Matthew 9:18

Matthew THE TOUCH OF FAITH AND THE TOUCH OF CHRISTMatthew 9:18-31 . The three miracles included in the present section belong to the last group of this series. Those of the second group were all effected by Christ’s word. Those now to be considered are all effected by touch. The first two are intertwined. The narrative of the healing of the woman is embedded in the account of the raising of Jairus’s daughter. Mark the impression of calm consciousness of power and leisurely dignity produced by Christ’s having time to pause, even on such an errand, in order to heal, by the way, the other sufferer. The father and the disciples would wonder at Him as He stayed His steps, and be apt to feel that priceless moments were being lost; but He knows His own resources, and can afford to let the child die while He heals the woman. The one shall receive no harm by the delay, and the other will be blessed. Our Lord is sitting at the feast which Matthew gave on the occasion of his call, engaged in vindicating His sharing in innocent festivity against the cavils of the Pharisees, when the summons to the death-bed comes to Him from the lips of the father, who breaks in on the banquet with his imploring cry. Matthew gives the story much more summarily than the other evangelists, and does not distinguish, as they do, between Jairus’s first words, ‘at the point of death, and the message of her actual decease, which met them on the way.

The call of sorrow always reaches Christ’s ear, and the cry for help is never deemed by Him an interruption. So this ‘man, gluttonous and a wine-bibber,’ as these Pharisees thought Him, willingly and at once leaves the house of feasting for that of mourning. How near together, in this awful life of ours, the two lie, and how thin the partition walls! Well for those whose feasts do not bar them out from hearing the weeping next door. As the crowd accompanies Jesus, His hasting love is, for a moment, diverted by another sufferer. We never go on an errand of mercy but we pass a hundred other sorrowing hearts, so close packed lie the griefs of men. This woman is a poor shrinking creature, broken down by long illness {which had lasted for the same length of time as the joyous life of Jairus’s child}, made more timid by disappointed hopes of cure, and depressed by poverty to which her many doctors had brought her. She does not venture to stop this new Rabbi-physician, as He goes with the church dignitary of the town to heal his daughter, but lets Him pass before she can make up her mind to go near Him; and then she comes creeping up behind the crowd, puts out her wasted, trembling hand to the hem of His garment,-and she is whole. The other evangelists give us a more extended account, but Matthew throws into prominence, in his condensed narrative, the essential points. Notice her real but imperfect faith.