‘The Daughter of Jairus’ by James Tissot (1836-1902)
Patrick Comerford
We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and this week began with the Fifth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity V, 5 July 2026).
I stayed up until the early hours of this morning, long past 4 am, watching England’s 3-2 win over Mexico on television, including thee two goals from Jude Bellongham, Harry Kane’s penalty, and those nail-biting 11 minutes 11 minutes that were added on. The High Street below is now quiet, and before today begins I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Christ healing the woman in the crowd … a modern Orthodox icon
Matthew 9: 18-26 (NRSVA):
18 While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader of the synagogue came in and knelt before him, saying, ‘My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.’ 19 And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples. 20 Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, 21 for she said to herself, ‘If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.’ 22 Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, ‘Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.’ And instantly the woman was made well. 23 When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute-players and the crowd making a commotion, 24 he said, ‘Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping.’ And they laughed at him. 25 But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. 26 And the report of this spread throughout that district.
The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Matthew 9: 18-26) tells the stories of how Christ responds to the plight of two very different people: a young girl who is on her deathbed, and a woman who has been suffering for the previous 12 years, as long as the young girl has lived.
The women in this reading remain unnamed, like so many women in the New Testament: three women in all, the dying girl, the older woman, and the girl’s mother.
The young girl who is on her deathbed and her mother are from a religious family; the older woman who interrupts this story, and who disrupts Jesus and intrudes on the crowd, has endured a lifetime of suffering. The two principal women in this story both suffer and are marginalised, are seen as not worth bothering about, because of their gender and because of their age.
This reading reminds us that Christ calls the unnamed, the marginalised, and the long-suffering from the outside into the community. They call out, just as the psalmist cries out, ‘Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord’ (Psalm 130: 1).
God is attentive to our pleas, despite everything that has gone wrong, God forgives, God is merciful, God offers unfailing love and freedom, God’s love for us surpasses the love of any father or mother for their children.
In this Gospel reading, one of the key people is the daughter of a leading member of the local synagogue. We know him as Jairus because of the accounts in the other synoptic Gospels (see Mark 5: 21-43; Luke 8: 40-56), although he is not named in Matthew 9. Mark describes him as ‘one of the rulers of the synagogue’ (εἷς τῶν ἀρχισυναγώγων), Luke says he is ‘a leader of the synagogue (ἄρχων τῆς συναγωγῆς), while Matthew describes him simply as an ἄρχων (
archon), and omits any reference to a synagogue, a word that has come to be inserted by convention in the English translations.
Matthew does not give the girl’s age, she has already ‘just died’ (ἄρτι ἐτελεύτησεν), and her father’s request is that Jesus lay his hand upon her ‘and she will live [again]’ (Matthew: καὶ ζήσεται). In other words, in Matthew he asks Jesus to reverse her death rather than prevent it, in contrast with the accounts of Mark and Luke.
The timings and settings differ in the Gospels: in Mark and Luke, the story follows the exorcism at Gerasa; Jairus comes up to Jesus as soon as he gets out of the boat. In Matthew, this event is first preceded by three others, healing the paralytic, the calling of Matthew, and the New Wine in Old Wineskins. In Matthew’s version, Jesus is in Matthew’s house, eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners and debating about fasting with Pharisees and disciples of John the Baptist, when the distraught father arrives.
Mark and Luke report a large crowd (ὄχλος) following Jesus around and pressing against him (συνέθλιβον/συνέπνιγον αὐτόν) as he follows Jairus to his house. Matthew does not mention this, and it is only Jesus and his disciples (μαθηταὶ) who follow the ruler back to his house.
The narrative is interrupted with the arrival on the scene of a woman who had a haemorrhage (Matthew: αἱμορροοῦσα
haimorroousa, having had a flow of blood that is vaginal or uterine. Mark and Luke say she has been οὖσα ἐν ῥύσει αἵματος (
ousa en rhysei haimatos, being with a flow of blood), for 12 years. Mark and Luke tell us that during all this time nobody could heal her, with Mark dramatically adding she had spent all she had on physicians to no avail.
The woman touches the fringe of his cloak. Each tassel of the
tallit or prayer shawl worn by pious Jews has eight threads (when doubled over) and five sets of knots, totalling 13; the sum of these numbers is 613. The 613
tzizit or knotted fringes are reminders of the 613 commandments, precepts or
mitzvot in Jewish tradition. They include positive commandments, to perform an act (
mitzvot aseh), and negative commandments, to abstain from certain acts (
mitzvot lo taaseh). The negative commandments number 365, which coincides with the number of days in the solar year, and the positive commandments number 248, said to be the number of bones and main organs in the human body (
Babylonian Talmud, Makkot 23b–24a). This reflects the idea that donning a
tallit or prayer shawl with
tzitzit reminds its wearer of all 613 Torah commandments.
When this woman touches Jesus’ cloak, her bleeding stops immediately, according to Mark and Luke, but in Matthew she is not healed until after Jesus tells her: ‘Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well’ (verse 22).
Matthew’s account of the bleeding woman also ends there (Matthew 9:20–22). But for Mark and Luke, her act of touching his cloak appears to disturb Jesus, who seems agitated or even angry, and we are told that the woman came with φοβηθεῖσα καὶ τρέμουσα (
phobētheisa kai tremousa, ‘in fear and trembling’) as he feels that power had gone out of him.
Jesus asks around the crowd who touched him or touched his clothes. Luke says all in the crowd deny doing this, and Peter says that crowds are pressing against Jesus; Mark has the disciples giving this explanation.
Jesus is not satisfied, and he keeps inspecting the crowd until the woman, trembling in fear, falls at Jesus' feet and admits that it was her. The accounts in Mark and Luke conclude with Jesus telling her ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your disease’, or ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace’ (see Mark 5: 25-34; Luke 8: 43-48).
In Mark’s and Luke’s narrative, people come (Mark: ἔρχονται, plural) or someone comes (Luke: ἔρχεταί τις, singular) with the news that that the daughter of Jairus had died, and Jairus is advised not to trouble Jesus any further. However, Jesus responds: ‘Do not fear, only believe’, with Luke extending the quote with ‘and she will be saved’ (σωθήσεται).
When he arrives at the house, Jesus does not let anyone follow him inside, ‘except Peter, James and John, the brother of James’ (Mark 5: 37), with Luke adding ‘and the father of the child and the mother’, later also added by Mark (Mark 5: 40; Luke 8: 49-50). For Matthew, the daughter is already dead from the start, so this part of the event does not unfold.
At the house, Mark and Luke report that Jesus ‘saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly’ (Mark 5: 38; Luke 8: 52); according to Matthew, he ‘saw the flute-players and the crowd making a commotion’ (Matthew 9: 23). He tells all present that the girl is not dead but asleep; in Matthew, Jesus even tells the crowd ‘Go away’. But the crowd laughs at Jesus. Mark says Jesus puts the crowd outside; Matthew says they were put outside, but witout mentioning who does it (verse 25); Luke does not report this, but instead emphasises that the crowd ‘knew she had died’.
Jesus then goes back inside the house (Mark, Matthew). He takes the girl by the hand, and she gets up. In Mark’s account, the Aramaic phrase
Talitha koum – transliterated into Greek as ταλιθα κουμ and reportedly meaning, ‘Little girl, I say to you, get up!’ – is attributed to Jesus (Mark 5: 41). In Luke, Jesus says ‘My child, get up!’ For Matthew, Jesus says nothing and is silent verse 25).
The accounts in Mark and Luke end with Jesus commanding that the girl should be fed and that Jairus and his wife should tell no-one what had happened. On the other hand, Matthew concludes by saying: ‘And the report of this spread throughout that district’ (verse 26).
Does it matter that Matthew’s account, which we are reading today, does not name Jairus, nor that it does not relate his status to the synagogue? Religious position and social status are of little value when a small child is struck with a death-threatening illness or disease.
In both cases these women are ritually unclean … a bleeding woman, a dying or dead women. Jesus should not touch them. Yet their plight touches his heart, and he reaches out to them with a healing touch.
One young woman is restored to her place in her family and in her community. One older woman, who has lost everything, who is at risk of being marginalised, even by the Disciples, is offered the hope of her proper place.
The crowd who gather around Jesus by the lake becomes a large crowd pressing in on him.
Too often in a crowd, it is those who get to the front first, who have the loudest voices, who are heard, whose demands are met.
But in this case, it is not the loud and the proud, the rich or the famous, who grab the attention of Christ – it is a weak, timid, neglected impoverished, exploited and sick woman. All her money has gone on quacks, and she has no man to speak up for her.
But look at what Christ does for her. Without knowing it, he heals her. And when he realises what has happened, he calls her ‘Daughter.’
In a society where men had the only voices, where to have a full place in society was to be known as a Son of Israel, she is called ‘Daughter.’ She too has a full and equal place in society, in the world, and before God.
It is shocking that when the unnamed girl dies the first reaction of some key local figures is to upbraid her father for seeking help, and not to offer him comfort and sympathy.
Their lack of compassion and sympathy contrasts sharply with the compassion Christ shows for both the older and the younger woman.
We were challenged each day to ask ourselves: how is the Gospel good news for those on the margins? The Gospel is Good News for those on the margins as we read in today’s Gospel story. But … only if we read it and if we put it into practice.
‘And the report of this spread throughout that district’ (Matthew 9: 26) … when and how is the Gospel good news for people on the margins? … newspapers at a kiosk near the Marina in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Today’s Prayers (Monday 6 July 2026):
In
Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 5 to 11 July 2026 (pp 16-17), is ‘Faith in the Midst of Fractures’. This theme was introduced yesterday with a reflection by the Revd Godfrey Owino Adera, Anglican priest, theologian, and lecturer at Saint Paul’s University, Limuru, Kenya.
The USPG prayer diary today (Monday 6 July 2026) invites us to pray:
Gracious God, move theologians, church leaders, and all followers of you to be perceptive of the needs in our communities and how we can respond in your justice, truth, and wisdom.
The Collect of the Day:
Almighty and everlasting God,
by whose Spirit the whole body of the Church
is governed and sanctified:
hear our prayer which we offer for all your faithful people,
that in their vocation and ministry
they may serve you in holiness and truth
to the glory of your name;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Grant, O Lord, we beseech you,
that the course of this world may be so peaceably ordered
by your governance,
that your Church may joyfully serve you in all godly quietness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Almighty God,
send down upon your Church
the riches of your Spirit,
and kindle in all who minister the gospel
your countless gifts of grace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s reflections
Continued tomorrow
‘Christ raises the daughter of Jairus’ (left), in the Hardman window by JH Powell at the west end of the nave in Saint Nicholas Church, Adare, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Scripture quotations are from the
New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Edition copyright © 2021, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
