The Lord Cares for the Humble but Regards the Proud from Afar

Luke chapter 8 presents us with two very interesting people. One of them is Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, and the other is this woman with the flow of blood who touched Jesus’ cloak. These two people offer a very interesting human contrast that reveals something about the personality, the ministry, and the power and life of Jesus Christ, and that also helps us better understand how to be effective when we approach and pray to the Lord in times of need.

This is one of the important aspects of texts like this. One always asks, or ought to ask: Why did the Holy Spirit decide that these events in the life of Jesus Christ were important to record, so that they would remain through all the centuries for the edification of all believers?

One of the reasons I see for the Bible’s recording certain events in the life of Jesus is to teach us aspects of Christ’s life, aspects of His Person and His Ministry, so that we can know Him better, know His Heart, His way of being and acting. And secondly, these passages are important because they also teach us what, so to speak, are the springs of the Heart of God, of the Heart of Jesus and of the Holy Spirit that we can touch to set the Power of God in motion on our behalf when we are in situations of need.

By looking at the behavior of Jairus and the woman with the flow of blood, we can understand how they acted and ourselves imitate the elements we see displayed in their conduct, applying them to our own lives so that we may be effective in our own journey of faith.

So we see here, first of all, that these two people offer a very interesting contrast with respect to the human condition, because Jairus and the woman with the flow of blood represent something like two extremes of humanity. Jairus is the prosperous man, the influential man, the person of importance and standing in his community who has access to the resources of power and who, when he finds himself in a situation of need, has the means to go where the solution is. He is a man in a society governed specifically by men; moreover, he is a very religious person and a religious leader. He is like the most important layperson in the local synagogue, as if we were to say the chairman of the church elders or of the congregation’s deacons, and therefore he is a man with a great deal of influence in his community.

The woman with the flow of blood. First of all, she is a woman in a culture where women were not considered very important; secondly, she is an anonymous person who simply has no knowledge of the levers of power; and thirdly, she is a person worn down by her illness. She must not have contact with the community; her illness reduces her to a very low position, and she is expected to spend her life more or less in anonymity, away from public life, because her illness has a religious aspect that makes her unacceptable to the wider community.

In other words, we have here a contrast between these two kinds of people, don’t we—one at the extreme of power and the other at the extreme of powerlessness, we might say. But we see that the Lord deals with both, and that is very important. As we see here, as the Bible says, the Lord shows no partiality but deals with the poor just as He does with the rich.

And this is important because society can sometimes go from one extreme to the other, and at times even religion itself does so. We see periods in the history of the Church or of religions when those who have power, the influential people in society, are the ones who seem to attract the attention of priests and religious people, as though they were assigned a preferred place in the Kingdom of God while the poor are alienated and marginalized.

But there are also other times in society, as in modern times and in some countries of our Latin American region, when, because of liberation and revolutionary movements, the poor seem to gain greater prominence, and people speak of God having a preference for the poor, the powerless, and the weak. And there is the idea that God does not associate with the rich because being rich is like a sin and that God does not approve, let us say, of wealth. But we see here that God has always dealt very fairly with both the poor and the rich, and that what made the difference was their hearts, their willingness to humble themselves before the Lord and seek a merciful intervention from Him.

We see that Jairus humbles himself. It says here: “Falling at Jesus’ feet, he begged Him to come into his house.” So Jairus, this important, religious, influential leader, humbles himself before Jesus, and this is what moves Jesus and prompts Him to enter his house to heal his daughter, isn’t it? The woman with the flow of blood likewise, doesn’t she, humbles herself before the Lord, acknowledges His Power, and looks for a way to make contact with Him in order to receive power from Him.

So we see that it is the attitude of the heart, not a person’s outward condition, that affects and moves the Heart of God. And that is a great lesson for us, isn’t it? We have to ask ourselves: What is my heart like when I approach the Lord to ask Him for something? Is it a heart full of faith, a humble heart that recognizes its frailty and its sins and its need, and acknowledges the Power and Grace of the Lord? Or is it a heart that thinks: You must attend to me because I am someone who gives money to the Church, or because I serve in the Congregation, or because I am a righteous person and behave well in society, let us say.

So this passage is an invitation, first of all, to examine our hearts and approach the Lord with the right attitude, because the Word says that the Lord attends to the humble but looks upon the proud from afar. So let us always keep that humble and simple heart before the Lord, so that we may receive from Him. God bless you, and until our next meditation.