[Journey with Jesus – Day 13]
18 While he was saying this, a synagogue leader 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 at that moment.
23 When Jesus entered the synagogue leader’s house and saw the noisy crowd and people playing pipes, 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 let 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.
32 While they were going out, a man who was demon-possessed and could not talk was brought to Jesus. 33 And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowd was amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”
34 But the Pharisees said, “It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.”
(Matthew 9:18-34)
In Matthew 9, four incredible healings are brought together. A dead girl is raised, a woman is healed from menstrual bleeding that had rendered her unclean and thereby excluded from society; two men receive their sight and a demon-possessed man is freed. In just a few verses, we are drawn to Jesus’s great power and invited, with the crowd, to be amazed and exclaim, “Nothing like this has ever been seen!” (v.33). Only Jesus has power to heal, restore and raise the dead. There is no one like him. Matthew, who throughout the Gospel has concern to show how Jesus fulfils the Old Testament scriptures, is showing us that Jesus is seen to be doing exactly what God would do were he in our midst. God is visiting his people in the person of Jesus.
But there is something else extraordinary here that Matthew wants to draw our attention to – and that’s the faith of the people who receive the healing. First, we encounter the synagogue ruler. In this version of the healing, his daughter is already dead, but what he has seen and heard of Jesus (perhaps he had heard about the son of the widow of Nain) leads him to believe that Jesus can raise her back to life – “My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live” (v.18). The woman too, ‘who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years’ (v.21). reaches out for one touch from Jesus, believing, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.” As a result, ‘Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment.’ Then, once Jesus raises the synagogue leader’s daughter from the dead, he encounters two blind men who cry out to Jesus to have mercy on them. He asks them straight out, ‘“Do you believe that I am able to do this?”
“Yes, Lord,” they replied. Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith let it be done to you”; and their sight was restored’ (vv.28-30). Finally, faith is demonstrated by those who bring the demon-possessed man to Jesus; they wouldn’t have brought him to Jesus without faith that Jesus could do something about his condition. And he is freed from his condition and able to talk.
So, extraordinary power and extraordinary faith. Together they make what seems to be impossible possible. We too are invited to have that kind of faith for Jesus to work in our lives and in this world. The challenge is that so many of us have prayed prayers of faith for healing, for those kind of miracles – we have believed God was able to do this kind of work in people’s lives, but these prayers seemed to have gone unanswered. How do we deal with this? I don’t think there is a glib or satisfactory answer, except that we live in a world that is still broken, but the promise is that Jesus will return and when he does he will make all things well – he will restore all things. The dead in Christ will be raised, there will be no more sickness or suffering or lamentation. In the meantime we are called to keep holding on to faith, to keep praying for breakthrough, to cry out to our God for mercy, and we can know that he will answer this prayer. Healing comes in all sorts of ways – though we may not experience healing of body, we can experience healing of soul and mind, of relationships; and those we pray for can too – and these kinds of healing can be just as miraculous as those we see on the pages of Scripture. So, let’s keep having faith and bring ourselves and those in need to Jesus – and we never know what he might do.
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