‘Your faith has healed you’
[Matthew 9:18-26]
In our Christianity, we say “faith”, but what is faith? The spiritual master of evangelical theology, the Rev. James Packer, in his book “Growing in Christ,” says (Internet): Christian faith is hearing the Word of God, paying attention to it, and doing it. The word “faith” implies “believe, rely on, and commit,” and here we must commit to three things:
- We must commit ourselves to hearing the word of God.
Although we have ears, we do not hear. The reason is because we are rejecting the knowledge of God (Hos. 4:6). Now, as prophesied by the prophet Amos, there is a famine of hearing the words of the Lord (Amos 8:11). People do not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desire they gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. And they turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths (2 Tim. 4:3-4). In order for us to run the spiritual race faithfully and well to the end, we must listen to the word of God. We must be committed to hearing the voice of God.
- We must commit ourselves to heeding the Word of God.
Although we have eyes, we cannot see the glory of God. We do not see God working and present in our lives. The reason is because our focus is not fully on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb. 12:2). Now our eyes are not on the cross, but on the world. Our eyes are now on the earth rather than on the heaven. Our eyes look to the temporary things rather than the eternal things. We seem to have been blinded by the lust of the eyes. Therefore, it seems that we have entered an era in which the blind lead the blind in the church. Our eyes must be fixed on God (Ps. 141:8). We must pay attention to the Word of God.
- We must commit ourselves to doing the Word of God.
We must not just listen to the Word of God. We must not stop paying attention to God's Word. We must obey God's Word. We should not be deceived ourselves by hearing the word of God and not doing it (Jam. 1:22). We must build our house on the rock by hearing the words of God and putting them into practice (Mt. 7:24).
In today's text, Matthew 9:18-26, we see two men of faith. As I meditate on these two people today, I would like to receive a lesson from God for us.
The first person of faith is “a ruler.”
Look at Matthew 9:18 – “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.’” Who is the ruler here? In the Gospel of Matthew, it just says “a ruler.” But if you look at Mark 5:22 and Luke 8:41, which contain the same story, we can see that “a ruler” is “a man named Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue. A synagogue ruler is a person in charge of the synagogue, a place where the people of Judah worship and pray to God and teach and learn the Law and the Prophets. And the ruler of the synagogue was an important member of the community in which he lived, representing the people in that community (Myers). But this synagogue ruler Jairus is now coming to Jesus and falling down at his feet (Mk. 5:22; Lk. 8:41), knelt before him (Mt. 9:18) and praying earnestly to Jesus: “My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live” (v. 18). In this way, today's text says that the daughter of a man named Jairus has just died. But the Gospels of Mark and of Luke do not say that she has just died, but that she is dying (Mk. 5:23) or was dying (Lk. 8:42). Look at Mark 5:23 – “and pleaded earnestly with him, "My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” Look at Luke 8:41 second half to 42 first half: “… pleading with him to come to his house because his only daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying. ….” If we put the three verses in these three Gospels together and draw a more accurate picture of the situation, a man named Jairus came to Jesus and bowed down at his feet, earnestly praying for his only 12-year-old daughter (Lk. 8:42; Mk. 5:42) was dying. So he asked Jesus to come to his house and lay his hands on her and heal her so that she could live. Hearing this plea from Jairus, Jesus got up (Mt. 9:19) and went with him to his house (Mk. 5:24). But when Jesus was going to the house of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, people came from Jairus' house and said to Jairus, "Your daughter is dead" (Mk. 5:35). Then they said to Jairus, “Why do you trouble the teacher more?” (Mk. 5:35) or “Do not trouble the teacher any more” (Lk. 8:49). Hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, “Don't be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed” (Lk.8:50). But in today's text, Matthew 9:18, Jairus came to Jesus and bowed down, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hands on her, and she will live.”
What kind of faith do you think this synagogue ruler Jairus had? I think Jairus' faith was his belief that Jesus could raise his daughter from the dead. In other words, the faith of Jairus was that Jesus could raise the dead. When I think of Jairus' faith, I think of Abraham, the father of faith. When he was tested by God, by faith he offered his only son, Isaac, to God. How could Abraham do that? Look at Hebrews 11:19 – “Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.” Also, when I think of the faith of Jairus, the ruler of this synagogue, I think of Martha, the sister of Lazarus, who died in John 11. It is because Martha said to Jesus, “’Lord,’ … ‘if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask’” (Jn. 11:21-22). Then Jesus said to Martha, “Your brother will rise again” (v. 23). Martha heard this and said to Jesus, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day” (v. 24). What did Jesus say to Martha then? “am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (vv. 25-26) Hearing these words of Jesus, Martha confessed her faith to Jesus: “Yes, Lord, … I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world” (v. 27). Do we really have this kind of faith? Do we really believe that Jesus, who is the resurrection and the life, is the Lord and the Christ, the Son of God who is coming into the world? Do we really believe that whoever lives and believes in Jesus will never die? After Jesus told Jairus, who had such faith, “Do not be afraid, just believe, and his daughter will be saved” (Lk. 8:50), then he went to Jairus’s house. And when Jesus entered the house of Jairus, he saw the flute players and the noisy crowd (Mt. 9:23), that is, people were wailing and mourning for the Jairus’ daughter (Mk. 5:38; Lk. 8:52). Seeing this, Jesus said to them, “Stop wailing” (Lk. 8:52), “The girl is not dead but asleep” (Mt. 9:24). The people gathered at that time laughed at Jesus (v. 24). Why did they laugh at Jesus? It was because they knew that Jairus' daughter was dead (Lk. 8:53). At that time, after sending the crowd out (Mt. 9:25), Jesus took the child's parents and the disciples Peter, John, and James, who were with him, and went in where the child was (Mk. 5:40; Lk. 8: 51). After that, Jesus took Jairus's daughter by the hand and said, “Talitha koun!” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, get up!” (Mk. 5:41) Then the girl's spirit returned and the child immediately stood up (Lk. 8:55) and walked (Mk. 5:42). Eventually, Jesus said to Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not be afraid, just believe, and your daughter will be saved” (Lk. 8:50). When they saw the 12-year-old girl who had been resurrected, not only her parents were astonished (Lk. 8:56), but also the people were astonished and amazed (Mk. 5:42). After ordering all the people not to tell anyone what had happened (Lk. 8:56), Jesus told them to give the girl something to eat (Mk. 5:43). The news that Jesus raised the only daughter of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue from the dead, spread through all that region (Mt. 9:26).
I hope and pray that you and I will have the same faith as Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue. I pray that we faith faith that believes Jesus can raise the dead. Today, Jesus is asking us “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (Jn. 11:25-26) I bless you in the name of Jesus that we live forever by believing in Jesus who is the resurrection and the life.
Finally, the second person of faith is “a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years.”
Look at Matthew 9:20 – “Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak.” When Jesus heard the plea of a man named Jairus and went with him to save his 12-year-old daughter, his disciples (Mt. 9:19) and a large crowd followed him and pressed around him (Mk. 5:24). As for how much they pressed around him, Luke 8:42 says that the crowds almost crushed Jesus almost to the point of suffocation (Vine). To understand this situation a little more, we have to look at Luke 12:1a – “Meanwhile, when a crowd of many thousands had gathered, so that they were trampling on one another ….” Meanwhile, a woman in the crowd, who had been suffering from bleeding for 12 years, came behind Jesus and touched the edge of Jesus' cloak (Mt. 9:20). Why did she do that? This is because she thought in her heart that if she touched Jesus' cloak, she would be healed (v. 21; Mk. 5:28). In order to understand more about this woman's feelings, we have to look at the Gospels of Mark and of Luke, where we can see how much this woman was suffering from a disease. To sum up the words of the two Gospels, this woman suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors for 12 years. And she spent all she had by giving out her materials to many doctors (Mk. 5:26).
However, even though she tried so hard to cure her disease of hemorrhage, instead of getting better she grew worse (Mk. 5:26) and no one could heal her (Lk. 8:43). In addition to the more specific explanations of these two Gospels, we should also consider the disease the woman was suffering from bleeding, a hemorrhage. The modern encyclopedic meaning is that hemorrhage is a compound word of the Greek words haima and leo, meaning the outflow of blood. Usually, women only bleed during menstruation, but this disease causes irregular bleeding regardless of menstruation. This disease is said to include functional uterine bleeding and organic uterine bleeding (diseases caused by inflammation, sepsis, tumors, leukemia, etc.). Among organic uterine bleeding, malignancy is cancer, and prolonged bleeding is said to be proliferative endometritis (Internet). However, this woman's illness was physically hopeless for her. But I think it must have been hopeless mentally as well. The reason is because people suffering from bleeding disorders were considered unclean and despised. To some extent, the place where the hemorrhagic patient lay or sat was considered unclean, and the bed, clothes, and seat she used were all unclean (Lev.15:19-20). Earthenware that the leaky patient touched had to be broken, and wooden utensils had to be washed. If you come into contact with this patient, you will wash your clothes, and even if you wash your body with water, you will remain unclean until evening. Therefore, if a virgin became ill with this disease, she could not marry. And if she was married, her husband usually divorced her. This woman was forbidden from entering the temple, from worshiping God and from having fellowship with other people. Because of this, this woman was a pitiful woman who had no choice but to be rejected from her family and society. Had she been a married woman, she would have been abandoned by her husband too. In this way, this woman was abandoned by her family, society, and even religion (Internet). After 12 years of despair, physically, mentally and in every way, she heard the news of Jesus. And when Jesus went to the house of a man named Jairus, the synagogue leader, she joined the crowd and came behind Jesus and touched his cloak (Mk. 5:27). The reason she did this was because she thought that if she touched Jesus' cloak, she would be healed (v. 28). At that time, Jesus healed many people, so people who were ill came to touch him (Mk. 3:10). Look at Mark 6:56 – “And wherever he went--into villages, towns or countryside--they placed the sick in the marketplaces. They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak, and all who touched him were healed.” What does it mean? The reason the sick begged Jesus to let them touch even the edge of Jesus’ cloak was because all those who touched were healed. So this woman, who had been suffering from bleeding for 12 years, also came behind Jesus and touched the edges of his cloak. What was the result? Look at Mark 5:29 – “Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.” That is, the moment she touched the edge of Jesus' cloak, the blood stopped immediately and she felt that she was healed. She could feel her own body enjoying her freedom from her disease, which was her bleeding. At that time, Jesus knew that his power had gone out of him, and he turned from the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” (v. 30). To say that Jesus himself knew that his power had gone out of him means that he knew that someone had touched him (Lk. 8:46). But at that time, the crowd all denied it (v. 45). At that time, Jesus' disciple Peter said to Jesus, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you” (v. 45). This is what Mark 5:31 says: “You see the people crowding against you, his disciples answered, and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?'” But Jesus already knew exactly who touched the edge of his cloak. How do we know that? Look at Mark 5:32 – “But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it.” At that time, the woman who had been healed of bleeding for 12 years came to Jesus, trembling with fear, knowing that she could not go unnoticed (Lk.8:47), fell on her face and told him the whole truth (Mark 5:33). In other words, she told everyone why she touched the edge of Jesus' cloak and that she was healed (Lk. 8:47). Hearing this, Jesus said to her, “Take heart, daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace (and be freed from your suffering)” (Mt. 9:22; Lk. 8:48; Mk.5:34). In Korean Bible, it says ‘Take heart, daughter, your faith has saved you. ….” Why did Jesus say, ‘your faith has saved you’? Jesus could have just said, 'Your faith has healed you'. Not only that, but the woman who was suffering from hemorrhage also tells Jesus that she thought she would be saved (in Korean Bible) in her heart if she touched Jesus' cloak (v. 21). Why does the Korean Bible use the word “saved” in this way? The reason is because the woman's disease, bleeding, is related to her sin. Remember what Jesus said to the paralytic, whom we had already meditated on in Matthew 9, before he commanded, “Get up, take your mat and go home” (v. 6), “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven” (v. 2) In the end, before Jesus healed the paralytic, he first forgave his spiritual illness, sin. Then Jesus healed him. As such, it seems that the woman suffering from bleeding in Matthew 9 in today's text was also suffering from a disease due to the problem of sin. Therefore, after saying, ‘Take heart, daughter, … your faith has saved you. God in peace’ (Mt. 9:22; Lk. 8:48, Korean Bible), and then said “be freed from your suffering” (Mk. 5:34). As a result, the woman was immediately saved (Mt. 9:22, Korean Bible). “And the woman was healed from that moment” (v. 22). That is, she immediately stopped her bleeding (Lk. 8:44). That is, she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering (Mk. 5:29).
What kind of faith do you think this woman, who has suffered from bleeding for 12 years, believes? This woman's faith was faith that believes in the healing power of Jesus. Look at Matthew 9:21 – “She said to herself, ‘If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.’” Here in verse 21, the woman who had been suffering from this bleeding for 12 years thought that she would be healed just by touching Jesus’ cloak. In verse 22, the next verse, Jesus said to the woman, “your faith has healed you.” That is, the woman believed in Jesus. She believed that her sickness could be healed by the power of Jesus with the touch of a finger on the edge of Jesus' cloak. This faith is what made her heal. The Bible James 5:16 says, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” We must pray for each other so that we may be healed of our sickness according to this word. He said, “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” (v. 16). Let's pray earnestly in faith. Faith here should not be the belief that we can be healed by praying, but rather the belief in the Lord who has the power to heal us. And that faith must be a faith that humbly acknowledges and accepts the sovereignty of God. In other words, when we believe in the Lord's healing power, acknowledge God's sovereignty, and pray, even though our will is to be healed, if the Lord's will is to heal us, He will heal us. But if His will is not to heal us but He has another will, we must believe that His will is good and should be able to pray to God, ‘May Your will be done.’ This is to pray for healing through faith in the power of the Lord.
Now there are people whom I am praying for God’s healing. One of them is a sister in Christ who is in her late 30s. I have shared many times during the early Morning Prayer meeting about her. She is the one who continue to suffer after getting burns about 10 years ago. She already had three major surgeries. She made a prayer request through Kakao Talk two weeks ago. She told me that her mother, who is a Buddhist, decided to attend the first service on a Sunday at her church and asked me to pray. At that time, I thanked her for sharing the good news and answered, ‘God, who knows your earnestly prayer, will hear and answer your prayer, and will accomplish his perfect will. Then I said to the sister: ‘If only you mother could be saved and receive eternal life even through your great suffering ….’ But last week, her mother came to church and worshiped with her best friend. And after having worshiped, they had meal together. Her best friend e-mailed me and I learned something I didn’t know. The fact is that the mother said that she did not go to church just because her daughter wanted her. And as a devout Buddhist, it was a great pain for her to give up that faith for 10 years. Then, she happened to watch Christian TV and the sermons were good. And even though she had determined to go to church a week ago, she hesitated because she could not speak to her daughter prematurely. After hesitating, the pastor in charge of the department to which her daughter belongs came and told her to make a decision. So, she decided to go to church and worship.
Do we really think that suffering is precious and worthwhile suffering if our family members who do not believe in Jesus can receive Jesus as their savior and receive salvation even through the great suffering caused by a disease? Are we earnestly praying for forgiveness of unrepentant sins rather than asking God to heal our diseases? I hope and pray that you and I will be praying to the Lord like Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, who believes in the Lord's power to forgive sins and heal diseases through faith, and like the woman who suffered from bleeding for 12 years.