Holding the Hem

Luke 8:40-56

Who do you say that Jesus is? Was He just a Jewish carpenter who was nailed to a piece of wood? Was He just a local magician, casting spells on nature? Or perhaps He was a good teacher who taught His disciples the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, life and death? Who do you say that Jesus is?

This was the question on the tip of the disciples' tongues. In verse 22 of Luke 8, Jesus gets in the boat with His disciples. A storm arises on the lake, but Jesus is sleeping beneath the bow. The water is white with foam, and the disciples are white with fear. Yet Jesus rebukes the wind and drops an Alka-Seltzer in the waves. And the disciples wonder, "Who is this man, that even the wind and the waves obey Him?"

In verse 27, Jesus encounters a demon-possessed man. He was a man who lived among the tombs, a Satanic Superman—too strong to be chained, to powerful to be subdued. Yet Jesus rebukes the demons and drives them into a herd of kamikaze swine. And the disciples wonder, "Who is this man, that even the demons obey Him?"

And now, in verse 40, we read that the crowd was expecting Jesus. Of course they were. Here you have a man who nature obeyed and demons answered to. Here you have a man who healed the sick and touched the lame. Here you have a man who looked down at the water He was walking on and saw H2O—two humble hydrogens and one obedient oxygen. And the crowds wonder, "Who is this man, who acts more like a God than a man?"

Jairus' daughter is dying. She's a girl of about 12, the daughter of a well-respected ruler of the synagogue. You see, Jairus was the chapel coordinator. He was the one who told people when to enter and when to exit, when to bow down and when to stand up. It was a very dignified position—a position of power and authority. But on this day, Jairus is the one on his hands and knees, begging Jesus to heal his little girl.

And as Jesus was on His way, a woman who has been bleeding for 12 years was in the crowd. We don't know what kind of bleeding disorder she had, but we do know that according to Leviticus 15, her constant bleeding rendered her ceremonially unclean. That means she had not been to church in 576 weeks. She had not felt the touch of a man for well over a decade. She could not even go shopping with her

girlfriends because society considered her an outcast.

Mark tells us that she had spent all her money trying to get well but only got worse. There was no Blue Cross/Blue Shield for this lady. There was no premium insurance to cover her pre-existing condition. Just imagine the smell—the blood, the odor, the filth and the flies. Just look at the embarrassment—the scabbing and the scarring, the guilt and the shame of going to the bathroom 20 or 30 times a day. You see, there was no Band-aid to bind her wound. There was nothing to hide her blood. All the pills and prescriptions and potions could not prevent her suffering. She was a nobody—the crowds thought so, the disciples thought so, even she, herself, knew it to be true.