Events Leading up to the Capernaum Crisis

152:0.1The story of the cure of Amos, the Kheresa lu­natic, had al­ready reached Beth­saida and Ca­per­naum, so that a great crowd was wait­ing for Je­sus when his boat landed that Tues­day forenoon. Among this throng were the new ob­servers from the Je­ru­sa­lem San­hedrin who had come down to Ca­per­naum to find cause for the Mas­ter’s ap­pre­hen­sion and con­vic­tion. As Je­sus spoke with those who had as­sem­bled to greet him, Jairus, one of the rulers of the syn­a­gogue, made his way through the crowd and, falling down at his feet, took him by the hand and be­sought that he would has­ten away with him, say­ing: “Mas­ter, my lit­tle daugh­ter, an only child, lies in my home at the point of death. I pray that you will come and heal her.” When Je­sus heard the re­quest of this fa­ther, he said: “I will go with you.”

152:0.2As Je­sus went along with Jairus, the large crowd which had heard the fa­ther’s re­quest fol­lowed on to see what would hap­pen. Shortly be­fore they reached the ruler’s house, as they has­tened through a nar­row street and as the throng jos­tled him, Je­sus sud­denly stopped, ex­claim­ing, “Some­one touched me.” And when those who were near him de­nied that they had touched him, Pe­ter spoke up: “Mas­ter, you can see that this crowd presses you, threat­en­ing to crush us, and yet you say ‘some­one has touched me.’ What do you mean?” Then Je­sus said: “I asked who touched me, for I per­ceived that liv­ing en­ergy had gone forth from me.” As Je­sus looked about him, his eyes fell upon a near-by woman, who, com­ing for­ward, knelt at his feet and said: “For years I have been af­flicted with a scourg­ing hem­or­rhage. I have suf­fered many things from many physi­cians; I have spent all my sub­stance, but none could cure me. Then I heard of you, and I thought if I may but touch the hem of his gar­ment, I shall cer­tainly be made whole. And so I pressed for­ward with the crowd as it moved along un­til, stand­ing near you, Mas­ter, I touched the bor­der of your gar­ment, and I was made whole; I know that I have been healed of my af­flic­tion.”

152:0.3When Je­sus heard this, he took the woman by the hand and, lift­ing her up, said: “Daugh­ter, your faith has made you whole; go in peace.” It was her faith and not her touch that made her whole. And this case is a good il­lus­tra­tion of many ap­par­ently mirac­u­lous cures which at­tended upon Je­sus’ earth ca­reer, but which he in no sense con­sciously willed. The pass­ing of time demon­strated that this woman was re­ally cured of her mal­ady. Her faith was of the sort that laid di­rect hold upon the cre­ative power res­i­dent in the Mas­ter’s per­son. With the faith she had, it was only nec­es­sary to ap­proach the Mas­ter’s per­son. It was not at all nec­es­sary to touch his gar­ment; that was merely the su­per­sti­tious part of her be­lief. Je­sus called this woman, Veron­ica of Cae­sarea-Phi­lippi, into his pres­ence to cor­rect two er­rors which might have lin­gered in her mind, or which might have per­sisted in the minds of those who wit­nessed this heal­ing: He did not want Veron­ica to go away think­ing that her fear in at­tempt­ing to steal her cure had been hon­ored, or that her su­per­sti­tion in as­so­ci­at­ing the touch of his gar­ment with her heal­ing had been ef­fec­tive. He de­sired all to know that it was her pure and liv­ing faith that had wrought the cure.