And, behold, there came a man named Jairus--
Christ and the ruler
“And behold there came one of the rulers unto Him.
” This shows us the helplessness of the greatest men. The Word ruler indicates position, influence, power, personal supremacy of one kind or another. And yet here is a ruler coming to Jesus Christ for help. There is a point at which all human might becomes utter weakness. We should have said if any man can do without Christ it will be the man who bears the position and sustains the name of ruler. What is our rulership but a mockery in all the great crises and trying passions and terrible combinations of life? A very pretty thing for convenience sake, useful in a social point of view; but when life is driven to extremity, our rulership is nothing better to us than a nominal honour, and sometimes nothing more than a taunting mockery. Know this, then, that there is no title, no position, no supremacy that can cut you off from the fountain of life and make you independent of Emanuel, Son of God. And said unto Him, My daughter lieth at the point of death--showing us the helplessness of the kindest men. The man before us was not only a ruler, but a father; yet ruler and father were found at the feet of Christ. Kindness will do more than mere power. A father will always do more than a ruler. The ruler will work by law, by stipulations, by technical covenants, he will consult the letter of the regulations, and he will abide by the bond. But the father will interpret by his heart; he will avail himself of all the suggestions of love; he cannot be bound by the narrowness and limitations of the letter; he does not work by the clock, he works by his heart. Yet the father, the kindest man, came, as well as the ruler, the greatest man. Office and nature, position and life, status and love, will one day have to come to Jesus Christ to make out their petitions and to urge their cases--for even the deepest, grandest, royalest heart feels that it wants something beyond itself, and that something it can only find in Emanuel, Son of God. And it is often not until the ruler and the father have exhausted themselves that they will come to Christ. This ruler was never so truly a ruler as when he fell on his knees and besought Christ to help him. There is an abasement that is exaltation. There is a humility that is the guarantee of the surest independence: (J. Parker, D. D.)
The faith of Jairus
If Jairus had not been quite sure that Jesus could save her, could he have left his daughter in the very article of death to seek Him out? We may be sure that nothing short of an absolute conviction of Christ’s power to heal and save would have drawn Jairus from his daughter’s room. His faith had its reward. No sooner had he uttered his prayer than Jesus set out with him. But as they went, Jesus paused. Favoured by the darkness and by the throng which opened and closed about Him, “a woman having an issue of blood,” &c. (Luke 8:43), came behind Him, and laid her wasted hand on the hem of His garment with a touch that drew healing virtue out of Him. To Jairus, at least at first, this pause must have seemed an almost intolerable vexation. Every moment was precious. Even the apostles, long after this, thought there was hope for Lazarus so long as he was only sick, but none when once he was gone. We cannot suppose that the faith of Jairus was keener than that of Peter and James and John. To him, therefore, this check must have appeared well-nigh fatal to his hopes. The calmness of Jesus, His determination to probe the case to the bottom, to discover who it was that had touched Him, to compel the abashed culprit to tell the whole story of her disease and cure, to teach and comfort and assure her--all this must have been a sore trial to the father’s faith. Yet he is too generous, or too self-restrained, to utter a reproach, to urge haste. The delay had teaching for him and benediction. However he may have fretted at it, it brought him the very lesson and help he most needed. The healing of Veronica taught him that, though many throng and press on Jesus, the only touch that reaches Him is the touch of faith. When, too, he saw a woman healed who had been sick “twelve years,” that is, just as many years as his daughter had lived, must not that have enlarged his conception of the healing virtue of Jesus? must it not, by teaching him how great things faith can do, have strengthened and confirmed his faith. But as faith is the measure of the gift, as we receive just as much as we can take, this delay, by confirming and enlarging the ruler’s faith, made him capable of a larger blessing. As he passed on with Christ, after witnessing so great a miracle, he must, we think, have walked with a firmer step, and have lifted up his head with a more cheerful hope. It was necessary that he should be prepared for a great trial as well as for a great benediction. For his fears were verified. His daughter had died while they stopped to talk with the woman who bad laid a furtive hand on the Healer’s robe. And if by this time Jairus had not had a stronger faith than when he left home, he must have altogether lest faith. One other trial had still to be encountered. To hear of a death affects and awes the mind; but to stand in the presence of death, encompassed by all the signs of mourning and woe, bites more deeply, and rouses the emotions to greater vehemence. “ The child is not dead,” said Jesus, “but sleepeth.” How could He say that the maiden was not dead? Simply because it was true. We are no more without life when we die than when we sleep. Whether Jairus understood our Lord’s saying or not, it is obvious that the mourners did not understand it. “They laughed Him to scorn.” Their scepticism assures us of the reality of the miracle. If they knew the maiden to be dead, we know that Jesus must be able to quicken the dead to life. (S. Cox, D. D.)
We are apt to look upon the healing of the woman with the issue of blood as an interruption of the history of the raising of the daughter of Jairus; as a separate and distinct incident altogether. But there is in reality the closest connection between the two events. They are brought together by all the evangelists, not only because they occurred at the same time and in the same association, but because they help to explain one another. The two miracles fit in a striking way into each other.
1. The beginning of the woman’s plague was coeval with the maiden’s birth.
2. Is not the character of Jairus brought out clearly into contrast with that of the woman? We see the stronger faith of the woman, content with the minimum of means, and the weaker and more irresolute faith of Jairus which needed personal recognition and the support of sympathizing words, which demanded that Jesus should visit his daughter, and could not compass the thought that He could heal at a distance, and restore when the vital spark had fled.
3. Jairus needed the discipline of the woman’s cure. It prepared him for the miracle that was to be wrought for himself. (H. Macmillan, D. D.)