Dying Daughters | Sunday, February 15, 2026

So it was when Jesus returned that the multitude welcomed him, for they were waiting for him. And behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was the ruler of the synagogue. And he fell down at Jesus's feet and begged him to come to his house, for he had an only daughter of about 12 years of age, and she was dying. But as Jesus went, the multitude thronged him. Now a woman, having a flow of blood for 12 years, who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any, came from behind. And she touched the border of Jesus's garment, and immediately her flow of blood stopped. And Jesus said, Who touched me?... And he said to her, Daughter, be of good cheer. Your faith has made you well. Go in peace. (Luke 8:40-48)

When God seems to stop for someone else and overlook you, this passage reframes reality—and the hope it offers a hopeless world.

A Difficult Text

The passage before us this morning is one of the difficult texts of the Gospels. It isn't difficult because it's doctrinally hard. There's no hard-to-parse linguistic construction, no difficult grammatical issue, no riddle to solve, no hard saying to wrestle with. This passage is difficult because it has a way of stirring deep hurts over delays and losses in our own lives. Those can be the most challenging passages, because they confront us with the very difficult things we face.

The fact is we live in a broken and fallen world, and every one of us will at some point be confronted with difficulty. We live in a difficulty-suppressing society, privileged to keep at arm's length a lot of the challenges many people throughout history and across the world face today. But there's no way to live a storm-free life. And even if you escape the worst of suffering yourself, you will be confronted with it in the life of someone you love.

The Hate-Theist

More than ten years ago I was at a gym, talking with an acquaintance I knew to be an avowed atheist. He'd made it clear before that he didn't believe in God and didn't want to talk about it, so our conversations stayed surfacy. But that day he said, "You know, I used to believe in God." I asked what happened. He said, "My dad died of cancer. I prayed he would be healed, and he wasn't."

What I've discovered is that many people who don't believe in God didn't arrive there by reasoning through the evidence for naturalism. A friend of mine calls them not atheists but hate-theists—they're angry at God. And maybe they have reason to be, because something happened in their life and God didn't show up at the time or in the way they expected.

The thought process goes like this: if God were all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful, then He should have done X, Y, or Z in my situation. Since He didn't, He either does not know, does not care, does not have the power—or He just doesn't exist. This passage is difficult precisely because it reminds us that sometimes God doesn't show up in the way we think He should, for the right people at the right time in the right way, according to my right understanding of everything.

A Desperate Father

When Jesus returned, He had just come back across the Sea of Galilee from Gadara, where He delivered the demon-possessed man whose legion was cast into the swine. The farmers asked Him to leave, so He returned, probably to Capernaum, His base of operations and the hometown of Peter, Andrew, James, and John.

The multitudes welcomed Him, and immediately He was greeted by a pleading man named Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue—something like a pastor. In a Jewish community where ten adult men with families were required to fund a synagogue and support a ruler, Jairus was a highly valued, well-respected, well-to-do man. Everybody in Capernaum knew who he was. I've stood in the ruins of that synagogue, the most prominent in northwest Galilee, just a stone's throw from what is believed to be Peter's house.

Now this respected man casts himself down at Jesus's feet and begs Him. This is not the position you'd normally see someone like Jairus, but you will do desperate things in a desperate situation. He made a scene and didn't care. He put aside his worries about what people would think—which is hard for us, because about the worst thing we can imagine is embarrassment. We'll do almost anything to avoid it. But his only daughter, about twelve years old, was dying, and his social standing went out the window.

Sought Only in Desperation

Every parent here can relate to Jairus's desperation. We don't know how long his daughter had been sick; it doesn't matter. Now it's an emergency, and in an emergency all bets are off. For more than fifteen years I've served as a chaplain with the Escondido Fire Department, and I've seen this desperation firsthand. When a call comes in involving a child, the firefighters move extra fast. Any firefighter will tell you the calls that weigh on them are the ones where they still remember the cry of a mother.

Here is point number one: Jesus is frequently sought only in the most desperate of situations. There are more than a few of you here who came to Christ for the first time because of a desperate situation. Sometimes that's the only time we seek Him—when He's our last call.

And I'm grateful that when that moment came, Jesus didn't say to Jairus, "Where were you six months ago?" The synagogue at Capernaum was the very place where leaders conspired to trap Jesus over the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath. Jairus might have been part of that. Yet Jesus doesn't rebuke last-resort prayers and slow faith. Isn't that good news? Because of that, He immediately goes with Jairus toward his home.

A Traffic Jam in an Emergency

But as He went, the multitudes thronged Him—pressing in upon Him. Time was of the essence, and things slowed to a crawl. Imagine Jairus, with everything moving in slow motion, and now a traffic jam. You need to get somewhere now and you hit every red light; the whole way is stop and go.

Then it gets worse. A woman with a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her livelihood on physicians, came from behind. This was not merely a medical condition; it was a social standing issue. According to the Levitical law, a woman in this condition had to report it to the synagogue authorities, and she was rendered ceremonially unclean. She couldn't go to the synagogue or be in normal social environments. Can you imagine living with that shame for twelve years?

Note the detail: Jairus's daughter is twelve years old, and this woman has suffered twelve years. That's not an accident. She touched the border of Jesus's garment—the word refers to the tassels Orthodox Jews wore on their garments to represent the law. It reminds us Jesus was Jewish, really Jewish. And immediately her flow of blood stopped. What the physicians could not do, the Great Physician did.

"Who Touched Me?"

Put yourself in her place: twelve years ostracized, an outcast, and in a moment she knows she's healed. The exuberant joy is instantly destroyed when Jesus stops and says, "Who touched me?" Everything turns to terror. She's surrounded by people touching Him, yet He knows someone touched Him with intent. She isn't even supposed to be there—she's unclean, making everyone she touches unclean, including Him.

She had probably planned this moment: when there's a crowd and He's on the move, that will be my opportunity. She came covertly, touched the hem, was instantly healed, and wanted only to fade back into the crowd. No one ever had to know. But He says, "Somebody touched me, for I perceived power going out from me."

Now picture this from Jairus's perspective. You're the parent in the passenger seat of the ambulance, your only child in the back, going code three to the hospital—and the paramedic says, "Starbucks. I could use a coffee." Jairus is destroyed. We don't have time for this; my daughter is dying. This is point number two: Jesus is frequently thronged by desperate seekers with desperate situations. Jairus didn't have time for it. But Jesus did.

Why Did He Expose Her?

When the woman saw she was not hidden, she came trembling and fell down before Him—the same words used of Jairus—and declared in front of everyone why she had touched Him. Matthew tells us her thought: "If only I touch the hem of his garment, I will be made well." It was a somewhat superstitious faith, but Jesus didn't chastise it. Instead He said, "Daughter, be of good cheer. Your faith has made you well. Go in peace."

But why out her? Why not let her slip quietly away? Twenty years ago I heard my friend David Guzik teach on this passage, and what he shared has stuck with me. Jesus exposed her, first, so the woman would know she was healed, without any lingering doubt. Second, so others would know she was healed and could be received back into the community. Third, so she would know why she was healed—not by touching His garment, but by faith. Fourth, so she would not think she had stolen a blessing He was unwilling to give; He is willing.

Fifth, He wanted to encourage Jairus's faith—it's no accident He called this woman "daughter." Jairus was seeking a miracle for his daughter, and here Jesus heals another daughter. And sixth, He wanted to bless her in a special way with that very word: she is no longer an outsider, no longer an outcast. That word filled her with immense rejoicing. But the same word tore at Jairus's heart and shattered it into ten million pieces.

"Your Daughter Is Dead"

Just then Jairus feels a tap on the shoulder, and someone whispers, "Your daughter is dead. Don't trouble the rabbi." The words no parent ever wants to hear. The woman overflows with joy; the crowd is in awe; and Jairus deflates.

This is where the difficulty of the passage comes. Point number three: Jesus's care for others frequently feels like neglect of me. Have you ever felt that? That's what my acquaintance at the gym felt: "I prayed and it got worse. He died." The hardest moments are when Jesus stops for someone else and seems to overlook me. Many people are angry at God today because of exactly this—they're in your family and in mine.

But when Jesus heard it, He answered Jairus: "Do not be afraid. Only believe, and she will be made well." At the house He permitted only Peter, James, John, and the parents to enter. Everyone wept and mourned, but He said, "Do not weep. She is not dead, but sleeping." And they ridiculed Him, because they knew she was dead.

Ridicule and Resurrection

I've been present on a number of occasions when someone moves from life to death, and it's an amazing, strange thing. The body is still there, still warm, the cells still moving, and yet something is gone. It's clearly different—one second breath, and then breath becomes air. It's final.

Point number four: apart from faith, the words and ways of Jesus can seem ridiculous. There are many things in Scripture, many things we believe, that others say to us, "You believe that?" Sometimes we're embarrassed even to admit it—and we sense their ridicule.

Jairus's daughter was dead. The people knew it. The situation was hopeless. But those are the perfect conditions for Jesus. Psalm 34 says the Lord is near to those of a broken heart. He took her by the hand and said in Aramaic, Talitha cumi—"Little girl, arise." Then her spirit returned, and she rose immediately. He commanded that she be given something to eat, and her parents were astonished—the understatement of the passage. And He charged them to tell no one what had happened.

When the Ending Isn't Happy

This is a difficult passage even though both dying daughters are raised and restored—because that's not always what happens for us. When my acquaintance told me about his father's death and his unanswered prayers, I could feel his pain and anger. I understood it, because it's not abnormal. Death is terrible. We hate death, and death should anger us—death angers God.

I've done dozens of funerals in twenty-seven years. The first was for a grieving mother and father who lost their boy at birth; it was just me and them in a tiny room with the remains of their child. Their marriage didn't survive, as so often happens. I've said at every funeral I've done: God never intended or desired for us to suffer death. It is not His punishment. It is the sad reality of evil—the opposite of God. He is life; apart from Him is death. He hates death, and death is a strong enemy. The promise of Scripture is that the last enemy to be destroyed will be death.

A year ago, friends lost their sixteen-year-old daughter to cancer. They did everything right, like Jairus and his wife—raised their children in the church, taught them the Scriptures, prayed with them. Hundreds of people, throughout the whole world, prayed for her, and she died. Last August my younger brother Danny died in a tragic accident. He and I had plans for this year. A little over a year ago he stood in this room, all dressed up, when I did our older brother's wedding, and I thought maybe the next wedding I'd do would be his. Instead I did his funeral. A faithful woman I've known since I was fifteen, who served on the mission field and cared for two special-needs sons, recently died of cancer. We prayed for her, and she's gone. And there are others here today with terminal diagnoses, facing prayer requests that will seem to go unanswered.

The Reframe

So how do we wrestle with this? He seems to heal others—what about me? Let me remind you: no prayer is for naught, and this life is not all there is. The last foe to be vanquished will be death.

First, Jesus is not indifferent to your pain, and He isn't annoyed by desperate prayers or too little faith. He said, "Jairus, do not be afraid, only believe." Second, Jesus is not limited by what we call "too late." Third, the message is not, "If you just believe hard enough, you'll always get a miracle." Rather, Jesus is the kind of Savior you can trust even when the outcome is not what you begged for.

That brings us to point number five: our desperate situations will find their ultimate resolution in eternity. Our culture has been forced into a totally naturalistic view that sees this life as the only place—and if that's true, there's every reason to be hopeless. But Jesus says reality is bigger than you think. To be absent from this body and this world is to be present with the Lord. Isaiah 53 says of the suffering servant, "by his stripes we are healed." The ultimate healing is not from an issue of blood or from cancer; it's the healing from sin and death found only in Jesus through the resurrection. Here on earth our ills are not always resolved as we think they ought to be—but in eternity they are. The last enemy to be destroyed is death (1 Corinthians 15:26).

So if today you find yourself like the woman with the issue of blood—hopeless, year after year, seeking restoration—remember that Christ is the one who says, "Daughter, be of good cheer. Your faith has made you well. Go in peace." He is the same Christ who says, "Little girl, arise." And He is the same Christ you will one day hear say, "Well done, good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of the Lord." That is the good news a hopeless world desperately needs to hear.

Closing Prayer

God, thank You for this difficult passage. I pray that You would use it to open our eyes to see a little more clearly, to understand reality as it really is—not the reality we think we understand according to our cultural awareness. Lord, open our eyes that we might see. Would You restore the joy of our salvation as we trust in You, knowing that one day death will die and we will be in Your presence, where there is no more sickness and suffering and tears, but joy and rejoicing forevermore. Thank You for this text. I pray that You'd use it as an encouragement, a source of strength, faith, and hope—a hope that does not disappoint. We praise You, Jesus. It's in Your name we pray. Amen.