Waking The Dead Series

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.