THE DAUGHTER OF JAIRUS

"TALITHA CUMI" ISRAEL ARISE! BARUJ HABA B'SHEM ADONAI

Carlos Padilla, March 2010

The Word of God, as always, holds deep and spiritual meanings that the Master used to teach through parables and which, even today - because it is the Living Word - the Holy Spirit opens for us, to feed from the solid food for our spirit. Once again, we are going to immerse ourselves into a story of the Gospel, where we will see that a relevant historical event additionally becomes a true lesson for our character and it also opens up another story with a different hermeneutical and eschatological level in the history of the people of God in the two Testaments, for Israel and for the Church.

We will see how the Lord is showing us the situation which the nation of Israel as a whole faced, and the religious people and Israel's spiritual leaders specifically. But, furthermore, it is a useful story for us today that teaches us that we should not be surprised to find the same situation as Jesus Christ found then, in today's nations, churches or religions, just like other Christians have faced it throughout history, according to the expression of hope of the following text: ..."Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?"... Luke 18:8.

In the spiritual view of this story we will find three characters who meet Jesus Christ: Jairus, his daughter and the sick woman with the flow of blood. These three characters are related between them in such a way that we may come to ask questions such as...Is a twelve-year old girl - the age when she is to become a woman and start her cycle - related to the sick woman with the flow of blood also for twelve years? or ... what does it represent and what does the Lord want to teach us when we see Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, and his daughter, in the relation that he sees himself forced to experience in this story with a woman who is sick with flow of blood, a woman considered to be unclean, according to Leviticus 15:25 (because she was unclean for as long as her customary impurity custom of women, and if she had a discharge flow for longer, she was unclean during all that time, and so she was for twelve years)? This is how the religious leaders, from their position, saw people, as it is also confirmed by this expression from the scribes: ...

" ⁴⁹But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed."...John 7:49.

Jesus shows us the true way of looking at people, beyond the Law, through mercy and God's love, which Jairus would learn soon by experiencing how the Messiah, Yahshua, the Son of God, showed no partiality for people as long as they had faith, as it was the case of the woman who touched the hem of His garment.

The sick woman is a symbol of the people, of the nation that does not have a direct relationship with the synagogue, as it may happen with the church today, because the people are stigmatized by them as if they had no chance of receiving God's grace. The woman also represents any soul that is spiritually sick, which in this Text is compared to a woman who does not ovulate properly, she is not allowed to reproduce, and under the spiritual view we can understand that she is not allowed to be born again in her spirit, until she receives the faith that changes her mind and heart, which had been dead to the love of God in her life, and that faith and repentance make her receive healing from Jesus Christ, attracted by His mercy and truth for having listened to Jesus Christ, Yahshua, whom she receives in her soul.

Jesus Christ heals both women, one of them recovers her reproductive health and the girl resurrects through faith and she will be able to have children. In both cases, and under the spiritual vision, to have children of the Spirit. Both of them are also the same religion understood from two different points of view and they are also the same soul of a nation that is dead to the Spirit of the Lord, hardhearted through their tradition - like so many nations nowadays - where the woman is the body, Israel or any nation, the daughter is the soul of that nation, its synagogue, its Church, and Jairus is the doctrine and the spirit that finally surrenders to the Lord in His coming, falling at His feet, leaving the old leaven of tradition. As Jesus says to the Pharisees and scribes: ...He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition..." Mark 7:9.

Jairus is a holy man from the religious people who represents Judaism and their religion, the religion of the Lord in the Old Testament, The Torah. The daughter of Jairus is the Law of Moses, his religious project that dies in its tradition when Jesus Christ arrives, because the Messiah is the one who saves through the new covenant in His Blood. The girl, the daughter of Jairus, resurrects when his father acknowledges that Yahshua is the Messiah. This is an allegory and a prophetic advance of what will happen at the end of times, which we already see, and is prophesized in Romans 11: The Jews are resurrected when their religion acknowledges Jesus Christ - Yahshua - as the Messiah, calling Him to resurrect their daughter, dead for 2000 years, resurrected when Jesus enters the house, Jerusalem, Zion, only when the time comes; the time when the nation of Israel will be softened to receive Yahshua the Messiah, when they are surrounded by every nation and they cry out to the Lord at their imminent destruction in the battle of Armageddon, Revelation 16:16.

Also, when we see that his daughter dies, it represents the death of the renowned members of a congregation, whether it may be a synagogue or a church, where they all gather to worship the Lord but they have their trust on religious traditions, in their belonging to the "true congregation" which - needless to say - is the one they belong to (condemning all others that do not follow it) and trusting their own justice, therefore they die spiritually if they do not place Jesus Christ in first place. Thus, many leaders of the official religion, with all their power and authority, they cannot resurrect spiritually the people of the Lord or heal the nation, i.e.: scribes and Pharisees or popes, bishops and the clergy of the "holy inquisition", some protestant leaders and any radical fundamentalist pastor or any sectarian in churches today and many who walk on their own in the ways of their own mind; they all share the same charateristic: they sear the conscience of the simple ones, condemning, accusing and judging without mercy and loading them with burdens which they don't even dare touch with their finger.

 ¹ Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, ² “Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.”³ He answered and said to them, “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? ⁴ For God commanded, saying, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ ⁵ But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to God”— ⁶ then he need not honor his father or mother.’ Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. ⁷ Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: ⁸ ‘ These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.⁹ And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” Matthew 15.

From these teachings and examples which the heads or rulers of the synagogue is where the behaviour shown in the following text arises:

³ But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, ⁴ that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly. Matthew 6. Does it sound familiar to you?

Another confirmation in the Scriptures of the fact that our Lord looks for our heart further beyond the fulfillment of the Law as such for our justification, is Moses himself, whom God does not allow to enter into the promised land, Deuteronomy 34:4, He only allows him to see it, which means that the Law of God is fulfilled when we receive Jesus Christ in spirit and truth, because He is spiritually superior, because He is the Promised Land and the Kingdom of God in person. Paul also confirms it: ...Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?. Galatians 3:2.

The three characters in this bible story acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ, who holds out His hand to them, opens His heart and does not reject those to come to Him in humbleness, who forgives the sinner man and woman who repent. The Lord receives the sick nation in the woman with the flow of blood. The Lord receives Jairus, symbol of the religious leader who sees how his tradition does not have sufficient spiritual height, which stops him from feeding the congregation spiritually, neither does it have the power of the Lord. And the Lord receives the people of God that dies because it has not received the teaching of salvation through faith, without the works of the Law - represented in the daughter of Jairus - resurrecting it: "talitha cumi", raising the Church until His coming, the people of God, from every people and every nation who come to the Lord with faith, whom Israel will receive at the end of times.

BIBLE TEXT

LUKE 8:40, MATTHEW 9:18 and MARK 5:21.

 ⁴⁰ So it was, when Jesus returned, that the multitude welcomed Him, for they were all waiting for Him. ⁴¹ And behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue. And he fell down at Jesus’ feet and begged Him to come to his house, ⁴² for he had an only daughter about twelve years of age, and she was dying.

The faith that we see in Jairus is a symbol of the faith that every one who believes in the Son God has, who believes in His healing power but also in the fact that He is the Messiah, although some may doubt this and think that Jairus was only looking for Jesus Christ to heal his daughter, just like he would have looked for anybody else who could heal. In the text below, we will see how the woman with the issue of blood breaks in, and she also represents this man. The flesh of Jairus, the soul of Jairus and the spirit of Jairus. A story that runs parallel to that of Lazarus, Martha and Mary.

But as He went, the multitudes thronged Him. ⁴³ Now a woman, having a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any, ⁴⁴ came from behind and touched the border of His garment. And immediately her flow of blood stopped. ⁴⁵ And Jesus said, “Who touched Me?” When all denied it, Peter and those with him said, “Master, the multitudes throng and press You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’”⁴⁶ But Jesus said, “Somebody touched Me, for I perceived power going out from Me.” ⁴⁷ Now when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before Him, she declared to Him in the presence of all the people the reason she had touched Him and how she was healed immediately.⁴⁸ And He said to her, “Daughter, be of good cheer; your faith has made you well. Go in peace.”
 

The woman snatches the blessing of the Lord, she comes to Christ and obtains the blessing before Jairus does for his daughter. This situation must have been a proof of faith and patience for a man of God like Jairus, who saw how his daughter's life, that was dependant on the Master, had to wait for a woman of the lay people who was unclean, who could not be compared to the daughter of a ruler of the synagogue. The Lord was demolishing all of Jairus' preconceptions, even though Jairus had already come to the Lord in humbleness and prostration, one would expect that his daughter, a young girl, who was also the daughter of a rabbi of the people, would have been a priority. Nevertheless, Jesus Christ stops, delays Himself, spends His time dealing with the woman with the time and love that she required, showing His compassion, piety and mercy for her, whom she blesses with the love of God and salvation, that is open to every soul throughout the times, through faith.

Once the episode with the woman is over, they continue their way to Jairus' house, but...⁴⁹ While He was still speaking, someone came from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him, “Your daughter is dead. Do not trouble the Teacher.”

Surely now it is when Jairus must have felt his heart leaping. His daughter could have been healed by Jesus, had it not been because of that woman's fault, and now his daughter was dead. ⁵⁰ But when Jesus heard it, He answered him, saying, “Do not be afraid; only believe, and she will be made well.”

Immediately, we see the mercy of Jesus Christ understanding the pain that Jairus must feel, and knowing that the Lord would heal her - something that was still not obvious for Jairus - He comforts him and asks him to have faith.

⁵¹ When He came into the house, He permitted no one to go in except Peter, James, and John, and the father and mother of the girl. ⁵² Now all wept and mourned for her; but He said, “Do not weep; she is not dead, but sleeping.” ⁵³ And they ridiculed Him, knowing that she was dead. ⁵⁴ But He put them all outside, took her by the hand and called, saying, "Thalita cumi" “Little girl, arise.” ⁵⁵ Then her spirit returned, and she arose immediately. And He commanded that she be given something to eat. ⁵⁶ And her parents were astonished, but He charged them to tell no one what had happened.

We can only imagine the joy of Jairus and his wife at having their only daughter alive again, healed and safe. The Lord had really made a relevant miracle that would make this family be remembered throughout history. We was, no doubt, a man of faith, that the Lord had made him grow in the faith through the suffering of the loss of his beloved daughter, his only daughter, so that he would understand to what extent the Lord loves His people, and expects us to love our brethren. Jairus, as ruler of the synagogue, would never again treat his neighbour the same way he did before this life-transforming experience; on the contrary, everybody would see a new man in him, with a new heart, full of mercy and piety, a real rabbi of Israel who has believed in Yahshua, the true Messiah, the Son of the God of Israel and human kind.

Israel is the twelve year old girl, the only daughter of her father, a symbol of the Lord and the Church, the Israel of God, the only people that God has, made up of born-again Jews and Gentiles, a people that is dead unless they have Christ. The people of God, unless they receive the spiritual maturity which is Christ, cannot become a woman, wife, the Church that can conceive children of the spirit when mature, and the Church can through the Gospel, that is the God's seed in our heart.

SYNAGOGUE AND CHURCH AND OUR OWN SOUL

The Synagogue is the equivalent of the church (the place itself) where brethren meet. Synagogue is a greek term, not a hebrew one, even though this is how it is translated in the Old Testament in many Bibles, to make it easier to understand. In the times of the Lord there were synagogues or "Houses of Gathering", not individual's homes like the first Christians used - and keep using them until present times. Once we study the history of the synagogue we can see that the way it is governed is very similar - some would say identical - to the congregational system. They used to meet on Saturdays, and two days during the week, the second and the fifth one.

In the same city there were many different congregations, different synagogues, but they all used to share the same book, just like it is done in churches today. They had the Torah; us, Christians, have the Bible, that includes the Torah. The synagogues were governed by a group of elders, like churches, known as rulers, like Jairus, and depending on the number of members they had one or more ruler. They are the equivalent of a pastor or elder in a church. The rulers of the synagogue were brethren of the congregation, but usually amongst the members there were also priests (although it was not necessary) as well as scribes and Pharisees.

Rulers like Jairus were responsible for organizing the reading of the Word of God, prayer, the teaching of the Law of God and the interpretation of the Torah. They imposed the punishments for unfulfilling it, discussed the issues of the community, the politics of their people, even though they submitted themselves to the law and rules of the country wherever they lived, etc. Jairus, who knew by his own first-person experience the power and the authority of a ruler of the people of God, provides us with a major apologetic value acknowledging the superiority of Jesus Christ, His power and His signs, how He healed in the name of the Lord and being Jewish (who do not seek after wisdom  "because they have the Lord's in the Torah", but signs from above), acknowledges the authority of the Messiah as the Anointed of the Lord because they, the ruler, the rabbis of the synagogue did not have the authority of the heavenly places, that is, of the spiritual religion which Jesus Christ masters, and falls at the feet of the Messiah begging for mercy and healing for his daughter knowing that He has an authority above his own and even that of the Holy Priest.

The case of Jairus and his synagogue repeats itself in every church that thinks they are alive because of their congregational ministry, but no they are not, they live through the Spirit of Christ, with an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ alive. We are, our soul, the daughter of every man or woman of the Lord who belongs to His Body in each ministry, and the people of the Lord as well as a whole as congregation, we need Him, who tells us "talitha cumi" arise, Israel, and walk in the way of Jesus Christ the Messiah, Yahshua HaMashiaj the same way as every church must rise and walk hand in hand with Jesus Christ to touch the hem of His garment so that there is power going out from Him over us.

Indeed, each and every one of us are the girl, our soul, and if our soul lives according to its own judgment and its own interpretation of the Bible and life, it dies, and Jesus Christ says to our soul "talitha cumi" so that we arise from the darkness of our individualist mind and we are enlightened by the love of Christ like Jairus, because this is the meaning of his name (Jairus: The Lord enlightens, he enlightens), since we are temples of the Holy Spirit, each and every one of us individually, additionally to when two or three are gathered in His name or with the whole congregation, church or messianic synagogue, or with all the congregations in large events of praise and evangelization, Christians as well as Messianic Jews.

Therefore, let us not forget the consequence of the famous "talitha cumi": ...³⁹ for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Baruch Haba B'shem Adonai" "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’”  Matthew 23:39.

The result of Israel not receiving the Lord is that they were dispersed around the world and the gospel was preached to the Gentiles, as we can read in Romans 10. But, as Paul teaches - being a Jew, Pharisee and a radical enemy of the Church, just like many of them still are in present times, converted by God to Christ throwing him from his horse to the ground and in vision and sign of the God of Israel,  leaving him blinded for three days, which is also what God will do with the Jews at the end of times, which is why Paul, having received sight - and now not only physical sight but also spiritual one - reminds us of the love he feels for his nation, that is blind and dead to the Holy Spirit but by which the Lord has given us through the ones who congregate as synagogue...to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; ⁵ of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen. Romans 9. Therefore, let us pray for the peace of Jerusalem and the nation of Israel in the name of Jesus Christ, Yahshua the Messiah.

SOME OF THE LEADERS OF ISRAEL WHO RECEIVED THE MESSIAH, YAHSHUA.

Zechariah the priest, father of John the Baptist, Luke 1. Levi, the tax collector, named Matthew, through whom we have the first Gospel. Simon the Pharisee when he received Jesus Christ in his home, Luke 7:36-50. Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue whose story is the subject of this study. Zacchaeus, chief tax collector, Luke 19. Joseph of Arimathaea, an honourable council member, a good and righteous man, he asked Pilate for the body of Jesus Christ and took Him down from the Cross, wrapped Him in a sheet of linen and placed Him in the sepulchre in the cave and rolled the large stone, Mark 15:42. Nicodemus, Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews, teacher of Israel, whose conversation with the Master has given us the precious jewel of the Gospel in John 3:3: ... unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

CONCLUSION

Through Jairus, we have seen the importance of the synagogue in the expansion of Christianity, since they are where Jesus and His disciples were taught, and where the first Christian congregations came from. Antioch in Pisidia, Cyprus, Alexandria and, of course, the first one in Jerusalem. Acts 13.

Let us therefore pray for our nations and brethren, since Jesus Christ has inherited the nations, Revelation 2:26-27, who are the descendants of Abraham, Galatians 3:8, out of which, those who have been saved, will come to worship the Lord in the Kingdom of God, to be included in those who are to be saved through faith in the work of the Son of God in the Cross. Talitha cumi, nations of the world, arise because the Son of God is calling you on His coming!

The final words are from the letter of Saul in Hebrews: ... Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, ²¹ make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. ²² And I appeal to you, brethren, bear with the word of exhortation, for I have written to you in few words. ²³ Know that our brother Timothy has been set free, with whom I shall see you if he comes shortly. ²⁴ Greet all those who rule over you, and all the saints. Those from Italy greet you. ²⁵ Grace be with you all. Amen.