JESUS' POWER OVER DEATH AND SICKNESS

VIDEO LINKS TO THIS SERMON
JESUS' POWER OVER DEATH AND SICKNESS - PART ONE
JESUS' POWER OVER DEATH AND SICKNESS - PART TWO
JESUS' POWER OVER DEATH AND SICKNESS - PART THREE

JESUS' POWER OVER DEATH AND SICKNESS - PART FOUR

  

JESUS' POWER OVER DEATH AND SICKNESS

by Pastor Mark Taylor

“Fear Not: Only Believe, and She Shall Be Made Whole”

Luke 8:50

Some people argue that miracles, including Jesus’ resurrection, are impossible because nature is a closed system and miracles would therefore violate the laws of nature.  God created nature and He can open or close it at any time.  The account of Jesus healing a woman and Jairus’s daughter in Luke 8:40-56 will teach us about the power of Jesus over disease and death.

God’s Word is showing readers that Jesus is God in human form who came to seek and to save the lost. Jesus is reaching His hand, as it were, into our time and space to demonstrate His enormous power from outside our system to do miracles and transform lives.

People in Jesus day knew He had powers given by God to heal.  There was no doubt in their mind. They had the one thing they needed - faith. In this crowd there were two people who desperately wanted Jesus’ help. One was a man, the other was a woman. God begans and ends this narrative with the man and sandwiched the woman’s story in the middle.

God’s Word said that there came a man to Jesus named Jairus, who was a ruler of the synagogue. He was a respected religious leader in the community, and was probably fairly well off financially too. Luke recorded earlier that in the town of Capernaum Jesus healed the sick people by laying His hands on every one of them and healing them.  Jairus was so concerned about his only daughter that, falling at Jesus’ feet, he implored Him to come to his house. Gone was the thought of his position. Gone was the thought about what others might think of him. His request to Jesus was for Him to come and heal his daughter, which Jesus agreed to do.

God’s Word now described an interruption. Jesus was on his way to Jairus’s house. Jesus’ disciples and crowds of people were going with Him. Luke said that there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years (8:43a).  Interestingly, she had been ill for as long as Jairus’s daughter had been alive.

An amazing thing happened!. She was instantly healed!  Jesus also wanted to assure her about what it means to belong to Him. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace” (8:48). Jesus wanted her to know that she was not healed because of some superstitious belief that somehow by touching His garment she would be healed. He wanted her to know that it was her faith in Him that healed her. 

Notice that Jesus stopped the crowd and gave His full attention to this woman. Although Jesus’ ministry was primarily to crowds, He always had time for individuals.  You may feel you are in a crowd today and that no one can help you with your problem.  But if you feel Jesus’ presence, all you have to do is to touch His heart with your heart.

While Jesus was still speaking, someone from the ruler’s house came and said, “Your daughter is dead; do not trouble the Teacher any more” (8:49). Why, the very thing that Jairus feared had happened! If only Jesus had not stopped to talk with the woman, Jairus must have thought to himself, and his daughter might now be alive.

But Jesus on hearing this news about Jairus’s daughter answered him, “Do not fear; only believe, and she will be well” (8:50).  

We want Jesus to take action on our timetable and schedule, but Jesus is in control. And when things don’t happen on our timetable, we think that God does not love us. You see, Jesus knows things that we don’t. Jesus has no more trouble healing a dead person than a sick person. He is at work in our lives for His glory and our ultimate good, and not for our present comfort and lack of problems.

And so Jesus tells Jairus to trust Him, even though he feels so terribly distraught about what had just happened to his girl. 

Jesus used a similar word for “child.” And in that culture, this word was used as a pet name. Literally, Jesus was saying something like, “Honey” or “Sugar” or “Sweetie.”

Basically what Jesus was doing was what Jairus did every morning when he went into his daughter’s room and took her by the hand and said, “Honey, it’s time to get up.”

Do you see the incredible power of Jesus? Death is the greatest enemy we have. Death is our most feared and dreaded enemy. Jesus spoke to her as if death was nothing but sleep.  We know it is not sleep for God’s Word tells us: “We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.”

2 Corinthians 5:8. The fact is she was present with the Lord.

Here’s what that means. Jesus is saying that if you believe in him, then you don’t have to be afraid of death. The greatest and final human enemy that we all face – death – is nothing more than a good night’s sleep to Jesus. Jesus said: “And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. John 11:26

Well, as soon as Jesus told Jairus’s daughter to get up, her spirit returned, and she got up at once (8:55a). Jesus demonstrated his power over death. We should believe that Jesus has power to save anyone and power over death.

Jesus calls us to trust Him.  He is calling on us to trust Him that He will call our loved ones to come from Heaven to meet us one day and we will see them again.