Gigi Kammeyer

Dear Friends,

The set of miracles in today's reading from Luke is a complex story of two daughters. Luke takes this account from Mark 5; 21-43, where it already appears as a story within a story. Luke modifies it very little.

The two interwoven stories link the raising of Jairus’ daughter and the healing of the hemorrhaging woman. Both women are called 'daughter'. The girl is twelve years old, an age traditionally associated with menarche; the woman has had a ‘flow of blood’ (obviously of gynecological origin) for twelve years. The older woman has not been able to be cured; the younger woman is known to have died. The situation of each seems hopeless.

The stories are joined most explicitly by the healing power of Jesus and the saving response of faith. In the first healing, Jesus is touched by the woman, and feels power going out of him. In the second, he takes the hand of the girl and calls to her. Many in the crowd pressed on Jesus, but he knew that one had touched him with faith and was healed. He calls out to the girl, and orders that she be fed. The woman is told explicitly by Jesus that her faith had saved her. And Jairus is told by Jesus to have faith and his daughter would be saved. The theme of saving faith that Luke presents is here brought emphatically to an explicit point.

In both stories, we notice that the person who is saved is restored to the community. The young girl is restored to her family. But, more impressive still, is the woman with the hemorrhage, who for twelve years was excluded from the common life of the people because of purity regulations. The measure of these remarkably complex structures had the effect of effectively marginalizing the woman, as long as she was bleeding, she rendered “unclean” anyone who touched her. Simply entering a crowd was therefore a bold act of faith, perhaps born of desperation. She was impoverished as well because of spending all of her possessions on doctors. Luke was a doctor and knew the limitations of medicine in those days.

These two women, joined by the isolation of sickness, death, and impurity, are addressed as 'daughter' and saved by faith.

When faced with trials in our lives, we must act in faith like Jairus and the woman. We must believe and go to Christ by faith. Jesus said, “Do not fear, only believe, and she will be well.” God will do the healing but the human part is faith. We do the believing. God always does the work of salvation. He will deliver us and when he does we will glorify him. So the deliverance you may be seeking today is not deliverance to comfort but one in which God’s glory will be magnified.

In Christ,
Gigi Kammeyer