Matthew 9:18-31
18 While he was saying this, a ruler came and knelt before him and said, “My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live.” 19 Jesus got up and went with him, and so did his disciples.
20 Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. 21 She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.”
22 Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed from that moment.
23 When Jesus entered the ruler’s house and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd, 24 he said, “Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him. 25 After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up. 26 News of this spread through all that region.
27 As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!”
28 When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?”
“Yes, Lord,” they replied.
29 Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith will it be done to you”; 30 and their sight was restored. Jesus warned them sternly, “See that no one knows about this.” 31 But they went out and spread the news about him all over that region.
The synagogue ruler came to Jesus asking Him to lay hands on his dead daughter so that she could live.
A woman who had suffered hemorrhaging for 12 years came to Jesus to touch His cloak and she was healed.
Two blind men came to Jesus asking for mercy and their sight was restored.
Each of these stories is linked by the sense of faith which draws these four people to Jesus. They come seeking that which they cannot find themselves. They throw themselves at the mercy of the One whom they believe will be able to give them that which they seek. They are looking for a new life for they have been confronted with the limitations of ordnary life.
This is faith – total abandonment to God in the face of the impossible. This is life in God.
New Life in the Kingdom begins with a challenge for us to discover the life of faith, for us to put aside the limitations of this world and to begin to see things from the perspective of God’s possibilities.
And when we see life from God’s viewpoint it will be radically different from the one we have lived so far.
We will be drawn into a new sense of being, with a new outlook, a new confidence and a new future.
These four people who came to Jesus found just that.
No-one else could give them what they needed.
No-one else could challenge the impossible situation of their life
– a dead girl: what hope is there now?
The crowd laughs at such an expectation. But the Synagogue ruler comes. (Mark tells us that his name is Jairus). He kneels before Jesus and asks for life for his daughter.
This is foolishness, it’s a tragic comedy ….
Unless …
unless the One to whom Jairus appeals is able to do what he asks. Unless Jesus is able to restore life to a dead child…
Jairus abandons himself, his expectations, his limited hopes – he throws himself down at the feet of Jesus and asks for the impossible. And he finds life, real life.
With the death of his daughter his life was suddenly frozen in time – and if you have experienced bereavement, especially in the death of a child, you will know exactly what I mean. Its like walking into a brick wall. In midstride the pathway of your life is blocked – you stand, stunned. And after a while, a long while, you begin to think of alternatives.
You could try to climb the wall. Perhaps you could try to find a way around it. You might even try to demolish the wall.
Jairus went to Jesus!
Perhaps Jesus had once been to his synagogue. Perhaps he was from Nazareth, perhaps he was the one who gave Jesus the Isaiah text when our Lord launched His public ministry, and heard Him read from Isaiah 61:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
He went to Jesus to find the Lord’s favour. He cast aside his doubt and fear, He said, “My daughter has just died. Come and put Your hand on her and she will live.”
And Jesus goes with Him, and He takes the girl by the hand, ‘Talitha, koum!” He says, and the girl gets up.
Do you realise what just happened?
This is not just a nice story.
This is God at work, this is a girl raised from the dead, this is new life, a new beginning. WOW!
And Jesus says to us, to you and me, “Verily, verily I say unto you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you can say to this mountain, ‘Go throw yourself into the sea’ and it will be done.”
The wall, the barrier, the mountain that had just sprung up in Jairus life, in his daughter’s life is gone. The path lies before them again, but its not just a continuation of the path that was there before.
No! It’s a new path with a new destiny.
In the time that the wall was up, God changed the geography on the other side. If Jairus had just climbed over instead of abandoning himself at the feet of Jesus, he would have found the same path. But now, because of his faith in Christ, the scenery has changed – the valleys have been lifted up and the mountains laid low.
When the mountains spring up in your life - the things and situations and fears that you cannot handle, throw yourself down in utter abandonment at the feet of Jesus. Accept His mercy, receive His grace, know His comfort.
And, I say to you, don’t let that doubtful thought get into our head. I can hear you thinking … Yes, this is good, but its not going to work for me.
Let me tell you this: Our God who speaks creation into being, who makes us in His image, who breathes His Spirit within us – has abandoned Himself to us. He came to our side of the wall, He gave Himself, He died … so that we could have life.
How much more will He not show Himself to those who call upon Him?
In John 14, Jesus says, “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”
You know what, I checked it out to see if there were any exceptions – this is what I found, “I tell you the truth” – this is Jesus speaking, “anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing, and even greater things than these.”
No exceptions – only greater things.
This is the promise of the New Life in the Kingdom. The Lord’s my shepherd, I shall not want …..
And there was a woman in the crowd that day who believed those words, and these: My soul He doth restore again…
Against the law of Moses she joined the crowd that day – she suffered from bleeding, a condition of uncleanness. Because of that she was forbidden from associating with people. But she came, she joined the bustle of the crowd.
“If I only touch His cloak,” she said, “I will be healed.”
She abandoned herself to Jesus.
It was an “if only” that she did something about. Too often our “if only’s” are regrets and complaints. This woman turned it around. Her “if only” became a “when” as she reached out to Jesus.
When I touch His cloak I will be healed. A reaching out in faith..
And notice that her desperate abandonment of herself to her trust in Jesus does not go unnoticed.
Jesus stops.
In the crowd.
Surrounding by jostling bodies, He says, “Who touched me?” Who reached out in faith to me ….
Any honest attempt to reach Jesus, no matter how tentative, feeble, or weak, gets His attention, and He will restore your soul, He will set up a Celebration Feast in the midst of your enemies.
Jesus rewards our desperate attempts at faith, always, and completely – “Take heart, your faith has healed you.”
It was not something inside this woman that brought the healing, it was that she took her faith out of the recesses of her mind and laid it out in the open.
She did something about what she believed.
Every attempt to reach Jesus will get His attention.
It is when we put our faith into action that we will experience the New Life of the Kingdom. A life which is above law and rules and the discretion of society. A life of grace lived in the fullness of Christ Jesus.
And then two blind men ask for mercy.
They call Jesus, “the Son of David” – it was a popular term for would-be Messiah’s.
It was a term used of Jesus only by people lost in a crowd – people at a distance from Him, with no relationship.
But these men wanted more – they were prepared to come to Jesus. In the crowd, their voices were lost, Jesus paid no attention to them. But did you notice that once the crowd was gone, and Jesus had gone indoors, they followed Him. They wanted that relationship They wanted more than they could get from simply being lost in the mass of similar voices and faces in the crowd.
They came into the house …
They came in faith, asking to be able to see – to have to no longer walk in the valley of the shadow.
And Jesus says to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?”
Or, in other words from Hebrews 11 – Are you sure of what you hope for, certain of that which you do not see?
“YES!” they replied.
And Jesus responds, “Then it is according to your faith.”
Then it is according to your faith….
They will not be blessed if they now have faith.
It is not faith that brings them sight.
Jesus is the one who gives sight to them because the came to Him believing. They came sure of what they hoped for – they broke out of the crowd, they gave up common sense, they abandoned themselves to Jesus expecting the impossible.
And they were given a whole new outlook on life.
The Kingdom of God, is right where you are. Jesus said that it is “at hand”, “in your heart” and “near to you”.
To see it you need only open your spiritual eyes
– look with the eyes of faith
– reach out with the hands of faith
– ask with the voice of faith
And you will know this New Life.
We need to step out of the humdrum of our lives, into the place of expectation and certain hope. And there we will find God, demolishing the walls and barriers which block our way, which keep us in, which hold us back.
It was in stretching out his staff that the waters opened for Moses so that he could lead the people away from the danger which was following them – he stretched out the staff - in faith!
It was in taking a single step forward into the deep flowing river which allowed the Israelites to cross over the Jordan into the Promised Land – they took a step forward – in faith!
