I Healed the Sick and Raised the Dead

Meditations based on readings from

The Story of My Life As Told by Jesus Christ

September 24, 2019

I Healed the Sick and Raised the Dead

Page 118-120

Matthew 9:18-26; Mark 5:21-43; Luke 8:40-56

In first century Jewish society, the practical needs for public and private hygiene were codified into laws and rules governing how to remain ceremonially clean. Persons deemed ‘unclean’ were forbidden by these laws and rules to have contact with any other persons because any contact would render the others unclean as well. Two circumstances that were strictly governed were the issues of bleeding and handling dead bodies. As Jesus pushes against these boundaries, he is always doing the unexpected. He is not afraid of death, and touches the dead girl and restores her life. He is not afraid of blood, and commends the woman for her faith.

The woman does her best to hide her identity, both before and after she touched Jesus, because if discovered, the crowd would angrily shun her. However, Jesus calls her out of her darkness to affirm her faith and her new state of wholeness. (The early church wanted the woman with the bleeding problem to be remembered always. They gave her the name of Veronica, and in the Stations of the Cross devotional exercise, Everyman’s Way of the Cross, she is the woman who wipes Jesus’ face at Station Six.)

Jairus receives the news that his daughter has died immediately after he witnesses Jesus healing the woman. I suspect his heart leaped for joy when Jesus told him “Don’t be afraid. Just have faith, and she will be healed” (Luke 8:50). When Jesus arrives at Jairus’ home, he takes the child’s hand; he touches a dead person, and calls her to life.

Jesus’ messianic power is clearly displayed. So also his mission: God’s Messiah took upon himself the ‘uncleanness’ of the people. Jesus came to where the people were, and he intermingled himself into their lives. He got his hands dirty.

Jesus affirmed the faith, which was born in desperation, of Jairus and Veronica. Jairus risked his standing in the community and humbled himself at the feet of Jesus. Jesus was his only option. There was no other hope for his daughter. Veronica’s faith called her to take huge risks: a woman reaching out to touch a man in a public place, an unclean person (because of her condition) touching the Teacher. However, she reached out and touched Jesus because he was her only hope. Perhaps it was these two stories that inspired Corrie ten Boom to live by the axiom: you will never know Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have.

My Takeaway: I am blessed with many, many options in life. Seldom, if ever, have I been pushed into a corner with no way out, with one exception. There is no way I can save myself.

My hope is built on nothing less

Than Jesus' blood and righteousness

I dare not trust the sweetest frame

But wholly lean on Jesus' name

On Christ the solid Rock I stand

All other ground is sinking sand

All other ground is sinking sand

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Copyright © 2019 by Alex M. Knight

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

• Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

• The second edition of First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.