the miracles of Luke 8

The last half of chapter 8 in the Gospel of Luke we see two miracles. Two amazing events that mark Jesus as God, as all-powerful and awesome. They also tell the tale of the Gospel.

The two miracles are the raising of a man's daughter and the healing of a woman with an outflow of blood.

Jairus' daughter was sick and dying. He approached Jesus to ask for her healing and Christ obliged. They began to make their way to Jairus' home.

Along the way, in the midst of a great crowd, a woman reaches out and touches the hem of Jesus garment hoping to be cured from a twelve year affliction. She had been ceremoniously unclean for all that time. Unable to truly enjoy fellowship, always feeling like an outsider. At times she probably tried to hide her condition so that she could interact with her people.

At the moment she touched him she was healed and Jesus asked for her. She came forward to acknowledge what she'd done and he sent her away, telling her that it was her faith that had made her well.

Meanwhile, Jairus' daughter had died. The mourning had begun when Jesus arrived. He went into the home and called for her to wake up...and she did. She woke from the dead and her spirit returned.

It is in these two miracles that we see two great truths about the Gospel.

We must be cleansed and healed.
We must be raised from the dead.

Neither of these are things we can accomplish ourselves.

The woman tried for years to find a cure, seeking every known doctor and remedy. It was only in Christ that she found cleansing.

Jairus' daughter was truly dead, so dead that she couldn't even believe that Jesus could raise her. It took the faith of her father, someone outside herself, and Jesus to raise her.

So, too, in our lives. We need cleansing from our sin that comes only through Christ and we need to be raised from the dead according to the will of the Father and the strength of the Son.

This is the glorious Gospel. It is bound up and wrapped up in Christ and not us. What a beautiful and awesome truth shown through the miracles of Christ as told by Luke.