Luke 8:40-56

Transcript

00:00:00:03 – 00:00:22:45
Clint Loveall
Hey, friends, thanks for being with us. I feel like we’ve been trying to get to this passage for a while. We’ve had some technical difficulties. I was out a day last week, but today we look at, I think, you know, kind of one of the classics from Luke, and it’s a little bit unusual. Will not I don’t know about unusual.

00:00:22:49 – 00:00:51:28
Clint Loveall
Mark is really known for this in the Gospel of Mark. Mark will start a story, stick another story in the middle and then finish the first story. Sometimes he’ll even, you know, make a double decker kind of sandwich out of it. Luke is more a straightforward one at a time storyteller, but he takes this from Mark, probably gets this from Mark, as we think Mark was probably written first and we get Luke’s version of the story in which he does the same thing.

00:00:51:28 – 00:01:14:03
Clint Loveall
In the end, these two stories work really well together, so I’m going to read the first part of this and then we’ll start. We’ll talk about it and we’ll finish it up. Verse 40, Chapter eight. Now, when Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him for they were all waiting for him and there was a man named Jerry as a leader who came to him.

00:01:14:07 – 00:01:40:00
Clint Loveall
He fell to Jesus feet and he begged him to come to his house, for he had only he had an only daughter, about 12 years old, who was dying. And he went and the crowds pressed in on him. Now, there was a woman in the crowd who had been suffering, suffering from a hemorrhage for 12 years. And though she had spent all she had on physicians, no one could cure her.

00:01:40:04 – 00:02:09:12
Clint Loveall
She came up behind Jesus and she touched the fringe of his clothes. And immediately her hemorrhage stopped. Then Jesus asked who touched me? When all denied it, Peter said, Master, the crowds surround you and press in on you. But Jesus said, Someone touched me, for I notice that power has gone out from me. When the woman saw that she could not remain hidden, she came trembling and falling down before him.

00:02:09:12 – 00:02:34:22
Clint Loveall
She declared, in the presence of all people that she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed. And he said to her daughter, Your faith has made you well, go in peace. Let’s stop there, Michael. A pretty well known story. I think many people who know the story of the woman forget that this story of the woman takes place inside a story about a little girl.

00:02:34:22 – 00:03:00:32
Clint Loveall
So there’s a man named Jairus. His daughter is sick. He’s a leader of the synagogue, and yet he trusts Jesus. He knows Jesus to be a healer. And in desperation, he reaches out to Jesus. Would you come and help my daughter? And as Jesus is doing that in the midst of the crowd, there is this woman and and really Luke is telling us things that we don’t know.

00:03:00:32 – 00:03:25:07
Clint Loveall
He’s telling us she has spent all the money she had. She’s not been cured. She has suffered for a long time. She’s really at a kind of her ropes. And she’s a woman. She is sick. She just Luke is really I think, wants us to know that this is a woman in kind of a desperate situation. And so as Jesus walks by, she touches his cloak.

00:03:25:12 – 00:03:56:08
Clint Loveall
And then there’s this dramatic moment where Jesus knows that somebody has touched him. He knows that something has happened, and then he praises the woman for her faith and says, Your faith has made you well, go in peace. And it really is a kind of significant moment where this woman’s bravery, her courage has paid off and she has now been set free of what has been a debilitating instance that has plagued her for a long time.

00:03:56:13 – 00:04:20:13
Clint Loveall
I think, Michael, you know, I don’t know what there is in terms of the interpretation of this. I think it’s very interesting, this idea that Jesus knows power has gone out, that the woman is reluctant to admit that she’s touched him, that there is a sort of, you know, a shyness or there’s an unwillingness to be public on her part.

00:04:20:18 – 00:04:25:52
Clint Loveall
And yet in front of everyone, Jesus publicly praises her and sends her on her way.

00:04:25:57 – 00:04:52:26
Michael Gewecke
But that’s really I think the Constitution of this entire text is just those kinds of oppositional things held in tension. I think that this is just a class act, representation of Luke’s telling of Jesus his story because it is deep at so many different levels. And let me just walk through some of this with you. So we look here verse four, the look who is coming with Jesus.

00:04:52:26 – 00:05:24:16
Michael Gewecke
It’s the crowd. And we’ve already seen that crowd building and some of those lead up stories. You know, Jesus has fed the crowd. There’s been a crowd gathering because of these healing narratives. And now here once again, the crowd is welcoming Jesus. So there’s this huge number of people, while this story is essentially happening in all of these contradistinction to the crowd, you’ve got this mass of people welcoming Jesus, and then you have the one man, Jairus, coming to Jesus seeking for a miracle.

00:05:24:27 – 00:05:51:18
Michael Gewecke
The prom and person of the community. The person who would have been looked up to is the one who is coming and then humbling himself so that Jesus might see him and come to his home. So you have the big and then you have the small and you have the person of authority literally falling at Jesus’s feet and begging, asking for the the saving of his daughter.

00:05:51:18 – 00:06:13:57
Michael Gewecke
And then you have things like we read a 12 year old girl, we think of the child and we think about how heart rending of a situation that would be. But in Luke’s Day, a 12 year old, it’s right on the verge of being a married woman. She’s about to enter into adulthood. And so this is even more of a pivotal time in this person’s life.

00:06:13:57 – 00:06:35:25
Michael Gewecke
And her role in society. And she’s about to be gone. And Jared is about to lose his only daughter who would be married and carry on the family in some ways. And then all of this would be enough if we just skipped past what comes in verse 43 and that that middle of the sandwich that you’re describing. Clint.

00:06:35:34 – 00:07:14:28
Michael Gewecke
But what we discover is amidst the crowd and this one man of prominence is a woman with almost no prominence. And in this case, she’s not a young woman. She’s an old woman who’s been afflicted for many, many years. And for her, what’s at stake isn’t a future Life isn’t children and husband and a role in society. For her, it’s all of the years of being an outcast, being pushed to the edge of society, of not being clean, and therefore losing all of the kind of capability for income and for security and for friendships that another person, her age might have had.

00:07:14:33 – 00:07:48:19
Michael Gewecke
She comes to Jesus and in her individual ness, she touches Jesus while the crowds are mobbing him and he feels the power leaving him for her. And it’s just all of these things. It’s just blended together in a kind of beautiful Oh, really? Almost a montage of themes and stories. You have the mass, you have the individual, you have the young, you have the old, you have the affliction of a long time and the affliction of the immediate.

00:07:48:19 – 00:08:08:51
Michael Gewecke
And all of this is happening. Jesus is at the center of it. And I think Luke is sort of like spinning the story around, showing us the different ways that Jesus is able to be savior for these different people in different contexts. And it’s it’s just remarkably well told. You might read this and think, Oh, that’s an interesting story.

00:08:09:03 – 00:08:14:25
Michael Gewecke
But once you start digging deeper and pulling back layers, there is so much depth and richness to this.

00:08:14:36 – 00:08:52:01
Clint Loveall
You know, there are a couple subtleties, too, that I think are helpful. One, I think is just is helpful in terms of appreciating the text. When the Bible repeats itself, it’s generally not coincident. So he had an only daughter about 12 years old and a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for 12 years. So it’s just, I think, one of those entry points of the story to think that this woman, whoever she is unnamed, began suffering.

00:08:52:06 – 00:09:26:08
Clint Loveall
At the same time this beloved only daughter was born, that those two things happened to coincide with one another. And while the woman’s case is not apparently life threatening, she’s lived with it. Remember that in Jewish law, a woman who was bleeding, a woman who was menstruating, a woman who is issuing blood as some of the old language puts it, is ritually unclean, so considered unclean from a religious standpoint, from a temple standpoint.

00:09:26:13 – 00:09:58:57
Clint Loveall
So for 12 years, this woman has been considered unclean, an outsider. And so Jesus doesn’t simply cure her. He restores her and notice that he says, Daughter, your faith, right? So that she’s coming back. And and again, he calls her what Jerry calls his child daughter. His daughter was ill. This is God’s daughter. This is Jesus refers to her as daughter.

00:09:59:02 – 00:10:31:55
Clint Loveall
And so Luke is really helping us appreciate the the complexity here of two females in very different situations, versions both at risk for different ways and both deeply loved by a father, a unearthly father in the daughter, the young daughters case, and a heavenly Father in the woman’s case. And it is easy to read past those. But when you slow down and you catch those details, I think it deepens this story even more.

00:10:31:55 – 00:11:01:54
Clint Loveall
And as we move to the conclusion Luke is not done showing us wonderful stuff here, verse 49 While Jesus was still speaking, someone came from the leader’s house and they said, Your daughter has died. Did not trouble the teacher any longer. When Jesus heard this, he said, Do not fear, only believe and she will be saved. When he came to the House, he did not allow anyone to enter with him except Peter, John and James and the child’s mother and father.

00:11:01:58 – 00:11:24:04
Clint Loveall
They were all weeping and wailing for her. But he said, Do not weep. She is not dead. But sleeping. And they laughed at him knowing that she was dead. But he took her by the hand and he called out Child, get up her spear. It returned and she got up at once. Then he directed them to give her something to eat.

00:11:24:09 – 00:11:55:51
Clint Loveall
Her parents were astounded, but he ordered them not to tell anyone what had happened. So Luke, this story really I won’t give Luke credit for it, because really the story in all the other gospels does this as well. It almost momentarily pits Jesus helping the woman with not getting to the child soon enough. And there is that sense of did Jesus choose one at the expense of the other?

00:11:55:51 – 00:12:30:58
Clint Loveall
Is that what is that? The story here? Is that what happened? Did they miss their opportunity? Did Jesus now what he could have done? He can’t do? And of course, the point of the story, as in the last resurrection we saw, is that there is no end to what Jesus can do. So He arrives and the child has died, which I mean, all of us understand that the saddest thing that we can think of a horrible situation, but Jesus pares down the crowd to just those immediately important to him and to be with him.

00:12:31:03 – 00:12:54:50
Clint Loveall
And he tells them she’s not dead but sleeping. And they they would be the crowd here, not the parents, knowing that she was dead. They laugh and he takes her by the hand again. Notice the importance of touch in the story. The woman touched Jesus cloak and she was healed. Here Jesus touches the girl and he calls out to her child, Get up.

00:12:54:50 – 00:13:19:37
Clint Loveall
So in this healing, there’s voice, there’s sound, And her spirit returned and she got up at once. Then he directed them to give her something to eat. Her parents were astounded and he ordered them not to tell that this is probably a hold out from Luke’s or Mark’s telling of the story. Excuse me, Mark is big on keeping things a secret for his own reasons in the Gospel.

00:13:19:42 – 00:13:40:21
Clint Loveall
It may be that that’s where Luke got this. It may also be that Luke is just trying to make a point that Jesus isn’t trying to drum up attention to himself or the girl. Obviously, it’s not going to work. The people at the house know the girl died and they’re going to I mean, there’s just no way this stays, I think, under wraps.

00:13:40:26 – 00:13:51:49
Clint Loveall
But it is an incredibly dramatic ending to the story. And in a beautiful bookend, not only to the beginning of the story, but I think complements the middle of the story really well.

00:13:51:54 – 00:14:21:43
Michael Gewecke
So what’s going to happen tomorrow? And I’m not going to try to steal the thunder, but what happens tomorrow is a kind of transition in the story where we have been seeing Jesus’s teaching his miracle power and we’re going to see Jesus doing some delegating, which is important and essential. And Luke is, I think, particularly interested in that because of Volume two acts where the delegation becomes permanent when that becomes a final note in Jesus’s ministry.

00:14:21:43 – 00:14:47:40
Michael Gewecke
But here up to this point, this story shows us narratively the extent of Jesus’s power in a way. I’m not sure any other story in Luke has done so far because it is all encompassing it. This story is telling us that to answer that question that you raised and I think very helpfully, you know, what’s the limit of Jesus’s power?

00:14:47:40 – 00:15:11:31
Michael Gewecke
What is the extent to which he is able to save? Because humanity D We know limits, right? We know that if things are limited to our own ability, we will reach the end of ourselves at some point, we will have to choose a younger woman or older woman. We’re going to have to choose life in this life or life in the next life.

00:15:11:31 – 00:15:37:34
Michael Gewecke
We know that there comes a time where we will have to pick one or the other. And what Luke is showing us in this story is that those seeming either or choices that we have in our life are not relevant to Jesus, that Jesus is Lord, that when Jesus comes up against life that is broken, he can heal it even without knowing that that life has brushed up against him.

00:15:37:39 – 00:16:07:48
Michael Gewecke
If it is a story of someone who has come to the end of life, then Jesus, with both the word and the touch, is able to bring them back to life. And that is what Luke is showing us, a kind of beautiful flourish, the extent of Jesus’s miracle working power, and this story being a blend of the others unique in Luke in many ways is a way of combining those lessons into one particular story to remind us, this is the Jesus that we’re talking about.

00:16:07:48 – 00:16:30:18
Michael Gewecke
This is the Jesus who is revealing God’s power will and intention in the world that in Jesus’s kingdom, if he is the king, his kingdom is one in which those who have infirmities are healed and those whose lives are taken too soon are restored. That’s the good news of Jesus Christ that where we have limits he does not.

00:16:30:27 – 00:16:49:45
Michael Gewecke
And that that is the trust that we put in him, that this is a class act and teaching and it’s a class act. In giving us a summary note of the things we’ve already seen before, This isn’t necessarily new material, it’s not new ground. But by putting it together in this way, we can see that it’s all bound together in this one saving person.

00:16:49:49 – 00:17:19:33
Clint Loveall
And I think, you know, Michael, if we turn a little bit aside from the text and maybe think about it, devotional or spiritually, there is this interesting in the middle part of the story, this woman who has been suffering, you know, Peter makes the point, Jesus, the crowds are pressing in. Lots of people are touching Jesus. And this idea that in her touch, Jesus feels power go out from him.

00:17:19:46 – 00:17:46:16
Clint Loveall
Luke wants to make sure we understand this is not magic. Jesus is not wearing a magic robe. It’s not the touch itself. There were other people touching Jesus, and yet it’s this woman who reaches out to him in faith, in desperation, in hope. And that is a different thing. It is. It is one thing to reach out to Jesus as a member of the crowd who is bumping into each other.

00:17:46:20 – 00:18:09:20
Clint Loveall
It’s a very different thing to put your hand out as the one who no one has been able to help and who desperately hopes and needs the power of God at work in your life. And I think we see that in the woman here. But I do think Luke wants us to understand that this isn’t sorcery, this isn’t magic.

00:18:09:25 – 00:18:41:37
Clint Loveall
This is the spiritual power connected by faith to Jesus. It’s not simply the touch, which is why partly I think Jesus says, your faith has made you well, which is a thing Jesus just says sometimes. But in this case, I think Jesus is at some level praising the act of the woman who has taken it upon herself to reach out in a way that those others around him did.

00:18:41:42 – 00:19:03:33
Clint Loveall
And there is power in her touch that wasn’t in other people’s touch. Just as in the end of the story, there’s a power in Jesus touch that is in nobody else’s touch. And so again, Luke, this is this is one of those stories I think you could just you could spend days with and you would notice new things all the way along.

00:19:03:37 – 00:19:31:42
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, just a really simple example that look at what Jesus says here. Back to back. He says to this older woman, Your faith has made you. Well, then he says to the teacher after he hears his daughters died, Don’t fear believe and she will be saved. It doesn’t say resurrected, doesn’t say heal. That says saved. Those connections are unbelievably powerful.

00:19:31:42 – 00:19:57:52
Michael Gewecke
The idea that this older woman’s faith, her connection to Jesus, her belief that if she could touch him, that wellness would come to her is the same story combined with this idea of Don’t be afraid. If you just believe, then your daughter will be rescued. Even from death itself, saved from the other side. This is the kind of power that Jesus brings.

00:19:57:52 – 00:20:24:59
Michael Gewecke
And I think, to your point, devotional a We all live our lives on a on a variety of spectrums. And there are moments in our lives where we’ve suffered for a long time. 12 years is a long time to suffer. And in the midst of that suffering, we hold on with all that’s left to the hope and shred that if we could touch Jesus, he could heal us.

00:20:24:59 – 00:20:45:00
Michael Gewecke
That is a kind of unbelievable, grown and trusted kind of faith. And in the case of this younger woman, there are other times in her life where there’s a crisis and there’s a moment in which we get to the end of ourselves, and all that we have left is the hope that Jesus will be the one to touch us.

00:20:45:00 – 00:21:11:45
Michael Gewecke
And what regardless of where you find yourself. And it may be in a moment of celebration and Thanksgiving, thanks be to God for that. But no matter where you find yourself, Jesus is both receptive to our faith and our desire to come forward and to touch Him. And he promises to be faithful, to be the one to come to us when we can’t come to him, and that he will be the one who can bring life and restoration in our lives.

00:21:11:45 – 00:21:34:54
Michael Gewecke
And depending upon where we are in our life, in our walk of faith and in the present moment, this story has us in mind and, you know, I think that there’s some beauty in the fact that there’s an entire crowd there that day. I mean, theoretically, there are people that are celebrating a birthday or an anniversary. There’s people there who just got a bill they can’t pay.

00:21:34:58 – 00:21:58:49
Michael Gewecke
And yet here’s these two women and Jesus cares about these two women. And Luke wants us to know, regardless of how bad things have been or have now become, Jesus is capable. And amidst all of the crowd, he’s chosen these two to right what was wrong. And that’s a beautiful promise for everyone who holds on to Jesus in those dark moments.

00:21:59:02 – 00:22:16:57
Clint Loveall
Yeah, it’s a wonderful story. It’s wonderfully told, a lot of depth in it. Hope there’s something in it that maybe speaks to you and where you are and in your faith journey and in your life journey. As always, thanks for being with us. Let us know if there are questions or comments and we hope you’ll be with us again.