, he sees us as precious children and is willing, even eager, to restore our lives.