Matthew 9:18-26--A Girl Restored to Life and a Woman Healed

​Matthew 9:18-26 English Standard Version (ESV)
Listen:  https://www.biblegateway.com/audio/mclean/esv/Matt.9.18-Matt.9.26
A Girl Restored to Life and a Woman Healed
18 While he was saying these things to them, behold, a ruler came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” 19 And Jesus rose and followed him, with his disciples. 20 And behold, a woman who had suffered from a discharge of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, 21 for she said to herself, “If I only touch his garment, I will be made well.” 22 Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well. 23 And when Jesus came to the ruler's house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, 24 he said, “Go away, for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. 25 But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose. 26 And the report of this went through all that district.

---

Jesus has already been recorded to heal the sick and diseases, some of whom were near death, but this is the first time that we see Jesus being asked to raise someone from the dead.  What would cause this man to make that kind of leap of faith?  I think like most of the others, he was desperate and heard of this man, Jesus, who could do miraculous things and there was evidence from the past that God could use His prophets to raise the dead (such as the son of the widow of Zarephath (see 1 Kings 17:17-24).  We learn from other gospels that this man's name was Jairus and that he was the ruler of a synagogue (see Mark 5:21-43 for a parallel passage).  Mark gives us some more details on this story, but we'll go with what we have here in Matthew for now.

Jesus was being followed by quite the large crowd.  So large in fact that is seems it had gotten to the point where people were able to sneak into the crowd and get close to Jesus and no one knew they had been there.  This woman had also heard of the miracles that Jesus had performed and I would imagine she would have been especially interested in the fact that Jesus healed a leper who was unclean and had come to Him for healing.  This woman was in a similar state of ceremonial uncleanliness where she should not have been allowed out in public due to her condition as she had been hemorrhaging for a long time (like a period, but it never stopped).  A woman who had just had her period was ceremonially unclean for a time according to the Levitical law (as was any one who had been hemorrhaging--the Law was not anti-woman).  This was God's way of protecting people from blood-borne pathogens that the people didn't know about and it protected the sick person from being exposed to diseases during the time when they were weakened from having lost a large quantity of blood.  This woman was desperate.  Certainly she had tried everything she could and sought help from everyone that was willing to help her, but nothing had worked.  She knew that all she needed to do was touch the hem of his garment and she would be healed.

Jesus immediately knew that she was the one who touched Him (again, more details are given in the passage in Mark) and He tells her that her faith has made her well.  We see from Mark that up to this point the daughter of Jairus was only "deathly ill" but at this point one of Jairus's servants comes to him to report that His daughter is dead and "there is nothing more to be done" and "don't bother the Master anymore."  Jesus heard this and said "Do not fear, only believe."  Jesus proceeds with His closest disciples (Peter, James and John) and since Peter is the one relaying details to Mark in the gospel of Mark, it would make sense that the gospel of Mark would have a few more details, because it seems that Matthew and the other disciples were left with the crowd at this point in the story.

Jesus continues to Jairus's house and tells the mourners to go away and says "she is only sleeping"--this is a phrase Jesus uses more than once for someone who is dead who He is going to bring back to life--the reason seems to be not the denial of death, but the assurance that the person is going come back to life, just like you are sure that anyone who is asleep will wake up.  Jesus took the little girl by the hand and told here to get up and He told the others who were there to get her something to eat.  Like many of the other miracles that Jesus did in His early ministry, He asked people tell no one about this because while healing was important to Him, that was not His primary mission, and He could not allow it to become a distraction to Him or the crowds who needed to hear the message He was preaching as He needed them to be prepared for the New Covenant (the New Testament) that was coming.  He loved the crowds and had great compassion on them, but we see that He was first and foremost concerned with their spiritual condition, and we'll see this soon when Jesus talks to His disciples about praying for God to send laborers into the harvest (my experience is that when we pray this prayer God helps us realize that we are the laborers and He is sending us).