Waiting Our Turn
Or
Touched After Twelve Years
Sunday March 29, 2020
Scripture To Consider:
“Now a woman having a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any, came from behind and touched the border of Jesus’ garment. And immediately her flow of blood stopped. And Jesus said, ‘Who touched Me?’ When all denied it, Peter and those with Him said, ‘Master, the multitudes throng and press You, and You say, “Who touched Me?”’ But Jesus said, ‘Somebody touched Me, for I perceived power going from Me.’”
“Now when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before Jesus, she declared to Him in the presence of all the people the reason she had touched Him and how she was healed immediately. And He said to her, ‘Daughter, be of good cheer; your faith has made you well. Go in peace.’” Luke 8.43-48
Something To Consider:
As Jesus and Jairus along with a multitude of thronging people made their way toward Jairus’ home, where an only daughter of twelve years old was dying and awaited healing or death, Jesus’ garment was touched. It was not the touch of a thronging crowd. It was a faith filled touch of a most desperate woman that released healing power from the person of Jesus. And with one healing touch by this woman, Jairus’ hopes of his twelve-year-old daughter being healed were put on hold while his patience was put to the test.
The Psalmist, speaking on behalf of God wrote in Psalm 46.10 these inspirational and instructional words to all who are forced to wait; “Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” So, Jairus was still and waited his turn. What would have been our response?
Last week we quoted from James chapter 5 concerning patience and our waiting for Jesus. James further instructed all who have ears to hear in James 5.10, in the King James version; “Take, my brethren, the prophets [Old Testament men of God] who have spoken [and written] in the name of the Lord, for [or as] an example of suffering affliction, and of patience.”
As of the final editing of this lesson of a lifetime today, Saturday morning March 28, 2020, 5:32 a.m.; 27,365 people worldwide have died due to the coronavirus. I awoke this morning to these online headlines; “One Of America’s Worst Weeks Draws To A Close”. The article declared that 3.3 million people in America have lost their jobs and means of providing for their families.
When this week began, the United States had 30,000 confirmed cases of the evil illness within its borders. By sunset Friday the caseload had increased to 100,000, now more than any other country on the planet. Does God have our undivided attention yet? Are our leaders ready, willing, and able to declare our very existence may be in the hands of a most merciful and gracious Almighty God?
Biblical Christianity is about suffering, affliction, tribulation, and patient enduring to the end. If any so-called religious leader attempts to instruct you or me otherwise, let him be labeled as a heretic or false teacher at best. And according to Jesus and New Testament writers the number of false teachers and false prophets will significantly rise in these last days. And do not expect them all to be within the walls of the church!
Something Else To Consider:
According to the law in Leviticus 15, this issue of blood caused this woman to be ceremonially unclean and an outcast of society, due to something beyond her control. Though she had seen many physicians in the long and lonely twelve years that she had suffered, she was no better even having spent all of her life savings.
Mark, in his gospel record of this event, said she not only did not become better, but rather grew worse. All of her money spent to no avail and therefore drained of all her resources, this medical misfortune was also draining the very life blood out of her body. She was desperate to touch Jesus!
Have we ever been drained of our resources to the point that we too reached out in desperation as if to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment? Or have we become too so-called sophisticated, too so-called intellectual, or just too deceived by human psychology or so-called higher worldly education? When all else failed, this unnamed woman made her way to Jesus and by faith received her healing from her touching Jesus.
This end time virus and others that will rear their ugly heads before Christ returns, are not the worst thing America and the world has ever faced. Every hour of every day of every generation since the healing of the women with the issue of blood, the real enemy of our souls is attempting to steal, kill, destroy, and or misdirect our attention away from the biblical fact that we must be spiritually born-again before leaving planet earth through the portal of death. Therefore, have we made our truly final arrangements?
Something More To Consider:
This seemingly unimportant, energy drained, unclean by religious law, lonely woman, had one last hope, to touch the hem of the garment of Jesus. How could one touch alter or reverse the damage of twelve years of misery? She had nothing to lose and everything to gain by touching Jesus. So, she did! And so, she heard the words, “Daughter, be of good cheer; your faith has made you well. Go in peace.”
Jesus called her daughter, no longer an outcast, no longer removed from society, but now a daughter touched after twelve years of pain and an extremely powerless life. How many people from one generation to another have lived and are living as prisoners to situations beyond their control and in need of touching Jesus? Why wait, for today may be our turn! But what about Jairus and his twelve-year old dying daughter? What about all the others down through the centuries who have and are still waiting their turn to be healed?
Is Romans 8.28 truly applicable in our everyday lives? “And we [true enduring to the end believers in Jesus] know that all things [not some things, not a few things, not most things, but all things] work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His [God’s] purpose.” Has this worldwide pandemic caused us to examine our own lives in the light of the Word of God? And if not, why not!
This woman with the issue of blood more than likely had prayed for years for her healing, with apparently no humanly favorable answer to her prayers. Can we relate in any way with her dilemma? Can we relate in any way to Jairus having to wait patiently for Jesus consoling this one-time distraught but now delivered daughter of God? This women’s patient waiting and her enduring to the end of her suffering has now been used as an example to both Jairus and to every generation since including those of us of this 21st century generation.
A Few Final Words:
Can we better relate to this woman, who has suffered over a decade with a physical issue of losing blood? Or can we better relate to Jairus, whose only daughter of twelve years is slipping into eternity through the portal of death? Hebrews 11.1 states, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen.” What would have happened to this women’s faith had she not been healed as hoped for? We will now never know!
What would have happened to Jairus’ faith if his daughter had died? We will now never know! But, the more important question is, what will happen if we enter eternity through the portal of death and our prayer for physical healing is seemingly not answered as we would have hoped? What we do know from James 1.3 is, “The trying of our faith works [or produces] patience.”
And according to Psalm 37.9; “Those who wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth.” In other words, whether our prayers are answered as we have desired or on the time schedule we have imagined, as enduring to the end true believers we will rule and reign on the earth with Christ during the millennial kingdom! And no amount of earthly suffering, affliction, or tribulation will diminish God’s eternal plan for our lives.
Faith is believing in the goodness of God when faced on all fronts by so much suffering, and yet, the end result is our leaving the scene in peace. “And He said to her, ‘Daughter, be of good cheer; your faith has made you well. Go in peace.’” How will we leave this earth and its sufferings, trials, afflictions, and end time tribulations? Let us heed the words of Jesus, “Go in peace.”
In the meantime, what is it that is most important to us? Is it our desperately clinging to this brief life here on planet earth, or is it our enduring to the end personal commitment to holiness in and through an up to date personal relationship with God in and through Jesus Christ? Are our many sins forgiven and cleansed by way of the precious blood of Jesus. Are our minds being washed and renewed daily by the water of the Word of God?
If these things are not of more priority than the stopping of this renegade virus, then we as individuals, and as a nation, and as a world, have much to consider!
Prayer:
Our Father in heaven, teach us to live by faith in the face of suffering, limited resources, and our search for the true meaning of this life. Teach us to touch Jesus while waiting our turn to be in a moment of time in your presence. In Him Always, Amen!
According to Jesus 