A reading of the holy gospel according to Matthew. As Jesus was speaking, a leader of the synagogue came up. Notice, a leader in the synagogue, therefore Jewish. And did Jesus reverence and said to him, my daughter has just died. Please come up and lay your hand on her, and she will come back to life.
Jesus stood up and followed the man, and his disciples went along with As they were going along the way, a woman who had suffered from hemorrhages for twelve years came up to them and touched the tassel of Jesus' cloak. If only I can touch his cloak, she said, I shall get well. Jesus turned around and saw the woman and said to her, courage, daughter. Your faith has restored your health. From that very moment, the woman got well.
When Jesus arrived at the synagogue leader's house and saw the flute players and the crowd that was making a din. He said, leave all of you. The little girl is not dead. She's asleep. At this, they ridiculed When the crowd had been put out, Jesus entered and took the little girl by the hand, and she got up.
News of this circulated throughout the district, and this is the gospel gospel of the Lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. The first thing about this text is that it is certainly authentic. There's no weaseling about this.
The second thing the second fact is that the Jews of our Lord's time knew a thing or two about being born, being conceived, and dying. They were no strangers to death. And we're told here that the little girl was dead, and that they were there mourning in their particular fashion the little girl's death and the bereavement of the family. There's no question about it. The third fact is that this is a Jewish leader who comes to Jesus, a leader in the synagogue, not from the temple.
And he comes to Jesus, first of all acknowledging that his daughter is dead and affirming that he can bring her back to life. This is astounding, absolutely astounding that he had such faith and confidence in this carpenter's son from Nazareth. That all he had to do was to get through to Jesus, push the disciples away, get the ear of our Lord, and say, look, get over here. My kid is dead, but you can give her you can give her life. Think of that.
Put yourself in the scene of as today we would we up we would be in a funeral home or some such word, and here everybody's around reciting the rosary or something if they can think of the prayers or remember them now, or if they happen to have a rosary with them or own one or know what the word means. And here they bring in somebody from not in no man's land and said, bring this person back to life. This is the scene. And the man bringing Christ in is not one of his a a follower of his as far as we know. It's absolutely astounding.
Leaving aside what happens along the way, the woman being cured of her hemorrhages by an act of faith or confidence. But you can't notice the contrast here. A corpse can't make an act of faith. An unconscious person can't make an act of faith. You can't say to a corpse, your faith is restored to life.
But Christ does say that to the woman. So if you want to call that a faith cure, of course you can call it a faith cure. Plenty of things have been cured in this world by faith. Believe me. But you can't say that it was a faith cure of the child when coming back to life unless you say that corpses can make acts of faith, and that's a little far fetched even today.
And so we're we're faced here with a tremendous fact of our lord's life. This is a miracle of the first water. And as I say, there is no way you can attack this by saying that the text is ambiguous or spurious or inauthentic or an interpolation. It's none of those things. You can no more throw out this text than you can throw out the whole of Saint Matthew.
Well, you can throw out the whole of Saint Matthew. But if you accept Saint Matthew, you're going to have to accept this text. And notice and notice how the circumstances are all evidence. The mourners are all there. These are official people.
They knew death and dying. They went around peddling their wares, which was to be an official, formal mourner. They were well acquainted with the dead, with corpses. And here they are giving the solemnity that they thought proper to the little girl's death and to the bereavement of the family. Alright.
Christ comes and tells them, the professionals, that she's not dead. They get out. And what is their reaction? They lad him to scorn. So how can you take this text and say the little girl wasn't dead or this or what?
The only other way of getting out of this is to say it was a beautiful conspiracy. Where is there any evidence for such nonsense as that? It isn't there. Now, today, some for some reason, the the impact of miracles is downgraded. And I I'd be the first one to say that we shouldn't be shouting miracle for everything under the sun.
All the word miracle means is something wonderful. And I can't there are so many wonderful things that where do you begin enumerating wonderful things? Wunderbar. The sun coming up in the morning is pretty wonderful. A little flower opening up is magnificent.
A little baby being born, what do you say about that? So there the world's full of wonderful things. But a miracle is little it's a wonderful thing of a very different sort. It's very special. And here we have at one instance from our lord's life, which you cannot attack on the basis of the text, you cannot attack it as being some kind of a metaphor or a simile or a myth.
It may be a lie, but it's not a myth. It may be it may be that Saint Matthew had all had dreamed up his old gospel, but it's there. We have the gospel. So what do you do with this? And the fact, you see, to me, of course, I acknowledge with amazement and gratitude because I I'm glad to have a thing like this to back up my belief in Jesus Christ.
I need that. But the one of the most significant things here is that a leader of the synagogue came to Jesus and said, you can bring her back to life. Think of that. Now, to me, there are oh, there's so much you can say about this. But to me, certainly a significant thing is this fact that Jesus performed this miracle.
And we are told that the news of it spread all over the countryside. Why wouldn't it? But what happened? Were the people changed who saw this? We don't know.
Did they become followers of Jesus? Who knows? And there's just one little point. What Jesus did for that little girl, he can do for you and for me. In the name of the father, and the son, and the holy spirit.
Amen.