A GIRL RAISED AND A WOMAN HEALED.
Luke 8:40-56.
In this passage we have two accounts intertwined with one another: the healing of the woman with the issue of blood and the raising from the dead of a twelve-year-old girl.
There are three different Greek words used in relation to the healing of the woman with the issue of blood. Luke observes first of all that she had “spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any” (Luke 8:43). In effect: “there was no therapy for her!”
Then she touches the garment of Jesus, and the flow of blood is stopped. Called to give an account, she declares to Jesus, in the presence of all the people “the reason she had touched Him and how she was healed immediately” (Luke 8:47). She admitted how her illness was cured.
What Jesus then told her reaches beyond therapy and cure to the deeper need of the whole person: “Your faith has made you whole” (Luke 8:48). This is salvation healing for the whole person.
Whilst Jesus had tarried to heal the woman, the child had died. His response to the bearers of this news was astounding: “Do not be afraid: only believe, and she will be made whole” (Luke 8:50).
Here the wholeness and healing reach beyond the physical into the realms of life and death. Our flesh may die, but we too shall be raised. There is a 'not yet' aspect of our total salvation which includes our resurrection. The seeming inevitability of death does not put us beyond the healing salvation ministry of Jesus.
