Two Daughters Healed: Matthew 9:18-26

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."

A synagogue leader—a man of position, respectability, religious authority—kneeling before Jesus. His daughter was dead. Not sick, not dying. Dead.

But come and put your hand on her, and she will live. The faith was extraordinary. Even death was not beyond this rabbi's power.

Jesus got up and went with him, and so did his disciples.

No hesitation. The request was impossible, and Jesus simply stood and walked toward it.

Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak.

Another interruption. A woman—unnamed, unclean, desperate. Twelve years of hemorrhaging meant twelve years of ritual impurity. She could not enter the temple, could not touch anyone without contaminating them, could not live a normal life.

She said to herself, "If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed."

If I only touch. Her faith was as remarkable as the synagogue leader's, though expressed differently. She did not ask, did not announce herself, did not seek attention. Just a brush of fingers against cloth.

Jesus turned and saw her. "Take heart, daughter," he said, "your faith has healed you."

He saw her. In the press of crowds, in the urgency of a dead girl waiting, he noticed this woman's touch. And he called her daughter—the same word the synagogue leader used for his child.

Your faith has healed you. Not the cloak, not magic in the fabric. Her faith connected her to his power.

And the woman was healed at that moment.

Twelve years of suffering, ended by one touch. Twelve years of isolation, ended by one word: daughter.

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."

The funeral had already begun. Professional mourners were wailing, flutes were playing the dirges. Death had been acknowledged and rituals commenced.

They laughed at him.

Laughed. Mocking laughter. The mourners knew death when they saw it. Who was this man to deny the obvious?

After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up.

He touched the dead body—ritual defilement, normally. But when Jesus touched death, death yielded. He took her hand, and she rose.

News of this spread through all that region.

The news could not be contained. A dead girl walked. An unclean woman was clean. Two daughters—one twelve years old, one suffering twelve years—both restored by touch and word.

The mourners who had laughed would have to find something else to say.