Introduction
What miracle will Jesus do now? He has calmed a storm; he has delivered a man possessed by hundreds of demons; and he has healed a woman suffering from an illness of twelve years, merely by her touching his garment. Indeed, that happened while he was on his way to accomplish another healing. Let’s return to that story and see what Mark has for us.
Text
21 When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake.
Jesus is still ministering around the Sea of Galilee, which is the lake being spoken of here, and he, as usual, is attended by a large crowd. This scenario was set back in 3:7,8. 7 Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the lake, and a large crowd from Galilee followed. 8 When they heard all he was doing, many people came to him from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, and the regions across the Jordan and around Tyre and Sidon.
He taught his parables by the lake. He crosses over the lake in a storm that he calms. At the other side of the lake he drives out the demons in the possessed man and into the pigs. He then crosses back over, probably to the northern section at Capernaum, where the crowds are waiting for him again.
Soon after arriving, a man breaks through the crowd and falls at his feet. His name is Jairus, and he is identified as a synagogue ruler. President might be a better word for us to understand his position. It was an elected one. The president was elected by the synagogue members to oversee the services and facilities. It was a position of high honor. Jairus enters the picture as a man of prestigious standing, which makes it all the more dramatic that he falls at the feet of Jesus: 22 Then one of the synagogue rulers, named Jairus, came there. Seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet.
Why the drama? His little girl is dying. 23 and pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” That says it all. Some people might comment on the strong faith or the uncommon humility of Jairus that would lead him to come to Jesus as he did. Any father, especially any father with a daughter, knows that he would have done the same regardless of the degree of his faith or humility.
24 So Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him. Mark seems to emphasize the crowd. For the second time he mentions the large crowd, this time adding how they pressed around him. Jesus and the father have to slowly make their way through the crowd, which, as the disciples make clear, is pushing about them. It is not difficult to imagine the anguish of the father at the pace, especially when Jesus stops to ask who touched him. Every second counts. His daughter is dying.
That touch, of course, was by the woman who had been sick for twelve years. Surely Jairus must have been growing restless as Jesus insisted on waiting for a response to his question. The disciples were perturbed with Jesus; how much more would the father have been. Then the woman comes forward and confesses. What do you think was going through Jairus’ mind and heart as he heard her story? For twelve years she was sick. That’s the age of his daughter. And now she is healed by a mere touch. Surely that would have bolstered his hopes. Now, if Jesus would just come on.
35 While Jesus was still speaking, some men came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue ruler. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher any more?”
I must confess that I have a lot of problem with these messengers. I don’t know who they were, but they sure seem callus. Maybe, “you just have to be there,” to know that they actually were being kind and sensitive, but it sure does not seem that way. Couldn’t they have waited until he got back to the house, or at least take him aside? And what is this “Why bother the teacher any more” stuff? The word means “to annoy.” Whoever they were, they could have used a training class on speaking with sensitivity.
Do we need to get into the father’s emotions? I know that you parents don’t want to go there. This is the nightmare of all parents. He gets to hear it in the middle of an excited crowd. He gets to hear it just as he would have been filled with hope that everything will be okay.
He then hears what he needs to recover and to restore some measure of hope. 36 Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”
I like Jesus’ response to them. He ignores them. I don’t know why the KJV says, As soon as Jesus heard. The Greek word means to ignore, to refuse to listen. That’s the response they deserve. He focuses on the now grief stricken father: Don’t be afraid; just believe.
You and I have said words like these to others who are discouraged or anxious. We’ve said them as mere attempts of encouragement. “Don’t worry; everything is going to be okay. Have faith.” We’ve said such words, all the while not really believing ourselves. Jesus, no doubt, is trying to encourage the father, but these are not mere hopeful words. His encouragement is also a command. He had said similar words to his disciples. Remember his comments on the lake after stilling the storm? “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” (4:40).
Faith is clearly the issue here for Jesus and for Mark. What does he say to the woman? Your faith has saved you. What does he say to the father? Just believe. Faith in what? Faith in him, in Jesus.
This is not a Disney picture. Jesus is not telling the woman or the father that if you just wish really hard for what you want and believe it will come true, then your wish will come true. To the woman he is saying, “It is your faith in me that has healed you.” To the father, “Look to me to save your daughter. Believe in me.”
To tell you the truth, I don’t know what the father is feeling now. I don’t know if he has regained his hope or if he is simply in a state of shock and just going along with whatever he is told. But he does continue on with Jesus.
37 He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. 38 When they came to the home of the synagogue ruler, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. 39 He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” 40 But they laughed at him.
After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was.
One thing is clear – Jesus is not shaken. He takes charge. First, he stops the crowd from following him and selects only three disciples to continue. He walks into a house of wailing people (not the family) and clears them out. Then he takes the parents and the disciples into the little girl’s room. Jairus is merely following now and that is to his credit. He could have broken down and protested against Jesus doing anything, which would have been natural for a grief stricken parent. “Just leave me alone!” would not have been unexpected.
The people that Jesus has to deal with, however, are the mourners who are crying and wailing loudly. It seems Jesus is being a bit insensitive to them. They are, after all, grieving over the child. He walks in, treats them as people out of place, and makes the silly statement that the girl is merely sleeping, even though he has yet to see her.
Why does he say that? All three of the gospel writers who record this story clearly convey that the girl is dead. This is not a story of how well Jesus could diagnose someone; it is a story of how he could even raise the dead. Is he lying?
Jesus does speak of death as sleep another time. He once told his disciples that Lazarus was sleeping, and his ever sharp followers responded that a good sleep would make him feel better and he didn’t Jesus’ help. 14 So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead” (John 11:14). But in this case, Jesus specifically denies that the girl is dead, but rather sleeping.
I think it is another case of “he who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Jesus liked to speak in terms that required attentive thought. Some examples: telling Nicodemus he must be born again; warning the disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees; telling a crowd that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood; instructing those who would follow him that they must hate their parents. His parables more often than not baffled his listeners rather than make his teachings clearer.
What tended to happen is that some of his hearers would miss his message and even reject him, while others would grasp the truth veiled in his sayings. You might say that such words formed a test for his hearers to respond appropriately to him: either they could fail and ignore or outright reject him, or they could understand or at least seek to understand.
These mourners thought he made a stupid statement and treated it as such. If only they had looked to him with hope and said, “What do you mean by sleep? Is there a reason to hope?” As a matter of fact there is. Jesus is the reason. The little girl has died, but when it comes to Jesus, death is not so final. What is death to us is but sleep to him, and the ability to raise the girl to life requires as much effort from him as it does from us to wake someone out of a sleep.
The answer of the mourners reveals not only lack of faith in Jesus and understanding; it gives them away as to how much they really are grieved: 40 But they laughed at him. This is a scornful laugh as the KJV indicates. Maybe they didn’t like Jesus’ attitude. They sure didn’t like him coming in and telling them what they knew not to be true.
Let me note who these mourners are. They are not family members; they are professional mourners, paid to make wailing noises. They are composed of flute players and women who wail. Here is a description.
The women form a circle around the leader of the dance of death, and dance rhythmically from left to right with their hair hanging down. “Gradually they increase their mournful lament and the wild movement of hands and feet until their faces become flushed to a high degree and appear especially excited as the time of burial draws near.”
The burial would take place within 24 hours. This is the commotion that Jesus encountered. Their presence, by the way, shows how serious the girl’s illness was. The mourners must have been nearby, waiting to hear the word to start their performance of wailing.
So Jesus clears them out. Again, note that he has taken complete control of the situation. Jairus, the head of the house, seems to go along with whatever Jesus does. Jesus takes the parents and the three disciples into the now dead girl’s room.
41 He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means, “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”). 42 Immediately the girl stood up and walked around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished.
That’s an understatement for the parents. Astonished? They must have been laughing and crying; clutching their daughter, bowing to Jesus; overflowing with thankfulness and trembling. They’ve gone from the greatest nightmare of their lives to the most incredible of all dreams. Their only daughter (we know this from Luke) has come to life!
I like that addition on the end: he told them to give her something to eat. Where does that come from? It comes from what Jesus actually said, and it reminds us that this is a real story, not a Hallmark TV special to make us feel good. It was a great way to bring the parents back to their faculties and give appropriate attention to their daughter.
The order he gave them, though, seems a bit strange: 43 He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this. Isn’t that a little late? There is a huge crowd outside who knows that the girl had been pronounced dead, not to mention the mourners whom Jesus had sent out of the house. He could mean a couple of things. He wants the parents to keep quiet until he has had time to make his escape. If he has been having trouble with crowds before, imagine what would have happened if the parents rushed out of the house exclaiming their daughter had been raised from the dead. He also could want them not to say what actually happened. This is a private matter; people can form their own conclusions. He had not come in the first place to make a public display of his power. Whatever the case, he keeps to his pattern of not turning his miracles to help people into publicity stunts.
Lessons
What can we take away from this story? Thinking again about the response of the mourners to Jesus, one should be cautious to reject Jesus when he acts in a way we do not like. We talked about this in the story of the possessed man, while reflecting on the townspeople who had asked Jesus to leave their territory. Both nonChristians and Christians will reject what we don’t like. We might either outright reject him as Lord or reinterpret him to be a nicer Lord that we can follow.
What we ought to do, when we read a passage about Jesus that perplexes us or even shocks us, is all the more earnestly apply ourselves to understanding just what Jesus is teaching. We need to examine ourselves whenever we resist a teaching of Jesus or are offended by what he does. How much greater benefit the mourners would have received if they had taken such recourse? What would have happened if they had asked Jesus, “Rabbi, what do you mean by sleeping?” What would have happened if they had been convicted of their hypocritical mourning? The same is true for us today. We miss real blessing and real maturing, because we too easily pass over the hard sayings and actions of Jesus.
The clear message that Mark wants us to take in is the essential place of faith. Faith is what led the woman to Jesus to receive healing. Faith is what Jesus urges the father to have in the midst of shocking news. Lack of faith is what Jesus rebukes his disciples for in the boat. We will talk more about this in the next passage, but the lesson is clear. To follow Jesus, to own him as Savior and Lord, is to believe unreservedly in him to be Savior and Lord.
Jesus is not an insurance policy to fall back on when all else fails. He is not an investment to supplement our resources. We don’t believe in Jesus and whatever else it is that we really believe in, nor do we restrict Jesus in his power, as though he is good for some things in life, but not others. Faith, faith, faith is the key; it is the key to living the Christian life.
Finally, we can have and must have faith in Jesus because Jesus is Lord over all. This is the heart of Mark’s gospel. Remember, again and again through his gospel, he is saying to the listener or reader, “Do you get it now? Do you understand now who Jesus of Nazareth really is?” The wind and the waves obey him. Hundreds of demons obey him in terror. Disease gives way to him. And now, even death must yield its victims to him. Nothing, no one, is beyond his authority and power. Nothing. Jesus did not approach the little girl like Elijah who prayed passionately to God to heal a little boy. He entered the room with calm authority, raising the girl out of the grips of death as if she had been merely napping.
To those who have not bowed to him, take warning. Scriptures do not present Jesus (as one individual referred to him) as one conduit to God. Jesus is not a way to God or a godly man to pay one’s respect to. He is the ruler of creation. He is Lord and he is to be obeyed and worshiped as Lord.
To those who do bow to him, take heart. This world may seem to be out of control or in the control of the devil, but it is not. Jesus, who demonstrated his authority and power on earth, has risen on high where he exercises that same authority and power over all creation. He is Lord now and forever. We may worship and obey him now in faith, but some day we shall behold our Lord in glory. Then there will be no more raising from the dead or healing disease or casting out demons. For the demons will have been cast in the lake of fire and sickness and death banished. For Jesus is Lord!
