3. The healing of a woman with a hemorrhage and the raising of Jairus' daughter 8:40-56

Luke, as the other Synoptic evangelists, recorded this double miracle in its intertwined historical sequence. This is the only intertwined miracle in the Gospels. One miracle involved providing deliverance from disease and the other deliverance from death. Both of them demonstrated the power and compassion of Jesus and the importance of faith in Him. The tension created in the Jairus' story by the interruption of the woman challenged the faith of Jairus and the disciples on the one hand and their compassion on the other. Both incidents also deal with females for whom the number 12 was important. This number was important in each of the female's lives for reasons explained below, but it probably has no typological significance. Jesus' willingness to cleanse unclean people at the expense of His own ceremonial defilement also recurs (cf. 7:11-17). This showed His superiority over the Mosaic Law. These two miracles, as the preceding two, revealed the identity of Jesus primarily.

 Jairus' request 8:40-42a (cf. Matt. 9:18-19; Mark 5:21-23)

Jesus returned from the southeast side of the lake to its northwest side where this incident happened. Multitudes welcomed Jesus because He had become popular in that area by working many other miracles. Jairus' position as a synagogue ruler shows that some influential Jewish leaders had believed on Him. Luke alone wrote that the girl was Jairus' only (Gr. monogenes, cf. John 3:16) daughter. This detail adds to the pathos of the story. At "about 12"years of age a Jewish girl was on the brink of become a young lady of marriageable age.²⁴⁴She was apparently going to die just as she was about to begin to live as an adult, a further tragedy.

 The healing of the woman with a hemorrhage 8:42b-48 (cf. Matt. 9:20-22; Mark 5:24-34)

8:42b-43 The crowd that Luke described graphically as pressing against Jesus and almost crushing Him created the scene in which the woman approached Jesus. The exact reason for her continual bleeding is unknown and unimportant. This condition resulted in her discomfort, inconvenience, ritual uncleanness, and embarrassment. Some commentators believe that Luke's omission of the fact that she had spent all her money on doctors who could not cure here was his attempt to guard the reputation of his profession. However it may have been a simple omission of a detail he felt was unimportant in view of his purpose. The point is that no one could heal the woman for 12 years, but Jesus did in an instant.

8:44 The woman's superstition has also created problems for some readers. However, God honored even stranger expressions of faith than hers (cf. Acts 5:14; 19:11-12). Even though her knowledge was imperfect she believed that Jesus could heal her, and Jesus honored that faith.

8:45-46 Jesus' question did not reveal lack of knowledge but the desire to identify the woman so He could strengthen and encourage her faith. Occasionally Jesus chose to heal people who expressed no faith in Him. Here someone with faith drew on His power without His conscious selection of her. Evidently God healed the woman through Jesus without Jesus' awareness. Likewise God sometimes brings blessing to others through His children without those believers being aware of it. Jesus meant that God's power had gone from Him to another person, but not that He consequently felt a lack of power. Luke alone identified Peter as the spokesman of the disciples here perhaps to make the narrative more concrete and vivid.

8:47-48 The woman's embarrassment was undoubtedly due to her illness and to her presumption in mingling with a crowd even though she was ritually unclean. Her falling at Jesus' feet recalls the sinful woman in Simon the Pharisee's house (7:36-50) who had a kindred spirit of thankfulness. One of the reasons Jesus insisted on identifying the woman was to secure her public confession of faith in Him. Perhaps Luke included this public confession after a private deliverance as a good example for his readers to follow (cf. Rom. 10:9-10). Jesus then corrected a possible misunderstanding that her healing had been the result of magic by ascribing it to her faith. Jesus' benediction also ties this story in with the earlier one involving the sinful woman (cf. 7:50).

 The raising of Jairus' daughter 8:49-56 (cf. Matt. 9:23-26; Mark 5:35-43)

8:49-50 Jesus' words of encouragement as well as His recent demonstration of power prepared Jairus for what followed. He had just witnessed Jesus overcome ceremonial defilement and disease. He needed to believe that Jesus could overcome ceremonial defilement and death. Luke stressed the sad finality of the occasion by using the perfect tense Greek verb translated "she has died"and by placing the verb in the emphatic first position in the sentence. The messenger's command also implied that there was no hope, but Jesus immediately fortified Jairus' faith.

"Whereas the woman's faith needed bolstering because it was shy, Jairus's faith needs to be calmed, persistent, and trusting. . . .

"We often struggle to understand God's timing. In fact, much of faith is related to accepting God's timing for events."²⁴⁵

8:51-53 Jairus' faith is evident in his continuing on with Jesus and allowing Him to enter his house. Perhaps Jesus only allowed Peter, John, and James (cf. 9:28; Acts 1:13) to accompany Him and the girl's parents because the girl's room was probably small.²⁴⁶More significantly His command to keep this incident quiet indicates that He did not want the unnecessary publicity that would inevitably accompany a second resuscitation (cf. 7:11-17). By saying euphemistically that the girl was asleep (Gr. katheudei) Jesus was implying that her death was only temporary (cf. John 11:11; 1 Thess. 4:13-14). Jesus was expressing God's view of death, not man's. Obviously she had died because her spirit had departed from her body (v. 55). It is interesting that these mourners who knew of Jesus' prophetic powers and gift of healing refused to allow the possibility that He might be right. This attitude shows their lack of faith.

8:54-56 Jesus called the girl's spirit back to her body (cf. 1 Kings 17:21; Acts 9:41). He evidently extended His hand to offer her assistance in sitting up rather than to transfer divine power to her. Luke wrote that the girl rose up off her deathbed immediately and was able to eat, facts that preclude a gradual or only spiritual restoration (cf. 4:39). Her parents' amazement (Gr. exestesan) also witnessed to the reality of this miracle.

This double miracle brings this section on Jesus' mighty works to a climax. The point Luke was stressing throughout was the identity of Jesus whom he presented as exercising the prerogatives of deity (cf. Ps. 146:7-9).

"The most fundamental lesson in this passage is the combination of characteristics tied to faith. Faith should seize the initiative to act in dependence on God and speak about him, yet sometimes it must be patient. In one sense faith is full speed ahead, while in another it is waiting on the Lord. Our lives require a vibrant faith applied to the affairs of life, but it also requires a patient waiting on the Lord, for the Father does know best."²⁴⁷