LUKE 8: FOUR ENCOUNTERS WITH JESUS – 8:22 – 56

© Rosemary Bardsley 2025

A. THE DISCIPLES IN THE MIDST OF THE STORM – Luke 8:22 – 25

It was just another day. No one expected anything unusual to happen … the disciples had sailed across this lake many times. For years it had been a source of income for four of them. They had enjoyed its calm, battled its storms. None of them had any idea that this trip would be forever etched in their memory.

As Jesus slept in the boat a severe windstorm came up, so severe that the boat was nearly swamped. Even the seasoned fishermen felt the fear of death.

What did they expect when they woke Jesus? He had healed the sick, cast out demons, raised the dead, forgiven sin … but what did they expect him to do here confronted by the powerful forces of wind and wave?

Was their ‘Lord save us!’ a hopeless cry in the dark? A groundless wish? Or did they really believe that he could actually do something?

Whatever their expectations, they were not prepared for his response. As Luke reports: ‘He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm.’

He also rebuked the disciples: ‘Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?’

Do you still not understand and believe who I really am? Have not the miracles shown you that I am your God? Have you not yet worked out that all of this … the waves, the wind, the earth, the sky, exist by my word and are sustained by my word?

Have I not been teaching you that my word is highly significant?

At his word the wind must instantly stop. At his word, the waves must instantly subside.

As the disciples observed the power and authority of Jesus a greater amazement and a deeper fear overwhelmed them. Terrified of the obvious implication of what they have just witnessed, they spontaneously asked ‘Who is this?’ Who is this whose word the elements obey?

There can only be one answer: Here they stand in the presence of their Creator - vulnerable, exposed, afraid. There is nowhere to run to. There is nowhere to hide.

This moment encapsulates our every moment: God and man in inescapable proximity. Whether we are aware or unaware, whether we ignore or acknowledge him, God, the Almighty Creator, is here – as close, as present with us, and as ultimately inescapable and unavoidable as Jesus with the disciples in the boat.

Reflection: The disciples, at this point, were terrified at the possibility that Jesus actually was the living God.
How much of this sense of awe in the presence of God do you experience?

What has Jesus done that has taken away the terror of being in the presence of God?

B. THE DEMON-POSSESSED MAN AND THE GERASENES – Luke 8:26 – 39

When Jesus and his disciples arrived on the shore they were met by a man possessed by demons. Luke records details of this amazing and instructive encounter.

The spirits in the man recognised the true identity of Jesus, addressing him as: ‘Jesus, Son of the Most High God’.

When Jesus asks ‘What is your name?’ we learn that Jesus is here confronted by not just one, but by a ‘legion’ of spirits. A legion numbers anything from three thousand to six thousand. Imagine this contest: one man, Jesus, the Son of God, versus as many as six thousand evil spirits.

Our minds cannot really grasp hold of that, and this very difficulty is evidence of the greatness of Jesus' power and authority. Alone he stands against this legion of evil.

So aware are these spirits of the authority of this one man that they cringe before him begging his permission to go into the herd of pigs when they come out of the man. They know that they have to leave the man, for Jesus had commanded it. They know they cannot enter the pigs without Jesus' permission. We can almost see them cowering with fear in his presence.

The power of this incident is not lost on the people. They hear the report of what has happened. They come to see if it is true. They see the man totally changed. They see, perhaps, the bodies of the pigs floating in the lake. They hear the story again from those who saw it happen.

And they cannot handle it. They cannot bear to have this powerful person in their town. In their fear they keep on begging him to go away. Afraid of his power. Afraid of his authority. He is too big for them - one man against six thousand demons! They would rather have had the mad man. They would rather have had their herd of pigs. They would rather have had the demons.

Any of these, but not the Son of God!

Reflection: Within the report of this incredible encounter with Jesus is a message and a challenge for us all: here in our midst stands the One to whom all authority is given, here in our midst stands the Lord of all.
Shall we, like the inhabitants of this town, reject him and send him away, not willing to have him interfere in our lives and disrupt our status quo?

Or will we, like this man, commit ourselves to him as his subjects, willing to follow him wherever he goes, wherever he commands?

C. THE WOMAN WITH THE HAEMORRAGE – Luke 8:43 – 48

It was one of those crowds that make you wish you had stayed home. A shoulder-to-shoulder, slow-moving, suffocating mass of sweating humanity.

In the middle of it all with teeth clenched against her pain, with limbs trembling from her weakness and her heart throbbing with the dread of exposure and the agonising fear of yet another failure, a woman pushed her way inch by determined inch closer to Jesus.

She had heard so much about this man. So much that it had ignited a small flicker of hope in the deep darkness of her helplessness and despair. So much that that she was here in this crowd, coming closer and closer, and, with her one last hope for healing, reaching towards his cloak.

Here in silent prayer, she commits herself to him.

Will he be offended by this touch from a ritually unclean woman? Will she incur wrath and rejection rather than release? Will she receive censure and criticism rather than cleansing?

What she has heard of him encourages her. He touched that man with leprosy, and healed him. He touched that coffin in Nain, and handed its victim back to his mother. He welcomed the touch of that prostitute in Simon’s house and proclaimed her forgiven. Surely he will not reject her touch.

The tassels on his cloak quiver with the rhythm of his footsteps. All around the crowd presses against him. No one notices the frail hand that touches those tassels for a fleeting moment. No one notices the veiled woman shrinking back into the crowd. No one knows the strength and joy that is flooding her being. No one except Jesus.

He heard the unspoken prayer. He felt the fragile fingers of her faith. And he answered and healed. But he will not let her hide. Both the woman and the crowd need to know that she is no longer ritually unclean, no longer excluded from worship, no longer a threat to their ritual cleanness. And the woman needs to be assured that it was her faith in Jesus Christ that was the key factor in her healing … not coincidence, not superstition.

They all hear his loving, liberating words: ‘Daughter, you faith has healed you. Go in peace’ or, as the Greek text has it ‘Go into peace.’

Reflection: Our situations are most likely different from this woman’s. But we all experience suffering, sometimes on-going suffering. Sometimes the Lord Jesus intervenes and resolves that suffering, sometimes he does not. But the deepest suffering, our alienation from God because of our sins, he has resolved through his blood shed on the cross. Because of his sin-bearing death, in which he bore completely our guilt, our condemnation, our judgement, there is no more alienation from God. To those who believe in him, Jesus says ‘Go in, go into, peace!’ – just as he did to this woman, just as he did to the sinful woman in Luke 7.

Check these verses which teach that our relationship with God has been permanently restored:
Isaiah 53:5

Luke 2:14

Romans 5:1

Romans 5:9, 10

2Corinthians 5:18 – 21

Ephesians 2:18

Colossians 1:19 – 22

Hebrews 4:14 – 16

Hebrews 10:19 – 23

D. JAIRUS – Luke 8:40 – 56

The man was desperate. In a frantic last-hope bid he threw aside the thought that this action could alienate him from the other synagogue leaders; in his despair he cast his own personal pride and dignity to the winds and knelt at the feet of Jesus, begging his help.

Back in his home his only daughter lay dying. Neither the collected wisdom of the women nor the advice of the doctors had succeeded in holding back the encroaching shadow. Even now the mourners were gathered in ghoulish anticipation, and the fingers of the flute players ready to pipe their sad lament.

And death came.

Even as Jesus spoke to the woman healed of her haemorrhage, the message was whispered to Jairus. Death has come. No need for Jesus now. No hope for healing now. Death has come. The final enemy of us all has claimed the girl. Don’t bother this teacher any more.

As these hopeless words pound their way into Jairus’ consciousness there comes another word, as if from some far off world inhabited only by life and hope: ‘Don’t be afraid; just believe.’
Fear and faith fight within him as he takes Jesus to his house. There the very air reverberates with the sounds of death.

The noisy wailing crowd laughs when Jesus says: ‘She is not dead but asleep.’ Death has come. They all know it. He says ‘Stop wailing!’ Does he not know that death cannot be reversed? Does he not understand that only God could do anything here?

The hopeless crowd is put out of the house. Their dirge has no part in what is about to happen. Only hope is permitted here, only faith that flees from the grasping fingers of fear, only desperation that dares to defy the deadening dictates of doubt.

The child’s hand is cold and lifeless. Her ears deaf. Her spirit gone. But at the touch of Jesus, at the word of Jesus, life returns.

Death comes. But here in this miracle is the possibility, no, the promise, the preview of our own resurrection: of life beyond death through the touch and the word of Jesus.

Reflection: This is Luke’s second report of Jesus restoring a dead person to life. In the first, no faith was mentioned (Luke 7:11 – 17). In this, although Jesus encouraged Jairus to ‘don’t be afraid; just believe’, we do not know if he actually did stop fearing and did believe. We do know that when Jesus raised Jairus’ daughter, he and his wife ‘were astonished’ (8:56). They had not expected that great outcome. They had not understood that they were in the presence of the Lord and Giver of life.

What do these verses teach about the life-giving authority of Jesus?
John 1:1 – 4

John 5:21, 26

John 11:25, 26

Colossians 1:16

Hebrews 1:2