Desperate people abound in this fallen world. Sin ravages human lives and leaves heartache in its wake. Thankfully there is hope, for God specializes in overcoming the spiritual and physical destruction caused by man’s unfaithfulness and disobedience towards Him. His ultimate plan is to bring the universe into complete conformity to His will (Eph. 1:11; 1 Cor. 15:23-28). This plan includes the transformation of believers into new creatures (2 Cor. 5:17) with glorified bodies (Php. 3:20-21) that are suited to dwell with the Almighty for eternity.
A collage of human misery
God’s redemptive program required the Son of God to come to earth, where He constantly dealt with people who were wounded by sin. The gospel of Mark brings together a selection of incidents from the ministry of the Lord Jesus that showcases His power, wisdom, love, and compassion. Among them are four miracles displaying His varied power over things that bring people to extreme distress. First, Christ demonstrated His control over nature in its savagery by calming a storm on Galilee (4:35-41). Second, He liberated a man from a legion of demons (5:1-20), showing His supremacy over every spiritual power. Third, on the way to Jairus’s house, He healed a woman who was debilitated by a chronic bleeding condition (probably an uterine hemorrhage; 5:25-34), thereby manifesting power over lingering physical maladies. Finally, He established His incomparable might by raising a twelve-year-old girl from the dead (5:35-43). In all of these events, He revealed something of His varying methods of dealing with those who are in need.
Father knows best
As “a ruler of the synagogue,” Jairus was a man of some standing in the community. First century synagogues were governed by elders, and sometimes had more than one ruler (Acts 13:15). The function of this last office was to make sure everything pertaining to the public service was taken care of in an orderly manner. Accordingly, these rulers performed various practical and spiritual duties in service to the local congregation. So it may be safely assumed that Jairus was both a responsible and a religious man; very likely, he was also relatively affluent.
Yet Jairus’s social position had no bearing upon the drama that was playing out in his home. His beloved “little daughter” (v. 23)—the diminutive is used as a term of endearment—was rapidly dying, and he was powerless to stop it. Illness and tragedy are not discriminatory among social classes, as Ryle notes:
Death comes to halls and palaces, as well as to cottages; to landlords as well as to tenants; to rich as well as to poor. It stands on no ceremony. It tarries no man’s leisure or convenience. It will not be kept out by locks and bars. ‘It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment’ (Heb. 9:27)…We may be sure there is far more equality in the portions appointed to men than at first sight appears. Sickness is a great leveler. It makes no distinction.1
To his credit, Jairus knew that the only hope of healing lay with the Lord Jesus. If he could just get the wonder-working rabbi to visit his daughter in time—before the unthinkable happens! What is more, he made no attempt to plead his personal merit or religious credentials in approaching the Lord; instead, he put his pride in the dust and begged Christ to help him (v. 23). He also displayed complete faith in the Lord’s ability to heal. Yet his faith seems to demand a certain methodology: “Come…lay hands on…heal” (v.?23). This is different from the marvelous faith of the centurion who knew of Christ’s ability to heal long-distance (Mt. 8:5-13); nonetheless, it is still beautiful to see a man casting himself entirely on the mercy of the Lord.
A frowning providence?
Trying to speed home is difficult with a crowd in tow, however, and the interruption of the woman with an issue of blood did nothing to abet their progress towards the mortally ill girl. Not surprisingly, messengers brought the heavy tidings that it was pointless to bother the teacher any further, for the patient had succumbed to her sickness. In response, Christ bolstered Jairus’s confidence with the exhortation: “Be not afraid, only believe” (v. 37)—or, as the Greek has it, “keep on believing.” Ironside exclaims:
Who but He, who was the Lord of life, could or would have uttered [these words], when all hope seemed gone and death had intervened already? When we are at the end of all natural resources the same blessed words come home to our hearts to give peace and confidence today.2
Another adds: “Now it is not easy to drive out fear. There is only one way to do it, namely, by firmly believing in the presence, promises, pity, and power of God in Christ. It takes the positive to drive out the negative (Rom. 12:21).”3
But commenting on the parallel account in Luke, David Gooding asks a natural question:
Why did not Christ relieve Jairus of his agony of suspense by using his well-advertised power of saving at a distance and by delivering his daughter from dying without waiting to come to his house? We may surmise that one reason might have been to test and so to strengthen Jairus’s faith. When the centurion said to Christ, “Lord, don’t trouble Yourself” (Gk. Me skullou), it was an expression of faith (7:6). When someone from Jairus’s house told him not to trouble the Teacher any more (Gk. meketi skulle), it was a temptation to give up faith in Christ on the grounds that it was now too late, the situation had gone beyond Christ’s ability to do anything about it. Christ countered that temptation and saved Jairus from hopeless sorrow by challenging him to persistence in faith: “only believe and she shall be saved” (8:50).4
The Lord’s timing is designed to glorify Himself and train His children to implicitly trust in His perfect, loving ways. If He always arrived in the nick of time to rescue first-century people from dying, then how could the saints of later centuries know that He can triumph and heal the dead? Praise God, the Lord Jesus is the first fruits of a long harvest of physically resurrected and glorified people!
The blessed hope
Upon arriving at the house, Christ dismissed the hired mourners—a common cultural practice which was later sanctioned in the Talmud—for their sneeringly dismissive attitude towards any hope had no place in the immediate plans of the Lord. First Thessalonians 4:13 says that believers “sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.” This is because of Christ’s power, which raises the dead. He utterly transformed this household by excluding the prurient and vulgar spectators; instead He brought in three witnesses from His disciples, as well as the girl’s parents. It would not do to have all twelve crowding around the girl’s sickbed; this would be daunting to the girl when the Lord restored her to life. Instead, it is an intimate scene, where Christ gently raised her by the hand with words in her heart-language, Aramaic, bidding her in the most tender terms to arise. The Lord knows how to speak to our hearts, and when He calls, every saint in Christ will rise! Afterwards, He instructed them to give her something to eat, at once proving the reality of her restoration to life, as well as tenderly caring for her needs. Such is our Savior, who meets even the smallest necessities of His children.
Endnotes
1 J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Mark (London: William Hunt, Steam Press, 1859), p.104.
2 H. A. Ironside, Expository Notes on the Gospel of Mark (Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux Brothers, 1948), pp.82-83.
3 William Hendriksen, Exposition of the Gospel According to Mark (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1975), pp.211-12.
4 D.W. Gooding, According To Luke (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans & IVP, Myrtlefield Trust, 1987), p.151.