Luke 8:40-56 - Pastor David Deutsch

Good morning. Soli church. Open your bibles to the gospel of Luke and to the 8th chapter, Luke, chapter eight.

And I will read from verses verse 40 through the end the chapter. Hear the word of God. Now. When Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him. And there came a man named Gyrus, who was a ruler of the synagogue.

And falling at Jesus feet, he implored him to come to his house, for he had an only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she was dying. As jesus went, the people pressed around him. And there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for twelve years. And though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone. And she came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment.

And immediately her discharge of blood ceased. And Jesus said, who was it that touched me when all denied it? Peter said, master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you. But Jesus said, someone touch me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me. And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling and falling down before him, declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed.

And he said to her, daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. And while he was still speaking, someone from the ruler's house came and said, your daughter is dead. Do not trouble the teacher anymore. But Jesus, on hearing this, answered him, do not fear, only believe, and she will be well.

And when he came to the house, he allowed no one to enter with him except Peter and John and James and the father and mother of the child. And all were weeping and mourning for her. But he said, do not weep, for she is not dead, but sleeping. And they laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. But taking her by the hand, he called, saying, child, arise.

And her spirit returned. And she got up at once. And he directed that something should be given to her to eat. And her parents were amazed, but he charged them to tell no one what had happened. That's the word of the Lord.

You may be seated. Let's pray together.

Our God in heaven. This morning, as we come to Jesus, this is where we belong. We would see Jesus. We would have Jesus. We would come to Jesus like Jairus, and seek out Jesus like this woman.

Just a touch, just a visit, just Jesus, Lord, is enough for us this morning. And so I pray that all of us in this room would look and find and seek and be satisfied with Jesus this morning. And it is in the name of Jesus that we pray. Amen. We are a fearful bunch.

Doesn't take much to get our fears going. We are an anxious bunch, living life with more than anybody has in the history of the world. Saved the pharaohs. We are the most anxious people in the history of the world as well. We are an anxious, fearful people.

And we do face things in our lives regularly, things of desperation, things that are beyond us, moments we cannot answer, things we cannot fix. We find ourselves regularly in desperate situations. And someday we will face the final desperate situation, and that is death. And we do everything we can to sanitize ourselves from death. Billions of dollars are spent on increasing our lives by a day or a year or years, if that could actually happen, if that was actually a reality.

We live for the fountain of youth regularly, and we push death off out of our homes into places where we do not have to see it. And so death is over there so much of the time in our lives, and we try to keep it as much of a distance as we can. And when I understand why, I mean, the Bible is very clear that there's a sinister character to death, and the devil loves death. He is the one who, the Bible says this about Hebrews, chapter two. The Bible says Jesus took on our flesh so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death.

That is the devil, that trickster. That's his trump card. His trump card is, you're all going to die. And what happens? Because death is a power, because death is a force, because death is the devil's trump card.

According to the writer of Hebrews, what happens? We, through fear of death, live enslaved to the coming death. We're scared to death of that moment, that moment of desperation that is absolutely beyond all of us. And so not only do we have to face circumstances in our lives that are beyond us, we're all going to face that circumstance in our lives that is beyond us as well. We come with this to Jesus, and we see that the people that we meet in the story today, they find themselves in these predicaments.

We find a woman who finds herself in a desperate situation that is beyond her and beyond the people around her. Look at verse 43, and you have to read this with a little bit of a wry smile on your face, right? Because this is, after all, written by a doctor who had traveled around with the apostle Paul and was the apostle Paul's personal doctor. And so when Luke is writing this, there must be a little bit of a wry smile on his face when this is happening. Verse 43.

There was a woman who had a discharge of blood for twelve years. And so this is a woman who's had an ongoing desperate situation. And look at it. Though she had spent all her living on physicians, there's nothing left in the bank account. She's got no money.

She's still in her situation. That's desperate. As we'll see in a little bit, it's beyond her. For twelve years, no one's been able to do anything about it. All the technology has been applied to the situation.

The doctors have brought everything to bear that they can, and yet she's still in the exact same situation that she's in. She's in a desperate situation beyond her ability and beyond the ability of everyone around her to answer it. And then there's the girl. Look at verse 49, the second desperate situation. And while he was still speaking, someone from the ruler's house came and said, your daughter is dead.

Do not trouble the teacher anymore. Your only daughter is dead. Don't trouble the teacher anymore. So for some reason these people believe that maybe Jesus had had the power to heal this girl if she was sick, but he doesn't have the power to raise her from the dead. Go ahead and leave the teacher alone.

The final word is spoken over your daughter. It's now time to mourn. You see, we come to this situation here, and we're facing two desperate situations, two desperate situations in which the answer to these are out of the hands of those who are experiencing these particular situations. I have to be honest with you. There's something here about Jesus that we have to highlight before we move into the passage.

And that is, this struck me as I've been meditating on this passage over the last couple of weeks, that when it comes to this great enemy of humanity, death, when we see Jesus coming to deal with death, he's just never in a hurry. Like, we are an anxious bunch. We're an efficient bunch. We're the rush bunch, right? Our lives are lived at mock speed.

Your friend whom you love, Lazarus, is dying. Yeah. We'll stay on vacation a few more days before we go. No rush. Take some leisure.

I'll get there when I get there. Same thing here. Jesus is on his way to the house, gets interrupted by this woman, and he doesn't push her aside to get to the house. He allows her whole narrative to unfold as an interruption on the way to the house, so much so that the girl moves from sickness to death, and Jesus is just simply leisurely about it. He has a non anxious presence about him as he moves through these stories.

Well, why is that? Why is it that Jesus can take his time and be leisurely about these things? Because, you see, in Jesus we meet the one who always moves on the situation at the time that he chooses. And oftentimes it is the most desperate situation, so that he himself can show that what is beyond us is in no way beyond him. And so we see here not only that, but we also see finally two people who are bearing in their lives the fourth kind of soil we're finally meeting those who here are looking to Jesus, and they are trusting in him.

And they're at polar Opposites of the social society, one an outcast, the other a ruler. But together they form this man and this woman. They form for us what faith looks like. It goes to Jesus, and it trusts that he can, if he will, answer the most desperate of moments, you see? And so we begin in verse 40.

Now, when Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him. They're waiting for him because the last time Jesus was around, he had raised another child from the dead. He had raised the widow's son from the dead, and then he got in the boat and left. Since then, he's still the storm and showed his authority over the creation. And last week, as we saw, he exercised his authority over the demons.

And now we're going to see him exercise his authority over sickness and death. There's nothing that does not come under the authority of Jesus. But Jesus right now has this reputation because of what it is he's doing. And so when he comes back across the lake, now, everybody, there's this crowd, and they're all following him. And in the midst of this crowd, they're waiting for him.

There is a man named Gyrus who is a ruler of the synagogue. And so this is a man who runs the synagogue. He leads the synagogue. He leads the liturgy at the synagogue. He takes care of everything in the jewish synagogue.

He runs that church there. And so he's known in the community. He has a standing in the community. He has respect in the community. He has people that honor him in the community.

But I want you to notice that when he comes to Jesus, there's none of that. There's no playing the card with this man. There's no manipulation. There's no pulling out his business card. There's no inner ring clout that he brings to Jesus.

There's no bargaining. There's no drawing attention to his standing at all. When Gyrus comes to Jesus, he is just like everyone else, he stands in need of what only Jesus can bring, you see? And so he does not come and pull out his card and say, I'm the synagogue leader. I need you to do something for me.

Rather, what we find here is desperation meets humility. Desperation meets humility. Look at what it is that Gyrus does. And there came a man named Gyrus who was ruler of the synagogue and falling at Jesus'feet. This man humbles himself before Jesus.

He gets in the begging position, not in the inner ring position, but in the pleading position. He knows that when it comes to the situation with his daughter, it's beyond him. But here is one who he has heard is already healing the sick and raising the dead. And this is my only hope. This is our only hope.

And so he falls at the feet of Jesus, and he implores him to come to his house. And the implore there in the Greek is repetitive imploring. He didn't drop to his knees and say, will you please come? He dropped to his knees, and begging Jesus, he implored and he begged and he implored over and over and over again, please come to my house. Please come to my house.

Please come to my house. And here's why. Verse 42, what his situation is, what his desperation is, that leads him to the feet of Jesus. Verse 42 says, for he had an only daughter. Now in the Greek, again, the translation here should be different.

The Greek here is monogeneous. It's the word for only begotten. The same word that's used of Jesus, which means this is his only child. This is not like, I got a daughter, then I got nine sons. So if she goes, I'm okay.

No, this is my only child. This is all we have. I have my daughter, and she's the only one. And she's about twelve years of age. You'll notice that she's on the precipice of her future.

If you were a jewish girl, you were on the precipice of your future, right? Mary, the mother of Jesus. She was probably 13 or 14 years old when the Holy Spirit came to visit her. So this girl is right on the edge of the future that they had prayed for and planned for their only daughter. But I want you to notice the number twelve here, because this is important.

This girl is twelve years old, and this woman has had a hemorrhage of blood for twelve years. Okay? So there's also a little bit of a backstory going on here as well, in which the writer is communicating Luke is communicating, and Jesus wants us to understand that the condition that this girl is in, the condition that this woman is in, is the condition that Israel is in at the time. They are an impure people who think they're pure, and they are a dead people who think they're alive. And the twelve s point arc out in that direction.

To tell us what happens with these two needs to happen with the whole of Israel. And that's what Jesus is doing. He is creating a new Israel around himself, and he's going to bring in this woman and this man into this story with him. And so there's a little bit of that going on here as well. And I want you guys to notice something as well.

So it says, for he, this is my only begotten daughter. She's twelve years old and she's dying, okay? So he implores Jesus, he begs Jesus, he sets the situation for Jesus, and this is my daughter's dying. This is beyond us. Can you do something?

I know you can do something, Jesus. And as he went, verse 42 says the people pressed around him. That word for pressed is only used one other time in Luke, and it's earlier in the parable of the soils for choking out the word. It's interesting. The people are pressing in on Jesus, almost to choke out the moment that seems like it's going to happen.

And it appears that that is going to happen, because we know the story. The girl dies, and it appears that the choking happened. But Jesus is greater than that. You see, we're dealing with someone who is greater than all of this situation here. But then in verse 43, something happens.

We're like, okay, we're on the move with gyrus. Jesus is coming to his house. We're all excited, and then all of a sudden, this interruption happens. How good are you with interruptions?

If you want to see the wrong side of me, it's interruptions, right? I have my imagination about how I want my days to go. Thou shalt not mess them up, right? But Jesus, I just gave her along to a book I'm reading called. It's a book on leadership called a non anxious presence.

I don't have that. So I'm reading the book, hoping some of it will rub off on me, right? But Jesus has got this non anxious presence about him because he knows what he's doing. He knows what he's doing. And so all of a sudden, out of nowhere, verse 43, this woman steps into the store.

What are you doing here? How did you get here? We're on our way somewhere, we got business with Jesus. I don't have time for this interruption, but here she comes. Verse 43.

And there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and though she had spent all of her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone. So you have to understand something about this woman having a hemorrhage of blood for twelve years. If you go back to Leviticus, chapter 15, verses 25 and following the law states what condition this woman would be in if she had her post period continued on with blood, okay, what condition she would be in. As long as she is hemorrhaging this kind of blood, she would be in a state of absolute uncleanness. So she would be in every way impure and unclean, so physically impure and unclean, socially impure and unclean, ritually impure and unclean, domestically impure and unclean.

She would, in a sense, during that time, she would be the living dead. Anything that she touched, she would transmit her impurity to that thing. But normally the cycle happens and you get another baptism and you're restored and you're clean and you can go to church and your husband can touch you and you can hold your kids. That's normally what happens for a normal woman. But for this woman, no, this woman has been unclean and isolated from the totality of whatever life she had.

She has been living in a state of isolation for twelve long years. She spent everything she had to get it fixed so that she can be restored to family life, restored to church life, restored to any kind of life whatsoever. Instead, she has been living outside the bounds of all community in loneliness and isolation for twelve years, and no one has been able to help her. She is cut off in every way. And twelve years, my friends, is a long time.

Just look at any twelve year old in the room and think of the totality of that child's life. That's how long this woman has been cut off from everything. But she's heard, she's heard about this one who heals the sick.

There's something about him that changes lives. And so the Bible tells us. And by the way, if you don't catch the, you got to catch the irony of this, okay? This is like an explosive, ironic moment to where we are supposed to look at this and simultaneously we're supposed to howl with laughter and be absolutely just mesmerized by the grace of God, right? So she comes up behind Jesus, like, if I can just touch him, he will heal me of this.

She trusts that. But you'll notice what ends up happening. Look at verse 44. She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased. So what happens?

She comes up, she touches the fringe of Jesus's garment, and when she does, boom, she's healed automatically. Twelve year flow of blood is gone. It ceases, and she's healed. But you want to know what the word is for fringe of the garment? It is the word tassel.

And you want to know what the tassel was on a hebrew man. A hebrew man had tassels on his garment. And those tassels, we are told in the book of numbers, are there to remind everybody of the law.

Are you picking this up? She touches the part of the garment of Jesus that tells her that she shouldn't be touching anybody. She's touching the part of the garment of Jesus that reminds her that she's impure. You shouldn't be here. The law is against you.

And yet that's the part of she grabs on to the law tassel. And guess what happens? Something reversed happens. The whole thing goes the other way. Right?

And instead of that reaching that Tassel, condemning her to further isolation because of who the tassel is connected to, it actually heals her and restores her immediately. It's absolutely amazing. And you got to have a little smirk on your face. Out of all the places she could have touched Jesus, it's the one thing that reminded everybody she shouldn't be touching anybody. It's incredible.

And then Jesus verse 45, says, who touched me? Of course, everybody denies it. And Peter said, master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you. But Jesus said, someone touched me. For I perceive that power has gone out from me.

Jesus knows that someone has come up and touched his garment in a particular way. I'm sure with the choking, other people had bumped into him. Okay. But this was different, because this was the reach of faith. This was the reach of trust.

This was the reach that all I have to do is touch this one, and I will be healed, and everything will change. But why does Jesus do this? Why doesn't Jesus just let this poor woman receive the healing, go show herself to the priests and get back involved in her life and get on with it to Jairus'house, who's probably going, can we get right? But Jesus actually stops in the middle of, on his way to Gyrus's house. He stops with this non anxious presence because of who he is.

And he's going to make sure that this woman's full story is told that her full salvation is told, that her full healing is told. Jesus will not let it be hidden. I want you to follow this with me. Someone touch me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me. Look at verse 47.

And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, falling down before him, and declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed. When the woman saw that she was not hidden. See, we've already been told this. If you look back to chapter eight, I love this chapter eight and verse 17. Listen to this.

Pastor Jeremy preached on this chapter eight, verse 17. For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light. And here it is, this woman's shining moment. Like I'm a march madness fanatic. Like I will stop the world for March Madness, right?

And I love March madness. And one of the things I love most about March Madness is on the Monday night. Even my wife gets into this with me. But every time that Monday night game plays, the championship game, doesn't matter how good the game is or how bad the game is, when the championship NCAA basketball game is over and they do the end. I don't know if you're a fan like I am, but there's always this one moment that I can't wait for.

And it's a song that's called one shining moment. I cry like a baby every single time they play it. Because they go back through the tournament. They show all the last second shots that are there. They show all the upsets that are there.

They bring you all the way through, and they're seeing one shiny moment. It's magnificent. You got one shot, maybe, to be in this championship game, and it might be your one shining moment. Well, for this woman, this is her shining moment. Jesus is not going to allow her story to be untold because he's in a hurry, you see?

He's going to allow the fullness of her story to be told in the middle of this other story that's being told, because he's going to bring her story to light because he wants everybody to know that she is healed and that he's even doing something more for her. He's bringing her to light. She does what Gyrus does. She falls down before him, and she tells everybody what had happened and then her stories in the light, you see, Jesus brings it out for everybody to see. And then Jesus does something in verse 48.

Listen. Jesus does something in verse 48 that he never does anywhere else in the gospel, not just this gospel, Jesus does in verse 48 what he never does anywhere in any gospel at all. Verse 48 he says, and he said to her daughter, she's the only woman in all of the gospels that Jesus calls daughter, you are mine, you are my child, you are my daughter. You see there's something going on here that's more than just a woman being healed. It's a woman being brought home because home is Jesus.

It's a woman who's been without family being brought into the greater family. You see if, remember in Pastor Jeremy's text as well, there was this new family that Jesus was creating right around people who trusted Jesus and obeyed Jesus. Those are my mothers and my brothers and my sisters. And here in this woman, Jesus is saying, see, a daughter has come home. My family is being expanded and this woman is now a part of my family.

And then Jesus goes on to say, your faith has made you well. And the greek word for well, there's not well, it's the word for salvation. So not only does she get healed, she has a deeper healing that takes place. Jesus not only saves her from the hemorrhage, he saves her from her sins. And then he calls her daughter and she's made a part of the family.

And then Jesus gives to her what this woman had not known for twelve years. What you and I are going to extend to one another in just a few moments. He says to her, go in peace. You're now a daughter. You're doubly saved.

Healed and saved, you're restored. Now go in peace because your faith has made you well. You trusted me. You trusted me. You believed that I could do this.

And because you trusted me, go in peace. I've gone beyond what your faith trusted for your faith, trusted for a healing. What you got was a salvation. Your faith trusted so you could be restored to your family. But I'm going to bring you into my family.

You see, Jesus extends it and even gives it more. Can you imagine Gyrus at this time? Hey brother, can we get onto my house? Like can we get home? Right?

And so verse 49 says, while he was still speaking, someone from the ruler's house came and said, your daughter is dead. Do not trouble the teacher anymore. It's beyond him. It's out of his hands now. It's out of your hands.

It's out of everybody's hands. Maybe there was a shot while she was sick like this woman who had the hemorrhage, but now it's done, she's dead. And you can no longer bother the teacher. But Jesus, verse 50 says, but Jesus on hearing this answered him, and here we go. Do not fear.

See, we don't have to fear death. Gyrus doesn't have to fear the death of his daughter. The daughter doesn't have to fear her death. You don't have to fear death. I don't have to fear death.

The fear and the force of death that the devil had as his trump card. He's been trumped. You want to know how he's been trumped? Because of the death of death in the death of Christ. That's why jesus looked death square in the face and he said, bring it.

He said, bring everything you've got. And he went into the darkness for 3 hours on that Friday when the sun went out, and he faced down the dragon of death, and he took it on, and he absorbed it into his person, and he took it into the grave with him. And on the third day, Jesus walked out of the grave on the first day of the week, the day of new creation, and he took the death that was ours and took the death that this girl experienced, and he faced it down and he overcame it, and he is the resurrection and he is the life. And because Jesus is raised from the dead, death no longer is something we have to fear. Amen.

Have to worry about it. It's been answered. And jesus shows this proleptically here, he rolls it back here, he shows in advance of what's coming, you see? And so he gets to the house. All you got to do is trust me.

I got this. I got death too. I got twelve years of sickness. I got death as well. I got them both.

Only believe and she will be well. And the word well there is saved. We're doing more here than just raising a girl back to a life, that she's going to die again. We're going to save her too, and give her a new future. That's going to be my future, you see?

And they were all weep. And then when he came to the house, he allowed no one to enter with him but Peter, James and John. That's two or three witnesses to verify. And just the mother and father and all were weeping and mourning for her. But he said, do not weep, for she is not dead, but sleeping.

And they laughed at Jesus knowing that she was dead.

See, this is a group that people paid for. This was actually a vocation. There were professional mourners, and you would pay them money and they would come to your house during sickness and death. And they were just professional mourners. They cried over your situation for you.

And so these are the people that Jesus is dealing with here. They're just doing what they're paid to do. They don't know what's going on here. They don't know anything at all, but they're doing their job. But then we get into the room and verse 54 happens.

And again, you have to watch this.

Under the old covenant, the unclean makes the clean unclean, but never does the clean make the unclean clean. Can you remember that? Under the old covenant, the unclean makes the clean unclean. The clean never makes the unclean clean. So when this woman touches Jesus, the reverse happened.

What should have happened is Jesus should have become unclean and her blood should have remained. But the opposite happened, right? She touches Jesus, and instead, the clean makes the unclean clean. In the new covenant, guess what happens here? Jesus touches a corpse.

Guess what happens when you touch a corpse. You are unclean for seven days and you have to be baptized again. But notice what happens here goes the other way, because it's Jesus, and we're in the new covenant. And so now the clean makes the unclean clean. And so Jesus, taking her by the hand, called, saying, child, arise.

Love this. Look at verse 55 and think of Genesis two seven. And her spirit returned. They have Adam, that lump of clay. And God breathed into Adam the breath of life, and he became a living soul.

This tells us that the girl was dead. Her spirit and body had separated from one another. And when Jesus tells her to rise, her spirit returns to her body and she gets up at once. And he directed that something should be given to her to eat immediately. To confirm this, what Jesus has done, bringing her back from the dead immediately fed, giving her something to eat, which if you feel the gospel of Luke, you feel Jesus'resurrection.

Right? Because what did jesus do every time he showed up in a post resurrection appearance in Luke? He ate. He's always eaten, right? He's eating every single time to confirm that he's truly raised from the dead.

So this girl eats, and her parents were amazed, and Jesus charged him to tell no one what had happened. He doesn't want this to get out yet because he's not ready to make the move that he's going to make in chapter nine. You see? But church, listen to me. Jesus is the one who moves into the desperate situations in a way that is non anxious from his side, but is according to his own sovereign timing.

And he moves into those situations. And he answers those situations because he's the only one who can. He's the only one who is able to answer those desperate situations that are beyond us. And there is nothing that Jesus, if it is his purpose, cannot answer. Desperation is not stronger than Jesus, and death is not stronger than Jesus, because Jesus has met them both, and Jesus has overcome.

And just like this girl, Jesus, too, has provided something for us to eat. And that is the table before us as we come looking to him, who is the answer to every desperate situation, even the answer to our death. Amen. Our God in heaven. I pray that we would have seen Jesus today, and he would be enough that we would find in him our all and all that as we come to the table, simply more of Jesus, this table being a down payment on our own resurrection because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Allow us to see the irony of things. Allow us to see the tragic comedy of things in our own lives and lives of others. Lord, help us to understand, as your people, that nothing can be ultimately tragic because Jesus has been raised from the dead. It's in his name that we pray. Amen.