The text comes from Jairus’s daughter. Jairus is a rich young ruler who has a daughter who has fallen sick, and he does the thing that only rich people really understand. He uses his strength against his weakness. If he were poor, he might not have been able to immediately get access and travel to Jesus. But when you have money, you can get to folks that poor folks can’t get to. You can get people in your Rolodex, in your phone… you know I’m old. I say, “Rolodex”. In your phone that you couldn’t get, that other people couldn’t get an appointment with in ten years. You could text ’em right now and you have access.
Jairus had access to Jesus. He could get to Jesus, and he went to Jesus and says, “My daughter’s at the point of death, and I need you to go fix it”. Nothing makes you feel weak like when your kids are hurtin’, nothin’. It is like kryptonite. And vulnerability. You feel helpless. You feel worried. He had enough money to get to Jesus, but his money wouldn’t heal. She was at the point of death, and he went for Jesus. And he gets Jesus, and Jesus immediately drops everything and he’s going to Jairus’s house. A house call from Jesus is a pretty big deal.
Now, I wrote down some things that were common between the woman and the girl because on one hand, you got this dead girl layin’ here, who’s sick and dies at 12. That’s one little girl, one generation, one reality. On the other hand, we have this woman who has been sick 12 long years. And the girl has an appointment, and the woman does not. So both cases were terminally ill. Both were in crisis mode.Both of them had no cure for what was wrong with them. Both of them were terminally ill. Both of them were locked away from normalcy.
This woman wasn’t goin’ out. She wasn’t hangin’ out with the women, washin’ clothes down at the riverbank. They weren’t hangin’ out at the women’s spa. They weren’t doin’ stuff, because sickness disconnects you from society. You don’t believe it, go up to the hospital. The people in the hospital are havin’ a whole different reality. They live in Dallas, but they don’t live in them. When you start hangin’ out in hospitals, you find a world that you’ve been drivin’ past, that you didn’t even know existed because sickness always separates you from normalcy.
Please hear what I’m sayin’ ’cause I’m sayin’ somethin’ while I’m sayin’ somethin’. Whenever there’s somethin’ sick in you, you will always isolate from other people because of your sickness, and you will live in a ward, and only feel comfortable around people who have the same disease. You wanna know what’s wrong with you? Look at your friends. See, what we want, if we can’t get change, we wanna feel comfortable. And anytime we don’t feel comfortable, we are alienated. Both of them, the woman and the girl, are shut off from the world. Watch the devil that wants to shut you off from the world because the more he shuts you off, the closer he’s comin’ in for the kill. Both of them were beyond the power of capital. They couldn’t give a command.
And Jairus’s daughter, if her father could have given a command, he would have commanded her to be healed, but he couldn’t do it. Life will always present somethin’ before you that leaves you vulnerable, that throws you off. No matter what your advantages are, you will always be tested in an area that you cannot fix by yourself. And some people would rather die alone than go for help because their pride will not allow them to admit that “this is too big for me”.
Both of them were untouchable. You see, the law said that as a Priest, Jesus couldn’t touch a bleeding woman. It would make him unclean. The woman herself was declared unclean. She was untouchable. Nobody touched her. He couldn’t touch the dead girl. He was a priest. Nobody touched this woman. This woman decided, “Whatever I have to do, whatever it takes, I’m all in. If I gotta crawl on my belly, if I have to walk up behind him, if I have to catch him while he’s lookin’ at some other woman, all I want, all I need, I don’t wanna shake his hand. I don’t need a autograph. I don’t need a selfie. If I can…”
Whoo. “Who… who? Everybody comes to church, but who..? I’m used to touchin’ people, but this time, somebody…” Everybody’s who’s not on program, everybody’s who’s not on the schedule, everybody who’s not next to get a blessing, you can either sit there and die in your own blood, or you can get radical enough to say, “Whatever it takes to get out of this condition, whatever it takes for my will to break, whatever it takes for my life to better, whatever it takes for me to be made whole, whatever it takes for me to get out of my dungeon, if I got to crawl, if I got to get down on my knees, whatever it takes, I’m all in. Whatever it…”
And then he asked this amazing question. “Who touched me? Who? You think you’re gonna get privately healed and walk away? I call you out of your shadows. I call you out of your insecurity. I call you out of your circumstance. If you’re gonna get this healin’, you’re gonna have to come out. Go thy way, daughter, thy faith has made thee whole. It wasn’t what I did that made you whole. It was what you did”. Y’all don’t hear what I’m sayin’. You’ve been waitin’ on God to do somethin’, but God is waitin’ on you to do somethin’. I don’t know who I’m talkin’ to, but whoever it is, bust a move. It’s not gonna change till you change. It’s not gonna get better till you make a move. Stop waitin’ on somethin’ to happen. Ain’t nothin’ gonna happen till you crawl out of your circumstance.
The reason I wanted to preach about this little girl, because she is the star of the text to me. I told you what was alike about ’em. Let me tell you what’s different. Whatever’s wrong with her is so bad that she has stopped reachin’ out. There comes a place in your life where things get so bad that you stop reachin’ out. And I called it “A Personal Touch” because it wouldn’t be personal if he didn’t come to the house. If it was done in church, it wouldn’t be personal. If the only experience you have with God is in your church, then you don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus.
But maybe Jesus could say, “Well, that’s not my fault ’cause I didn’t even see her coming. She walked up behind me and she took it while I wasn’t looking”. But this girl here, Jesus now breaks a law… because he regards people more than principles. Some of you watchin’ right now, you are so principled, you got so many rules, you got so many orders, you got so many thou shalts and thou shalt nots that you’re willing to kill people to keep your principles, and you do it in the name of a Jesus who broke the principle to save the person. Whatever it takes.
He is everything that she is not. He is up. She is down. He is right. She is wrong. He is clean. She is filthy. He is living. She is dead. And through no goodness of her own, no effort of her own, no movement of her own, she is totally lifeless and listless and helpless. The message I was called to preach today is for somebody who’s stuck. You’ve been layin’ there like this girl. You’ve been layin’ there for a long time. You’ve been layin’ a victim of your own problem. It has robbed you of relationships. It has thrown you behind on your schedule. You should have been further. You should have been higher. You should have done more, but you are layin’ there, and you cannot get up. “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up. Help, I’m down here and I can’t get up. Help, I’m bleeding and I can’t get up. Help, I’m silent and I can’t get up”.
And the one that everybody thought was dead, the one that everybody thought would never be nothin’, the one that everybody thought would never get up again, the one that everybody thought her future was over, the one that everybody thought she was down, never to be seen again, he said… “Damsel, arise”. I speak to every dead thing in this building. I speak to every dead circumstance. I speak to every vision unfulfilled, every promise that has never gotten up, everything that died before its time. I command you, in the name of Jesus, to get up, in the name of Jesus. Give him a praise right now.