April 29 / Luke 8:40-48

Luke 8:40-48

“Notice what you notice.” Today is the first half of Luke’s account of the raising of Jairus’ daughter and the woman with a discharge. Today’s first verse reads, Now when Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed Him, for they were all waiting for Him. I’ve been assuming all along that Jesus and His friends have been staying in and around Capernaum. And in the events leading up to this Jairus’ encounter, Jesus and His friends had taken off in the evening to sail across the Sea of Galilee. On the way He calmed a storm on the lake, then healed the demoniac when He arrived. After He cast out the demons into the pigs, the crowds asked Him to leave and He got back into the boat. So, He took off in the evening one day, arrived at the land of the Garasenes that evening or the next morning, then sailed back to Capernaum, presumably the next day.

The intriguing thing about all this is that the crowds that were with Him on the shore as He left one evening are still waiting for Him when He returned sometime the next day. Could they have had any expectation that He would return so quickly? What if He had been gone two or three days? How long would the crowd have waited for Jesus to return? Clearly Jesus had created quite a stir in and around Capernaum and the rest of Galilee.

Slava Bohu!

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