Jairus’s 12-year-old daughter and an unknown woman who had been medically treated unsuccessfully for 12 years for a hemorrhage both needed healing. Jairus pleaded with Jesus for his daughter. The crowds are disbelieving that Jesus can heal Jairus’s daughter. The disciples misunderstand Jesus when he wonders who touched his clothes, mistaking his question as a ridiculous inquiry when the throngs are pushing and pressing upon him on every side. Spirit-time leads Jairus and Jesus into an encounter, and in Spirit-time, as like when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, Jesus restores life to Jairus’s daughter. Likewise, in Spirit-time the unknown woman is prompted to touch Jesus’s clothes, spotting the right opportunity and the right time – Spirit-time – to seek the healing she needed and desired.

Yet, with all of this amazing demonstration of healing, Jesus desires and needs for everyone involved to keep things under wraps. Now is not the time to retweet this, now is not the time to post any of this on social media, don’t put hashtag #JesusHeals, don’t use any emojis. Don’t say anything just yet. Because apart from the resurrection, prompted by Spirit-time, people will merely see the miracles as just miracles; Jesus knows our human nature and our human hearts – we will be so enamored with the miracles, we will be so astounded by this miracle worker, we will want to see more and more. And after a while, when the miracles become so commonplace, we may want Jesus to do a little bit more powerful demonstrations like moving whole mountains, or making whole dams of water into wine. Apart from the resurrection, our human hearts would separate Jesus from the fullness of his mission: to teach us to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. Apart his rising from the dead, our human eyes will miss the newness of resurrected life and hope for just another miracle. Apart from the Easter morning, we would likely miss the mark that we are to love Jairus, we are to love his daughter and his family, we are to love the formerly hemorrhaging woman. In fact, we need the resurrection in Spirit-time to change us, to transform our hearts, to enable us to truly and deeply love Jesus – not for any particular thing he does for us or doesn’t do for us that we want or expect him to do. But to simply love him for who he is, and for the mission to which he is committed. And to see ourselves and the broken world around us through the eyes and heart of God. Spirit-time helps us to see the society and system that consigned and neglected Jairus, his daughter, and the woman to fend for themselves. Spirit-time enables us to work and pray for change so that we can name Jairus’s daughter and the woman (we don’t even know their names). To see that takes Spirit-time in the way that only God in Jesus knows how. Come, Lord Jesus. Come, Holy Spirit!