Bible Text: Matthew 9:18-26 | Preacher: Pastor Andrew Richard
“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” That’s the definition of faith from Hebrews 11:1. Faith assures us that what we have rightly hoped for on the basis of God’s Word will indeed be ours. Faith convinces us that what we have not yet seen is true and is ours and we will see it. We thank God that He has given us a clear definition of faith. And we thank God that He has not only told us what faith is, but shown us its nature by various examples in Holy Scripture. Today’s Gospel teaches us much about the nature of faith: how faith thinks and what it trusts and what it expects. We see the nature of faith in particular in the man whose daughter died and in the woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years. We heard the account of them from Matthew 9. We have the same event recorded in Mark 5 and Luke 8 with even more detail, and I’m also going to draw from those accounts as we look at this man and this woman.
The most important thing that we see about faith in today’s reading is its object. Faith is like a hand that lays hold of something, and the value of faith does not lie so much in the faith itself, but in what faith grasps. Someone may have a firm faith in money, but he might as well have no faith at all, since misplaced faith is good for nothing. But we see the proper object of faith in the reading: true faith lays hold of Jesus. Faith that trusts in Jesus is faith that saves from sin and death and all evil.
As Jesus is the object of faith, so also He is the source of faith. The reason faith grasps Him is because He has put Himself right there to be grasped. The reason faith trusts Him is because He has shown Himself merciful and willing to help in every need. The Son of God took on human flesh and dwelt among us. He went out of His way to have compassion and forgive sins, to heal and to raise. Reports about Him had gone out all over Judea and beyond, and people flocked to Him from everywhere when they heard that their God had come as a Man for their salvation. Both the man and the woman in the reading had heard such reports about Jesus. Perhaps they heard about how He raised the widow’s son in Nain: put out His hand and touched the bier, stopped the whole funeral procession, and said, “Young man, I say to you, arise,” and the young man arose. Perhaps they heard about how a leper came to Jesus and said, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean,” and Jesus not only said, “I am willing; be clean,” but also reached out His hand and touched the unclean leper, which, according to the Law should have made Jesus unclean, but instead healed the leper of his leprosy. This indeed is a gracious Lord, who identifies Himself with our nature, identifies Himself with our infirmities, bears our diseases and bears our sins. Such reports had stirred up in both the man and the woman a bold and daring faith that looked to Jesus for all good and expected from Him great things.
Note that this is the same reason why you have faith in Jesus. The reports that the man and woman heard about Jesus have been recorded in Holy Scripture, and you’ve heard them too. The Holy Spirit works through these reports to create faith, as it says in Romans 10, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). The ultimate source of our faith is what Jesus has done. Therefore, when your faith is weak or you feel like it’s failing, the solution is very simple: return to what Jesus has done. Hear the accounts of His goodness and mercy in the Gospel: read them in your Bible, come to Church where they’re constantly proclaimed, seek to hear them from your pastors. Jesus is still the same Lord who had such compassion on man, and He will be gracious to you.
Now let’s consider in more detail the man and the woman in the reading. The man’s name is Jairus, as we learn from the other accounts. He drew near to Jesus and bowed down before Him in worship and said, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live” (Mt. 9:18). In Mark he says, “My little daughter lies at the point of death” (Mk. 5:23). Taking his two statements together, it’s clear that his daughter wasn’t dead when he left the house, and he’s assuming she’ll be dead by the time he gets back with Jesus. There’s no contradiction to marvel at, but there is his faith to marvel at. Do you realize what he did? His daughter was at the point of death, and he left the house to go get Jesus. That’s what faith does. It says, “I as a mere man am ultimately no help or comfort in the face of death, but Jesus is. If He’s here with us in the midst of death, then there will be life.”
And this isn’t the only marvelous thing about his faith. You realize what he did, but do you realize what he asked Jesus to do? He asked Jesus to come lay His hand on a corpse, to touch a dead body. According to the Law, touching a dead body made you unclean, as it says, in Numbers 19, “He who touches the dead body of anyone shall be unclean seven days” (Num. 19:11). But he knows that he’s not asking Jesus to violate the Law. Jesus is the holy God; nothing can make Him unclean. Instead, when He comes into contact with death, He will bring forth life. And your faith understands this even better than Jairus’s faith did, because you have heard the eyewitness report of Jesus dying and rising again. There’s the ultimate contact with death that ended in life. Faith boldly says, “Touch death, Jesus. It cannot harm you, but it grievously harms me. So You take it on. You please deal with it, for then death will be dead and all will be well.”
To most people the man’s request would have sounded insane: “You left your daughter to die while you ask this Man to come make Himself unclean by touching her corpse? What’s wrong with you?” Faith must bear many attacks from voices that claim to be reasonable, but really just don’t get it. Forget what everyone else might say about it. The simple fact is, “Jesus rose and followed him” (Mt. 9:19). Jesus didn’t think it was ridiculous. He would not let faith be put to shame, and He was glad to show Himself to be the Lord who saves. So it is with you. When you ask Jesus to help you, to be near to you and not far off, Jesus does not despise the prayer of faith, but as quick as thought He is on His feet and by your side with His salvation.
They’re on the way to Jairus’s house, when a woman comes up behind Jesus in the crowd. She has had a flow of blood for twelve years. This was messy and inconvenient. It was devastating because as long as she had a flow of blood, she was unclean and couldn’t go to the temple. In addition, if anyone touched her, that person would become unclean for the rest of the day. We also learn in Mark and Luke that she “had suffered many things from many physicians. She had spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse” (Mk. 5:26, cf. Lk. 8:43). She was cut off from the worship of God and the company of man, and she was poor. Many who experienced such an affliction would conclude, “God hates me. God is punishing me.”
But she had heard about Jesus, she had faith, and that faith emboldened her heart and drew her to Christ for help. She didn’t consider herself worthy to come face to face with Jesus or talk with Him, so she approached Him from behind, but at the same time she had utter confidence that Jesus would have mercy. You pray much the same way she did. You don’t see Jesus’ eyes or ears, yet you trust that He nevertheless beholds you and hears you. She trusted that according to Jesus’ divine nature He knew she was there and heard the prayer of her heart.
Again, faith is not disappointed. Faith is never disappointed, and that’s one of the big lessons of today’s reading. But faith must face challenges. Such challenges end up being good for faith. Jesus knew that power had gone out from Him and He stops and begins asking, “Who touched my clothes?” (Mk. 5:30). He looks around, and the woman throws herself before Him, “fearing and trembling” as it says in Mark, and she tells Him “the whole truth” (Mk. 5:33). Faith knows our own nature, knows how easily we sin, and faith trembles to think that it might have offended Jesus in some way. But faith is also honest with Jesus. Faith isn’t ashamed to say what it believes. The woman lays out her reasoning and expectation before Jesus. And Jesus doesn’t fault her at all. Jesus says, “Be of good cheer, daughter; your faith has saved you” (Mt. 9:22). Jesus assures her that her faith was not misplaced, that by hoping in Him she has received salvation from all that ailed her. And Jesus bolsters your faith in a similar way, giving assurance through His Word and confirming His mercy through answered prayer.
Standing there with Jesus is Jairus. He witnessed all this, and perhaps it was partly for his sake that Jesus drew attention to the woman. Jairus got to see that a fellow Christian’s faith wasn’t disappointed, and thus gained assurance that he wouldn’t be put to shame either. The Church still works this way. We make known answers to prayer so that the faith of all might be strengthened. When we hear that the Lord had mercy on this Christian over here, we shouldn’t be discouraged, thinking, “What about my prayer? What about me? What about my loved one?” Instead we should draw assurance from the answered prayers of others that the Lord is merciful. Even if He doesn’t answer our prayer in exactly the same way, He has nonetheless shown Himself to be merciful in answering that prayer of that Christian, and thus He has shown that He will always do the best thing in the best way at the best time for all His Christians, according to what He knows to be best for us.
Jairus needed this strengthening of faith, because he was about to suffer a serious blow, even if it was a blow he saw coming, for while Jesus was still speaking with the woman, some came from Jairus’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” (Mk. 5:35). Faith will suffer attack, and a common attack is the one Jairus heard: “The worst has happened, and not even Jesus can do anything about it.” Jesus is right there to protect Jairus. Jesus says, “Do not be afraid; only believe” (Mk. 5:36). Holding onto that one little saying of Jesus, faith can stand against the whole world and hell to boot. Faith receives an attack like the one Jairus received, and faith says, “Well this makes very little sense. The worst has happened, so I need Jesus less? No, that’s not the way to think about it at all. The worst has happened, so I need Jesus more! The more impossible a situation seems the more I should be looking toward Him who does things that seem impossible to me. By His incarnation Jesus, God from eternity, became a man, my Lord and my Brother, and this would seem impossible, except for that fact that Jesus did it. By His crucifixion Jesus blotted out with His blood my many sins, sins past my counting, sins more than the hairs of my head, sins that each individually deserved hell and collectively deserved hell’s lowest pit―Jesus blotted them all out, and this would seem impossible, except for the fact that Jesus did it. Therefore, the more impossible something seems the more I should look to Jesus to do it. Why ever would I look to Him less?” So faith speaks, and so Jairus’s faith spoke, and Jesus went on toward Jairus’s house, and Jairus went on with Him, for wherever Jesus goes, faith goes.
They arrive to the house, and Jairus’s faith is challenged once more as he hears the wailing and weeping. There’s a corpse to be reckoned with. Everyone there knows it’s a corpse. But Jesus says, “Go away, for the girl is not dead but sleeping” (Mt. 9:24). The people ridicule Jesus and laugh Him to scorn. But from what follows we see a simple truth: you can have death and laugh Jesus to scorn, or you can have Jesus and laugh death to scorn. For Jesus proves that He was speaking the truth. He takes the child by the hand and says, “Little girl, I say to you, arise,” and death quickly resembles nothing more than an afternoon nap as the girl arises and walks. Here we see what faith gains from Jesus: faith gains life. Jesus teaches this repeatedly in Scripture: “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life” (Jn. 3:36), “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life” (Jn. 5:24), “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life” (Jn. 6:47).
Jesus emphasizes everlasting life. At the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry he raised a few people from the dead to confirm His identity as the Christ and show on an earthly level what He came to give. The Lord very graciously limited the number of people who would have to die twice: the widow’s son in Nain, Jairus’s daughter, and Lazarus. I personally hope that no matter how much my loved ones miss me, Jesus will not reunite my soul with my corrupt flesh, back into a sinful world, but will raise me once on the Last Day, reuniting my soul with my renewed body into a new heavens and a new earth. In short, our faith shouldn’t expect exactly what Jairus expected. The time of those signs has passed, and when we think about it, we can be grateful that it has.
But we have something greater. Jairus’s daughter died, rose, died again, and now awaits with us the eternal resurrection on the Last Day. On that Day she shall rise, and you shall rise, and every Christian shall rise to everlasting life. This resurrection is the ultimate answer to every prayer for strength and restoration and healing and life. Every temporal answer to such prayers leads to having to pray the same thing again. Jesus heals me from one illness, and someday I’ll have another, and then someday I’ll die. But on the Last Day Jesus will call us forth from our graves, and we will awaken and live perfect and uncorrupt eternally. Therefore Jesus still calls death sleep, because that’s what you call it when someone lies down and closes his eyes for a time, then opens them again and gets up. This is why Christians call their graveyards “cemeteries,” because “cemetery” is the Greek word for “sleeping room.” It’s like Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4, “If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus” (1 Thess. 4:14). So you need not fear the grave any more than you fear your bed. This is the benefit of faith: it lays hold of Jesus, lays hold of His life, and receives that life eternally. Jairus and the woman showed us such faith in today’s reading, and may the Lord preserve us in that same faith unto life everlasting. Amen.