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LUKE: GOSPEL OF CERTIFYING THE CHRISTIAN FAITH
Part XXXI: Certifying The Credibility Of Christ's Lordship Through His Capacity To Unify Opposite Parties
(Luke 8:40-56)
  1. Introduction
    1. There are times when the unification of various parties seems an impossibility simply due to the nature of man, his cultural and religious mindsets and deeply engrained habits and biases.
    2. However, Jesus, as Messiah and God, demonstrated His Lordship through His capacity to unify opposites in the religious and cultural realm, and Luke's account in Luke 8:40-56 demonstrates as much:
  2. Certifying The Credibility Of Christ's Lordship Through His Capacity To Unify Opposite Parties.
    1. Luke's Gospel was written to a Gentile, Theophilus, in an effort to certify the Christian faith, Lk. 1:4.
    2. Now, for Luke to certify such a faith to a Gentile, he needed to demonstrate that Jesus was greater than cultural and religious biases, for the God of all men would have to be great enough to create a ground o f unity that surpassed the greatest of biases and ruts of human thinking.
    3. Accordingly, Luke 8:40-56 records for Theophilus and us how Jesus unified culturally and religiously opposites in bringing together a despised woman with an issue of blood and the synagogue official:
      1. When Jesus arrived in Capernaum (Mk. 5:21 with Ryr. St. Bib., KJV, ftn.), a man named Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, met him with the request that Jesus save his daughter from dying, Luke 8:40-41.
      2. As Jesus travelled toward Jairus' house to address this need, amid the throngs around Jesus, a woman who had an incurable, chronic hemorrhage grasped the corner tassel of the outer garment that hung between His shoulder blades to be healed, Luke 8:43-44a. (G. Campbell Morgan, Luke, p. 116)
      3. What is so significant in this encounter is the amazing combination of pure opposites where the future hopes of both Jairus and this woman were being divinely interwoven:
        1. Jairus, a synagogue official, would have been fastidiously ceremonially clean and respected in the community, for he had oversight over the place of worship, and kept it up.
        2. In striking contrast to Jairus, the woman with an issue of blood would have been a complete outcast: women like her were thought to have been judged with their condition due to immorality, and were excluded from houses of worship, were divorced and ostracized, Ibid., Morgan, p. 115.
        3. We note that the woman had been plagued with her condition for the same length of time as Jairus' daughter had lived, for a twelve year period, Luke 8:42-43. Thus, the hope of the woman to be healed and the hope of Jairus for healing his daughter were tied together by what had happened for the last twelve years: in one case, a woman had been plagued by an hemorrhage, and in the other a man had enjoyed the life of his daughter.
      4. Thus, socially and religiously, Jairus and the woman with the issue of blood, at opposite ends of the totem poles of cultural and religious circles of contact, had their lives intertwined by Jesus as the needs of both now came together at the same moment of time!
        1. Jesus took time out to address the woman's needs, Luke 8:44b-48.
        2. When she grasped Jesus' tassel, by faith she was immediately cured of her condition, Lk. 8:44b.
        3. Christ stalled to speak to her, comforting her and encouraging her publicly to reverse her previous cultural and religious suffering, Lk. 8:45-48.
        4. However, the interruption of Christ's movement toward Jairus' house had cost time, and with that cost in time had also come the cost of the life of Jairus' daughter, Lk. 8:49.
        5. Nevertheless, Jesus encouraged Jairus not to fear, but only believe, for like the woman who had just been made "whole," Jairus' daughter would likewise be "made whole," Lk. 8:48, 50. Thus, Jesus used the very expression of encouragement He had given to the cleansed woman to encourage Jairus in his time of need, mingling the two parties together in His ministry to them both!
        6. Jesus then raised Jairus' daughter, making her whole enough to be able to eat, Luke 8:51-55.
Lesson: For twelve years, God planned ahead for the mingling of the upper echelon Jairus and the lower echelon woman with the hemorrhage to have their lives interwoven in a tapestry of events, creating a marvelous unity of faith and eventual unity of fellowship around His Son, Jesus Christ. Christ is thus the Lord of all men who can unite even cultural, religious OPPOSITES in His grace!