Picture What You Read

Our habit: read and move on. We read too quickly for our own good. I suggest we slow down. It is common for me to read a sentence two or three times. I'm a very slow reader – I linger. I ask questions. I count alternate possibilities. I form a picture in my mind. One does not seek truth by zipping through a text.

We study Luke 8:40-56. Here, I will ask the reader to slow down and picture what you read. For instance, the crowd that Jesus left behind when he crossed over to the Decapolis waited patiently for his return and received him back with gladness. What should that tell us? Obviously, after the healing of the possessed man, Jesus and those with him could simply have walked down the coast to another town.

When you stop to think about it, it is as if Jesus told them, “wait here, I'll be right back.” Certainly, there are occasions where Jesus traveled by ship and the multitudes ran down the coast to meet him where he stopped. Yet, these did not anticipate his next departure, rather, they stayed in one place and waited patiently.

Now, the story that follows in these verses occurs solely within the parameters of Jesus' walk to Jairus' house. Two miracles occur. That may be enough information to build a sermon around one's predisposition, but there is a bigger picture. There are details which those who zip through fail to see.

Jairus was a ruler of the local Synagogue, a married man with a twelve-year-old daughter. It was his only child. What should that tell us? Had Jairus been married long, a twelve-year-old would have perhaps been the youngest of many children. I see a possibility that Jairus was a young man, and the twelve-year-old was his first child. Otherwise, it is possible that the family had lost children to disease or in childbirth.

This particular leader of the Synagogue made a public display of his desperation. An older leader might have tripped over his pride. As we, the seekers, are forced to move forward without the benefit of sufficient facts, it is the imagination that fills in the blanks. We are not told, at this point in the text, whether Jairus walked with Jesus or ran ahead to be with his daughter. We are told this: “But as he (Jesus) went the people thronged him.”

Anyone who has been in the middle of a large crowd knows that there is a level of noise that is pervasive. One must speak loudly to be heard above the normal susurrus of the crowd. That crowd noise, even whispered, is the result of people talking to and listening to one another. How does one get the attention of a crowd? How does one stop such a self-absorbed movement?

One could throw up their hands and yell, “Hey!” Someone had touched Jesus, and he wanted to know who. His disciples did not have to explain much – it was obvious – but they said to him, 'look around, we're all bumping into each other.' It was a woman with a twelve-year issue of blood (at which point, we must wonder why a double dose of the number 12.)

Jesus had stopped an entire multitude. He had gotten their attention. I imagine there was not so much as a whisper as they listened for what he might say next. Jesus spoke, the disciples answered, the crowd took a step back Just in case the Rabbi was angry (who knows – maybe one of them had accidentally stepped on the heel of his sandal.) The woman, with nowhere to hide, stepped forward and confessed.

Had Jairus been present on the march to his house, he would have had to wait patiently for these events to unfold – all while his little girl lay dying at home. Had I been Jairus, and knowing Jesus agreed to come, I think I would have run back home. However, Jairus did walk with, he did wait while the events unfolded. He did not know that his only child had already died.

The walk to his house might not have been that far. Towns were small in those days. Two things slowed the march, they were the woman with the issue and the crowd. Even as Jesus spoke to the woman, someone came to Jairus to tell him the sad news. Before we move on to that, let us finish with the woman.

The whole account: stopping the crowd, getting their attention, asking who touched him, disciples answering, the woman confessing, and Jesus' response – that all may have taken no more than fifteen minutes. There are two points to consider, and they are related. The first is that Jesus told the woman it was her own faith that had healed her, and yet, (point two:) Jesus claimed to have perceived virtue leaving his person.

We must consider the connection between a faith-based decision and the divine response. They go hand in hand it seems. We must also consider the woman's desperation as parallel to the desperation of Jairus. Finally, let us also consider the physical effect on Jesus. All that depletion of virtue might have left Jesus weak and exhausted. At some future point, the seeker of truth will need to ponder the exact nature of virtue as it seems to be a real quality shared between the physical and spiritual identity.

Now, even after Jairus had been told of the death of his daughter, Jesus insisted they have faith. The woman with the issue had faith and was healed – not only had Jesus made a point of it to the crowd, but Jairus himself heard the same words. He was a witness that the woman's faith had made her whole. In this, we should be warned that none of us may approach an expectation on this order without the corresponding faith.

At the house of Jairus, Jesus allowed no one to go in with him except “Peter, and James, and John, and the father and the mother of the maiden.” Two points assert themselves: first is the list of disciples and second is the location of the mother. This list of disciples seems to be the standard fare. Peter, James, and John are the same three disciples that witnessed the transfiguration and closest to Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.

If the two faith-related issues involved in these verses are a cue, then we must consider this trio of disciples in the light of faith. Perhaps, while the other disciples administered the everyday operations of Jesus' ministry, Jesus relied more on the trio for faith and spiritual bolstering. We might consider them as his prayer warriors. Their station might have been somewhat akin to that of the men who held up Moses' arms while he divided the sea.

As to the mother of the maiden, we ask why she was not inside weeping over her lost daughter? That she was standing outside the house, and thus able to be allowed in with the rest, seems somewhat less distraught and tragic. Had she come out to meet them at the door? Was she one of those who had come to Jairus with the news? It is a small point, I agree, and you might wonder why I even bring it up. What is a seeker to do with such a small detail? For me, it paints the picture more vividly in the hues of human nature and adds to the veracity of the account.

Six people enter, Jesus, Peter, James, John, and the parents. There are people present in the room where the body lies. Relatives, perhaps, and friends of the family. Professional mourners, I expect. All of them were familiar with death. Others had died, they had gone to comfort other families and other friends. In those days, death was to be expected – more so than in our modern era of medicine.

So, when Jesus claimed the girl only slept, “they laughed him to scorn.” That is some pretty severe laughing, and bitter ridicule. Obviously, the disciples did not laugh – they had already seen him raise the dead. I would not imagine that the parents laughed as their hope for remedy was too dire. Here, we see more of the authority of Jesus – the same authority that stopped the crowd and commanded their immediate attention.

He, the girl, her parents in a tearful embrace, and with his three stalwart companions by his side, Jesus took the hand of the girl and brought her back. Let us go further than most and see the things that others overlook. Jesus was in the habit of being spot-on. He told it like it was. One thing we find in this account, as compared to other dead being raised, Is what Jesus tells the parents. He tells them to feed her. We do not often see that in an account of Jesus raising the dead – and he had said that she only slept. His words are rather like those of a Doctor.

Perhaps the girl had a condition that only looked like death. But, Jesus told the parents one other thing, and it is most curious. He told them to tell no one. Obviously, that didn't happen, but, why would he say such a thing? As soon as the girl came out of the house, it would be known. Jesus had just ejected those who had laughed him to scorn because they knew the girl was dead. They stood outside speaking with people in the crowd.

And the crowd, based on the reputation of the Rabbi, would certainly be expecting something of the kind. We know that Jesus said similar things to others – but, what was it Jesus thought to hide? Unless – such words were reverse psychology. All had heard his words regarding faith. I suppose he preferred that the facts not be reported where they might hinder the growth of faith.