SUMMARY
Jesus teaches by performing four miraculous deeds.
ANALYSIS
The stilling of the storm on the Sea of Galilee (4:35-41) dramatically inaugurates Jesus’ teaching in this collection of miracle stories. When his disciples cry out, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (4:38), he responds by calling to the waves and wind, and there is a great calm. The second story, the healing of the Gerasene demoniac who identifies Jesus as the “Son of the Most High God” (5:7), is likewise dramatic in its impact as the healed man proclaims Jesus in the Decapolis and the people of the Gerasenes urge Jesus to leave (5:1-20). The third and fourth miracles are dramatically interwoven. The account of the raising of Jairus’s twelve-year-old daughter (5:21-24, 35-43) encloses the healing of the woman with a twelve-year issue of blood (5:25-34). In these two miracles, two people called “daughter” are healed.
