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We see lots of details but miss the main point when we come to Jesus mainly to eliminate problems here and now. In Matthew 9:18–26, two people reach out to Jesus with needs very much like the ones we have and must wrestle with the deeper point of Jesus’s ministry — just like we do.
The following study questions are AI generated and may contain errors.
The sermon contrasts two daughters and emphasizes that Jesus’s primary mission was spiritual salvation rather than physical healing. How might this message challenge or comfort someone who is currently praying for physical healing for a loved one?
The preacher uses David Engel’s photography lesson to suggest that many people engage with Jesus only superficially, focusing on problem-solving rather than developing a deeper relationship with him as Savior. What does “deep engagement” with Jesus look like in practical terms, and how can believers cultivate it?
In what ways do the parallel stories of Jairus’s daughter and the woman with the issue of blood amplify each other in this “sandwich” narrative, particularly regarding themes of faith, uncleanness, and God’s care for the overlooked?
Jesus prioritizes faith and the forgiveness of sins over physical healing in accounts like this one and others (such as the paralytic lowered through the roof). Why do you think this ordering matters, and how should it shape the way we approach prayer requests in our own communities?
Jesus calls the hemorrhaging woman “daughter” while on his way to revive Jairus’s daughter. What does this reveal about God’s personal, fatherly love for individuals lost in a crowd, and how does the juxtaposition of these two women—one with a devoted earthly father, one seemingly alone—deepen the sermon’s message about who Jesus came to save?
This transcript has been automatically generated and may contain errors.
Well, I hope you out there in TV land were singing along as we were here in the humble abode, if you will, of Little Hills Church, St. Charles, Missouri on Droste Road. Thank you Merlene and Melanie for playing all that music. Thank you Jeff and Steve for making sure that the computer does what it does. Thank you Jeff for managing that Jimi Hendrix record we were playing earlier. It happens. It happens. Feedback is a fact of life. Thank you Tim for allowing me to preach tonight. Tim asked me to preach on Matthew 9, verses 18 through 26, and I’m going to be doing that. Before I do, let’s begin by reading the focal passage, shall we? Again, Matthew 9, 18 through 26, the New International Version.
I use the New International Version to prepare this sermon. Guys of a certain age, we cut our teeth on the NIV and we still go with it even today. So the NIV gives this the subheading of Jesus raises a dead girl and heals a sick woman. 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.” Jesus got up and went with him and so did his disciples. Just then, a woman who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, “If only I touch his cloak, I will be healed.” Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you,” and the woman was healed at that moment.
When Jesus entered the synagogue leader’s house and saw the noisy crowd of people playing pipes, he said, “Go away, go away. The little girl is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him. They laughed at him. After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand and she got up. News of this spread through all of that region.
Reading from God’s Word, the book of Matthew. You know, David Engel is a name that you will not recognize. He was never famous in the worldly sense of the word. He was never on television, never starred in a movie, never was an internet influencer, but he was one of those people, if you’re lucky enough, whom you meet, get to know a little, have a long conversation or two with and come away with some wisdom that you can hang on to for a lifetime. I met David Engel when I was right out of school and had gone to work in the public relations department at Brown Shoe Company. We PR types shared office space with the Brown Shoe Company advertising department and David was a graphic designer, the graphic designer in charge of all the company’s marketing and packaging materials.
Very interesting guy. Calm, well-spoken, great sense of humor and most importantly, welcoming to a young kid right out of college and wet behind the ears and willing to share his knowledge and wisdom. Not just in the world of marketing but wisdom infused observations of life. One day we were talking about photography. I was a freshly minted graduate from the mass communications program at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and as part of the journalism curriculum I had completed the photojournalism regimen. Since photography was certainly involved in marketing and advertising, it was natural that we might get into a conversation or two about photography and one did, as I got to know David a little.
Now I knew David was a source of sage wisdom because even in the 1970s button-down world of corporate life, he never wore a necktie, never, and he had a goatee. Just cool in every way. Well, one time we were talking about the finer points of photography and we were talking about the darkroom, a wonderful magical place where film, which has had light shed upon it, is run through chemicals and then projected on a piece of mere paper. That paper then is also run through chemicals until an image results, an image that could inform, inspire, tantalize, an image that could create desire, an image that might in the right publication and maybe when combined with others even change the world.
At that time photography as a hobby was still going strong. Camera stores were seemingly everywhere and you could buy everything you needed to put together a professional quality darkroom in your home so as to harness the power of light and turn it into communication. It’s something special, something almost otherworldly, something that has a spiritual component, even something that once you’re under its spell you never tire of pursuing. Sometimes. David noted that often guys would get interested in the technical side of photography but not so much in the communication side of it all. You know, exploring the medium’s expressive potential.
They’d build a room in a basement, put in a sink, invest in an enlarger, a timer, a safe light, a film tank, buy some graduated trays and tongs, lay in a supply of Kodak D76, stop bath, fixer, hypo clearing agent, a darkroom manual, and learn how to make a print. And once they’d made a few, they’d quit. They’d learned the basic essentials, convinced themselves that they could actually make a photographic print, but then moved on to a new hobby. But they’d missed the most important thing. The fact that photography works at all is a gift from God and it’s a gift that allows us to see, record, and interpret our world, saving the result for posterity, as did people with names you may or may not recognize. Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Robert Capa, Dorothea Lange, W. Eugene Smith, folks like that.
I’ve never forgotten the observation all those years ago from David Engel. Well, people are people and they have been since the dawn of time. Yeah, there are some who see the big picture and take it all in and appreciate God’s work for all that it is, but most of us are kind of day-to-day folks, limited in our perception to that which is immediately around us and what our immediate needs are. We see lots of details, but we miss the main point. We see the trees, but not the forest. Thus, Jesus, in his incarnation, was faced with a seeming contradiction. He came to save all of mankind, or at least those who would A, recognize their sin and need for a Savior, and B, recognize Jesus as that Savior.
But so many concentrated solely on Jesus’s ability to fix earthly problems, to make this life better for the sake of this life being better. They did not necessarily meditate upon him as the Son of God, who was merely our door into eternity with God the Father. They wanted him to eliminate problems here, now, without worrying so much about the true goal of Jesus’s teaching and preaching, that is to get God’s children into heaven. Now, that’s the point I want to drive home this evening. Jesus is about the future, an eternal future, and not just about making our lives better and more complete while we are here on this side of heaven. I call this message, A Tale of Two Daughters, and it’s based on the scriptures we just read a moment ago, Matthew chapter 9, verses 18 through 26.
It’s an interesting spiritual account, one of those sandwich packages, where we see a second theme inserted into the middle of the first, a second theme that amplifies the meaning and the significance of the original topic. Are you with me so far, class? Thank you. As this passage begins, Jesus is interrupted by debating with the Pharisees, as he often had to do, by an urgent request that came to him personally from a man of some responsibility and standing in the community. The request concerns daughter number one of this tale of two daughters, Jairus’s daughter, and it’s not good news about her.
Chapter 9, verse 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.” Well, okay. All right. Several interesting things going on in this verse. First, we have a synagogue leader. Matthew does not mention his name. For that, we have to look in the companion Gospels of Mark and Luke. His name is Jairus, a name that is a Greek rendering of the Hebrew name Jair, which according to the Holman Bible Dictionary means “JAH will enlighten.” JAH being a shortened form of Jehovah.
Here’s what John MacArthur says about synagogue leaders like Jairus in the notes of the MacArthur Study Bible. These officials presided over the elders of local synagogues. Those elder groups made of lay officials were in charge of arranging the services and overseeing other synagogue affairs. So, we get the feeling that Jairus is probably a devout man, energetic with a sense of duty to the Lord. He keeps everything running smoothly at the synagogue and at home, keeps it organized and running according to plan. He spent a lot of time in the synagogue, but perhaps more in the presence of the everyday people in attendance who make up the crowds who are attracted to Jesus, as opposed to regular mixing with Pharisees and teachers of the law.
Perhaps this is why Jairus is apparently aware of Jesus and his quick rise to prominence, a rise fueled by his performance of miracles, as well as amazing accounts of people healed of incurable and otherwise fatal diseases and conditions. And Jairus has a daughter. Again, from Matthew’s colleague, Mark and Luke, we find that she is a preteen, 12 years old, teetering on the edge of adolescence and probably the apple of her father’s eye. As a father of two daughters, both now grown, I can attest to the soft-hearted fondness dads of girls have toward their offspring. We love them. They wrap us around their fingers, but we let them. Nothing is too good for our daughters. We want not just to provide, but to give them the world.
A 24-count pack of crayons? No way. Make it 64. One Hello Kitty playset? No way. Make it a dozen. And we want to protect them. We want to keep them safe, secure, and happy. And they grow up so fast. One day they’re in kindergarten, the next day they’re off to the university. And Jairus is in the middle of all this life and love, and along comes a bug, a bad bug, with his daughter’s name on it. One day she’s playing and running around, the next she’s lying in her bed, burning with fever. Quick, call the neighbors and get them to pray. Call the doctors. Do whatever it takes. She’s my little girl. It doesn’t do any good. Her fever gets worse and worse.
Soon Jairus’ little sweetheart is now unresponsive. Her breathing is shallow. He’s frantic. He’s got to do something, but there is nothing more to be done. Finally, as he holds her hand to comfort her, she goes limp and her breathing stops. Jairus can’t believe it. No, no, no, no. This can’t be happening. Then outside the house, the running of footsteps. Jesus is back. Jesus is back in Galilee. Jairus is off like a shot to the shore of the lake, his vision blurred by tears. He pushes his way through the crowd and falls to the ground, weeping on his knees in front of Jesus as he acknowledges Christ’s authority. “My daughter has just died. Come and put your hand upon her and she will live.”
As we’ve noted, Jesus already has a proven track record of being a healer. Paralytics, lepers, fevers, seizures, demons, you name it, he heals it. As Jesus prepares to head out to Jairus’ place, the crowd is probably buzzing with excitement. Another miraculous healing is on the way. Did you hear what Jairus said? His daughter is not just sick, she’s dead. Oh man, we’re not just gonna get to see a healing, we’re gonna get to see resurrection. Prepare to be amazed, Jesus 911. But did Jesus come strictly to heal? Did he come to open a clinic where he could be available all day, every day, to cure the incurable and make all disease and disability disappear? No.
In Mark chapter 1, when Jesus’ disciples implore him to come back from a solitary place where he had gone to pray so that he could tend the crowds coming to him for healing, he said this in verse 38, “Let’s go somewhere else, to the nearby villages, so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” Frequently Jesus made it clear that forgiveness of sins through repentance and faith in him is that which is of prime importance to those who would follow him. Healing is just the icing on the cake.
Way back in the book of Psalms, David says this in Psalm 103 verse 2 and 3, “Praise the Lord my soul and forget not all his benefits who forgives all your sins and heals your diseases.” And when the paralytic was lowered through the ceiling, as Jesus taught, first thing Jesus told him was, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Only then did Jesus restore the man’s body.
So getting back to Matthew 9 in verse 18, we see Jesus confronted by a distraught Jairus, leader of the synagogue, who begs him to come and resurrect his daughter who has just died. Jesus honors Jairus’ request as he responds immediately in verse 19, “Jesus got up and went with him and so did his disciples.” Now, have you ever been to a prayer meeting? Any church, anywhere, anytime, 99% of the situations addressed by those in attendance will be health care related issues. Some very serious, some not so serious, some routine, some unique. Seems that health and well-being are very often on our minds, exclusively on our minds even, and any number of health related issues pop up as they are brought before Christ for prayer.
And that’s probably what’s happening in this account from the book of Matthew. Jesus has been summoned with tears and he is on his way to intervene in a very serious life-or-death situation, but once he’s done with that, it’s probably assumed, he can take care of everybody else’s physical concerns. But right now, there is no time to lose, and Jesus and his disciples are following Jairus as they work their way through the crowd to get to where his daughter’s lifeless little 12-year-old body lies.
Luke tells us that the crowds were so bad, they were threatening to crush Jesus. Probably many in the crowd had their own agendas, some just wanted to be along for the ride to see what they could see. But others, as we’ve noted in this crowd, if this crowd is like others that have pressed in on Jesus, many have come for healing themselves. Jesus could have spent 24-7-365 healing people, who would have been thrilled to experience the benefit of his healing, regardless of his preaching about the kingdom.
No matter what concerns the other in the mob had, however, Matthew’s Gospel zeroes in on one particular person in the crowd, a desperate woman who seeks Jesus’s help, but knows that her chance of getting a moment with him are not good. To the crowd, she is just another person with another health-related concern. Get in line, sister. So, what is her situation?
Twelve years earlier, as Jairus’s daughter was being born a few blocks away, this Galilean woman, daughter number two of our tale of two daughters, suddenly discovered she had a problem with her reproductive system. She noticed the flow of blood, but not the usual monthly event that all women since Eve have experienced. This flow began at an unusual time, and it did not stop. Not only was it inconvenient, it played havoc with her social standing.
A woman with a flow of blood, according to the Law of Moses, was considered ceremonially unclean. So, her ailment brought with it a double helping of anxiety. She knew that the continual flow of blood was not normal, and thus she was unwell. Was she, like Jairus’s daughter, ill unto death, just on a slower glide path? Besides that, though, she had to stay away, almost as if she had leprosy, from all the others in the community.
From the Book of Mark, we find that the woman had consulted doctors, lots of doctors, for more than a decade, to no avail. In fact, we find from Mark that her interactions with the health care system of her day, like that of our own time actually, had not helped but had degraded her condition. Mark 5, verse 26, “She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors, and had spent all she had. Yet, instead of getting better, she grew worse.” From Mark’s description, it would seem that the woman is not only without any more financial resources, the doctors have drained her bank account, she is also pretty much on her own, maybe a widow. She’s at the end of her rope.
But then she hears that Jesus is in town, and perhaps, at the behest of the Holy Spirit, she devises a bold plan. Just get close enough to touch Jesus, even just close enough to brush up against his clothing. Seems like a good plan. In the crowd, no one will recognize her, and Jesus won’t even know she’s there. Just one touch is all it will take. She’s sure of it. Logic tells her that her chances of getting through the crowd are practically zero, but perhaps she senses that the Lord who parted the Red Sea will part this crowd long enough for her to reach out and touch the Savior.
And consider this. Although she probably didn’t know it, her opportunity for healing would come because of an incredible irony. Only a couple of blocks away, the little girl who was born the same time her flow of blood began more than a decade before, has died. Two daughters, one Savior, and each daughter with one last chance opportunity to be restored. Now, remember, daughter number two is unclean, and she knows she’s not supposed to be around people, especially in the middle of a crushing crowd. But sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do. And so she covers her head, gets up a good head of steam, and plunges into the crowd.
Sure enough, the Lord provides an opening just big enough for her to get a hand in as Jairus, Jesus, and his disciples pass by her as they fight the crowd on the way to Jairus’ home. Matthew 9, verses 20 and 21: Just then, a woman who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.” Well, Ginny, score! Mission accomplished! Jesus’ garment has been touched!
But you don’t even do something as much as brush up against Jesus’ cloak without him knowing about it. To her surprise, Jesus looked over his shoulder, and in the middle of all the brouhaha, not only makes eye contact, but he spoke directly to her, even over the craziness of the crowd. Verse 22, “Jesus turned and saw her. ‘Take heart, daughter,’ he said. ‘Your faith has healed you.’ And the woman was healed at that moment.”
Now, is it merely a coincidence that Jesus, who is on his way to tend Jairus’ daughter, calls the woman with a flow of blood daughter? Is the healing of daughter number two, child of God that she is, a preview of the healing of daughter number one? Jairus’ daughter, even in death, has a doting earthly father looking out for her, a father who is ready and willing to do whatever it takes for her to be well. Was this healing of a woman who, in addition to facing death, was alone, afraid, and seemingly without hope, symbolic of the care that a doting heavenly father takes for his children, especially the weak ones? I’d like to think so.
But the most important thing about Jesus’ comment to the woman is that, once again, faith comes ahead of healing. “Daughter, your faith has healed you.” Faith is what is necessary for belief in Christ, and belief in Christ is what is necessary for ultimate healing when we advance from this earthly realm through the portal of death to eternal life in the presence of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit.
To be sure, healing on this side of heaven is a wonderful thing, a gift from God. But any healing on this side of heaven is temporary. Even those healed by Jesus eventually died to this realm. Faith is what gets us to the other side.
Well, let’s bring this thing in for a landing. After his brief but meaningful encounter with daughter number two, Jesus continued on his way to the home of Jairus, where another crowd has quickly gathered to loudly mourn the passing of daughter number one, the daughter of Jairus. They are expressing theatrical grief for daughter number one in the noisy, almost chaotic way grief was exhibited in those times by professional mourners, musicians, and various hangers-on.
Now, the last thing the professional mourners want is for someone to show up and resurrect the one who is responsible for their having had a gig. Thus, those involved are not necessarily overjoyed to see Jesus arrive on the scene and proclaim that death has already been defeated. Verses 23 and 24, “When Jesus entered the synagogue leader’s house and saw the noisy crowd and people playing pipes, he said, ‘Go away! The girl is not dead, but asleep.’ They laughed at him. They laughed at him.”
Jesus said to the boisterous weepers, “Go away!” Am I imagining things? Or is Jesus’s driving out of the mourners similar to his cleansing of the temple in Jerusalem, only without turning over any tables and chairs? In Jerusalem, the money changers were shown the door for making a mockery of the house of the Lord. In Jairus’s home in Galilee, the mourners are put out after making a mockery of the Savior’s pronouncement that Jesus’s daughter is not dead, but merely sleeping. I’m sure Jairus himself was pleased to escort them out, perhaps without even paying their fee.
Well, once the earthly chaos had been driven away from the house, Jesus’s heavenly work could be done. Verse 25, “After the crowd had been put outside, he went back in, took the girl by the hand, and she got up.” As he does in so many instances in Scripture, Jesus shows his dominion over illness and death as he willingly and lovingly takes the daughter of Jairus by the hand, without regard for the uncleanliness of touching a dead body, and immediately restores her to life and health.
And of course, even in a historical period without television, radio, the Internet, or satellite communications, word of Jesus’s remarkable triumph over the grave, a preview of his own resurrection, made the rounds quickly. Verse 26, “News of this spread through all that region.” And this is still news we can use.
I began my sermon with a life lesson, courtesy of my co-worker and mentor, David Engel, back in the day. Photography was the subject, but the point was this. When we engage superficially with something significant, we may derive some level of satisfaction, but miss the greatness, the potential of engaging deeply. You might learn how to make the photographic print for the sake of saying you did it, but you have no appreciation of the possibilities that the medium has for communication and deep artistic expression. All that darkroom equipment, full of promise and potential, gathers dust and cobwebs as you move on to something else more interesting.
Is that how we engage with the significance of Jesus? Do we come to him mainly with healing and problem-solving in mind, as did the crowds who pressed in on him? Or do we bow in awe at his status as Savior and Creator? Yes, healing is important, and Jesus did lots of it during his earthly ministry, with a willful compassion for his wayward children. But when we study him, contemplate him, and get to know him better and better on a one-on-one basis, we appreciate more with each passing day the great gift that God the Father has given us in Jesus the Son.
Our fears of death are lessened, and we understand that to this Jesus whom we worship, we are each individual, individually, even as lonely faces lost in a noisy crowd, important to him. He’s not just aware of us, he loves us, he cares for us, deeply, completely, so completely that he died for us on the cross so that everyone who believes will live eternally.
Join me now as we worship Jesus in prayer.
Lord and Savior, Father, you have helped so many people in so many ways on this side of heaven, and for that we are grateful. We are grateful to see the evidence of your authority over sickness and death. We are in awe of your might and your power, but Lord, may we never forget the fact that your power, your authority, your greatness will come into full bloom when we glimpse you for the first time on the other side, when we are with you in heaven.
Father, may we not take your invitation lightly. May we too understand that we are sinners in need of a Savior, and that Jesus is that Savior. And may we never take the gift of salvation lightly. Father, you are so good to us, just as you were so good to the daughter of Jairus and the woman with a flow of blood. You have forgiven us of our sins many times over.
As we continue with this service tonight, and we continue on our way through the week to come, may we be cognizant of the fact that we serve a Lord who is magnificent, magnificent beyond our imagination, magnificent beyond compare. Thank you, Lord, for your Word and this time to study it. In Christ’s name. Amen.
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