Emphasis Preaching Journal

In Victor Hugo’s classic, Les Misérables, woodcutter Jean Valjean finds himself in a desperate situation. He is responsible for his dead sister’s seven children, but he doesn’t have enough to feed them. So he steals a loaf of bread. He is eventually caught and imprisoned for nineteen years for his crime. In our text, both Jairus and the woman are in desperate situations, one with a terrible lingering infirmity, the other with a deathly sick daughter. Both do desperate things.