Big Idea: Jesus’s extraordinary power to heal extends even to someone who has just died.

Understanding the Text

Two further miracles of healing add yet more weight to the impression of unlimited power that characterizes the whole of the Galilean phase of Jesus’s story and that form the basis for the key question of 9:18–20: Who is Jesus? After his authority has been asserted over the natural elements and the supernatural powers of evil (8:22–39), he now restores two women to life: one literally, from a recently fatal illness, the other metaphorically, in that she is rescued from a long period of ostracism and misery. In these incidents Jesus acts alone, but these further demonstrations of his power provide the background for his subsequently sending his disciples out to extend his minist…