Raising Jairus’ Daughter

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There was a Canadian woman by the name of Annie Shapiro, who back in 1963, she was watching the news coverage of the Kennedy assassination when she all of a sudden experienced a stroke. Now, I don’t know if it was because of the Kennedy assassination, because of the shock. The stories I read don’t really tell you that.

But she experienced a stroke while she was watching the coverage of the Kennedy assassination. And as a result of the stroke, she fell into a coma. And she remained in a coma.

Let me see if my math and my memory are correct. She remained in a coma for 29 years. 29 years.

She laid in a hospital bed in a coma. Actually, I read a few stories this week. She may not have remained in a hospital bed.

I think it said her husband took her home and took care of her for 29 years. And he said, you know, I said for better or for worse, for sick and for health, in sickness and in health. So he was doing it right.

29 years he took care of her. 1992, everybody’s shocked. They’re just going on about their everyday business, and she sits up.

And one of the stories said she sat up and just out of nowhere asked him to turn on I Love Lucy because she wanted to watch I Love Lucy, and his response is, you’re here. For her, it was still 1963. The story was she was shocked to see him after, you know, I guess he reacted to the I Love Lucy thing.

She was shocked to see that there was some old man in her bed. She was shocked to see a mirror that there was some old woman in her body, or she was in some old woman’s body. She was shocked to see that her kids were old now and she had grandkids.

Everybody was shocked that she came out of this coma 29 years later because that sort of thing doesn’t happen all that often. And so there are news articles written about this woman because what she experienced was pretty rare. But it’s even less common for somebody who dies to come back to life.

I’ve never seen that. Strangely enough, everybody I’ve ever seen who was dead is still dead today, 100%. Rodney, was it you that I was talking to who said, I would rather preach a funeral than a wedding any day.

I know that sounds mean, not because I want people to die, but I told Rodney, I said, I’ve never met a guest of honor at a funeral who was as particular as the person of honor at a wedding. Brides are a lot more work than bodies. So I should say it’s easier to preach a funeral. And Rodney said, every funeral he’s ever preached has kept.

I was like, I’m going to use that at some point. I just didn’t know it was going to be like two weeks later. But, you know, I’ve never preached a funeral. I’ve never had a loved one pass that they’re not still gone today.

It’s a big news story. And so for somebody to be dead and then come back to life, that’s even more going to catch everybody’s attention. And Mark records a story about somebody doing just that, about somebody who was dead coming back to life.

And we’re going to be in Mark chapter 5 tonight, as if you didn’t already know. But we’re going to be in Mark chapter 5, and we’re going to look at verses 21 through 24, and then we’re going to skip because there’s this parenthetical in the middle that we’re going to come back to next week, like we did sort of with the Pharisees talking to Jesus in between Jesus’ interactions with His family. We’ll come back and talk about this story of the woman with the issue of blood, but we pick back up at verse 35 and go through verse 41.

And once you find it in your Bibles, if you want to stand with me, You’re more than welcome to as we read together from God’s Word. You can also get it on your device in your bulletin, or it’ll be on the screen for us right in front of you. Mark chapter 5, starting in verse 21.

And by the way, I just want to tell you, this man’s name is very difficult to pronounce. When I was growing up, I heard people call him Jairus. And that’s what I called him for years in preaching until I realized they weren’t Okies in the Bible.

I have a preacher friend who I always heard call him Jairus, which sounds better, but the letters are in the wrong order. So this week I sat down and said, I am going to figure out how to pronounce this name. I looked at the Greek and it looks like Yairus.

That doesn’t feel right. Looking at that pronunciation, I think it’s a Hebrew name that I’ve seen in the Old Testament called Jair, and it’s kind of a Greek-ized version of it. And so I think the name is Jairus.

You may hear me slip tonight and say Jairus. because the oaky dies hard. But just know that I mean to say Jairus, and whoever it is, I’m talking about the same person, if I mispronounce the name.

All right? Just want to give you that little caveat tonight. Verse 21, Now when Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side, a great multitude gathered to him, and he was by the sea.

And behold, one of the rulers of the synagogue came, Jairus, by name. And when he saw him, he fell at his feet and begged him earnestly, saying, My little daughter lies at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, that she may be healed, and she will live.

So Jesus went with him, and a great multitude followed him and thronged him. And now we go on to verse 35. It says, while he was still speaking, by the way, they’ve had this parenthetical that I mentioned.

They get stopped on the way to his house. A crowd gathers because of a miracle that he performs there, healing another woman. It says, while he was still speaking, Some came from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, who said, Your daughter is dead.

Why trouble the teacher any further? As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, he said to the ruler of the synagogue, Do not be afraid, only believe. And he permitted no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James.

Then he came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and saw a tumult, and those who wept and wailed loudly. And when he came in, he said to them, Why make this commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.

And they ridiculed him. But when he had put them all outside, he took the father and the mother of the child and those who were with him, and he entered where the child was lying. Then he took the child by the hand and said to her, Talitha kumi, which is translated, Little girl, I say to you, arise.

Immediately the girl arose and walked, for she was twelve years of age, And they were overcome with great amazement. But he commanded them strictly that no one should know it and said that something should be given to her to eat. And you may be seated.

So just to look back over the details of the story real quick. This is a really busy day in Jesus’ life. I say day, it’s been a little over a day at this point.

It’s 48 hour, 36 hour period, something like that. It’s a really busy time. All of these conflicts with the Pharisees.

And then He does some miracles. He gets on the boat. He goes over to the other side.

He casts demons out. The people are terrified that there are no more demons and that an even greater power is there. Oh, and by the way, He calmed the storm on the way over to cast the demons out.

He casts the demons out. The people are terrified of His power. He gets back on the boat.

He goes back across. It’s got to be early morning. He gets off the boat.

the ruler of the synagogue there around Capernaum, one of the towns there, is there because his daughter is deathly ill and he believes Jesus can do something to help her. And so he begs Jesus. Jesus agrees to go.

Jesus gets stopped by somebody else. And in the meantime, the little girl dies. And his people come to him and say, well, I guess you don’t need to bother Jesus anymore.

She’s dead. Jesus tells him, don’t be afraid. Just believe.

Trust me. I’ve got this. So they go back to the house.

It says here that he permitted no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. You may notice in the notes that I’ve put here in front of you, that’s not a contradiction with Luke when Luke says that it was Peter, James, John, Jesus, and Jairus and his wife who went into the house. This really just means that of all the people that were mixed in the crowd, the random people who’d come out to see Jesus, the people that were just there already, the disciples who were with him.

Jesus didn’t take a whole bunch of people back to the ranch. He just took Peter, James, and John. He did not tell Jairus, I almost did it, I almost said Jairus.

He didn’t tell Jairus and his wife, no, no, you stay here. No, they were already going back to the house. Jesus went with them, and he only took Peter, James, and John.

When they got there, they found all these mourners outside, people weeping, people crying, and Jesus and this small group, including the parents and the three disciples, they went in the house. All the mourners that were in the house, he said, go outside. He’s telling everybody she’s only asleep.

They’re laughing at him. Everybody is sent outside. He goes in there.

He puts his hand on the girl’s hand and tells her, Talitha kumi. Now there are a few of these phrases in Mark where it gives us some language, and then it says, which is being translated or by interpretation. And you may wonder, well, why is it even in there?

It’s not just a part of the Greek that wasn’t translated. It’s a trace of the original Aramaic. It’s what I’ve heard some people call an Aramaicism.

Aramaic is not, I’m not being exactly precise when I say this, but it was basically a dialect of Hebrew that they spoke. Some people call it Syriac today. That’s what Jesus and his disciples spoke on a daily basis.

Scholars call these Aramaicisms. They’re leftover fragments of Aramaic in the text. Why are they there? They’re there as fragments of what Jesus said in the original language he said them in, because the eyewitnesses remembered exactly what Jesus said.

It’s not enough that they put it there in Greek. Even in the Greek text, they said, and I’m sure they wrote it out in Greek letters, the Aramaic. But they didn’t just say, Jesus said, little girl, get up and walk.

They said, Jesus said, Talitha kumi. Now that is important because that is evidence that these are the stories of eyewitnesses. Some of the ancient books that call themselves gospels, there’s the gospel of this person, the gospel of Thomas, they are late forgeries.

They were written far too late to have anything to do with eyewitnesses. The Gospel of Mark was not written by some random person off in some far corner of the Roman Empire two or three hundred years later. It had to have been written by somebody who was familiar with the Aramaic.

And most people in that day spoke throughout the empire spoke Greek and Latin and they spoke one of the local languages. Right here we see evidence that this book was written by somebody who was familiar with the way they talked in Jesus’ small corner of the world. I know I’m getting heavy into the apologetics here tonight, but I want you to understand, there’s this little clue left for us that lets us know this was not written by some random person hundreds of years later and hundreds of miles away.

This was somebody that was familiar with the words Jesus spoke in the language Jesus spoke them. So it’s one more little piece of evidence in the wall of evidence that this was written by somebody who knew Jesus, somebody who was close to Jesus. It’s a story of somebody that walked with Jesus.

And history tells us that Mark wrote down the recollections of Peter. I would expect Peter to remember what Jesus said and the words he said it in. So he tells her, sorry to chase that rabbit trail, but I think that’s important.

He tells the little girl, get up and walk. And she does. Everybody’s amazed.

Even though they asked Jesus to come and heal her, I think they were expecting he can heal her. I don’t think they were expecting he can raise her from the dead. That’s what he did.

She gets up. Everybody’s astounded. He tells them keep it quiet and, by the way, give her something to eat.

Being dead is hard work. She needs something to eat. And then he tells them to keep it quiet.

Of course, they don’t. So, we need to understand from this that Jairus showed incredible faith in Jesus. First of all, Jairus risked a lot by coming to Jesus in the first place.

We already know that by this point in time, Jesus is often at odds with the religious leaders. The Pharisees already didn’t like him. How many times have we read that they were already planning to kill him?

They already wanted to kill him. They had already accused him of working for Satan. I mean, Jesus and the Pharisees were not hanging out together and being friends.

And so this man, who was the ruler of the synagogue, according to verse 22, he risked ruining his reputation. He risked maybe even being attacked by the mob in the same way, just by coming to Jesus. Now, by this point, many others have come to Jesus in secret, and by the time Jesus’ public ministry is over, many others would come to Jesus in secret.

Nicodemus comes to mind. He came to Jesus in the middle of the night. But Jairus was bold enough to come to him out in the open.

He didn’t wait until the middle of the night. He didn’t wait until Jesus was off in a private corner and came in subtly and discreetly and got his attention. Instead, Jairus went to Jesus when he was out in the middle of everybody.

There’s a big throng of people there. He was incredibly bold. He must have had incredible faith that Jesus could heal his daughter.

Now, it’s amazing to me, those times we see in Scripture, that somebody who ought to be at odds with Jesus on paper demonstrates more faith than his own followers. That’s what Jairus did here. Now, part of that could have been a reflection of desperation from Jairus over his daughter.

I mean, his daughter was sick. His daughter was dying. He’s probably ready to try anything.

Forget my reputation. Let’s go see if somebody can help. But whatever his motivation was, the fact remains that he believed strongly enough in Jesus’ abilities to heal, at least. He believed strongly enough, at least, that there was something special, something different about Jesus, that he was willing to risk his reputation and was willing to seek Jesus out and seek Him out in the open.

And verse 22 says that he worshipped Jesus. He fell down and worshipped Him. He didn’t just come and ask Him for a favor.

It says he fell at His feet. This is an act of submission. He is worshipping Jesus.

This is the same thing that the group of women did when Jesus met them out on the road after He had resurrected. They fell at His feet. Not because they lost their balance, but because they were worshiping Him.

So Jairus worshipped Jesus and begged Him to heal his daughter in verse 23. He was convinced He could heal her. And then even after she died, even after she had died in verse 35, Jesus said in verse 36, do not be afraid, only believe.

His whole interaction with Jairus was about faith. Now, I don’t presume for a moment at this point to think that at that point in time, Jairus understood Jesus was the Messiah. He was the Son of God, put his faith in Him to that extent.

But at this point, as much faith as he could have in Jesus, he showed. And we see as a result, Jesus was able to raise the dead. This is not the only time in the Gospels that He raises the dead.

Jesus was able to raise the dead, but we see here that He was willing to do so for someone who believed. Jesus was obviously moved by Jairus’ faith because he went with him verse 24 there’s no argument he just he willingly agrees Jairus speaks he speaks his peace he begs him verse 24 says so Jesus went with him Jesus said okay let’s go I think he was moved by Jairus’ faith for Jesus though raising this girl as frightened as everyone else was over the illness itself Jesus looked not only at the illness, but looked at her death and said, this is nothing. This is nothing for me to overcome.

For him, raising her from the dead was no more complicated than waking somebody up. We all have the power to wake somebody up. My kids are experts at it, right?

We all have the power to wake somebody up. And that’s what Jesus meant when he said she’s asleep. She might as well be sleeping.

This is not permanent. Her death is not permanent here. It’s not going to keep.

So The child is not dead but sleeping. He’s not confused. Jesus is not wrong.

He’s making a statement about how not a big deal this is for someone like him. And don’t misinterpret that statement from me as being that Jesus didn’t care, that this didn’t matter to Jesus, but the job of raising her from the dead was not a big deal. Jesus had this under control. So he took the parents back in verse 40, where she was.

He took her by the hand in verse 41, and he told her, Talitha Kumi, little girl, I say to you, arise. I don’t need to tell you this. That’s not something that just anybody can do.

I have never been tempted to tell somebody to get up out of their coffin. You know, family members, there’ll be an open casket. I know it kind of weirds Charla out, but I remember going to my grandfather and putting my hand on his hand.

Other family members like that. I’ve never once thought to say, get up and walk, because I would probably be scared out of my mind if they did. You ever seen that Ray Stevens video about sitting up with the dead?

I don’t think there, I’m trying to remember, I don’t think there’s anything off color in it. I’d say, I’d say Google it, but you know, I’ll leave that to your own discretion. That would give you some idea of how we would all react if we could just do this on a regular basis.

Get up and walk and they do. I have to wonder, I have to wonder, because these are not just stories to me. These are not just fairytale stories.

These things actually happened to people. And I have to wonder what it was like for the parents there to be in that room. As this man goes and tells their dead daughter, get up and walk, were they thinking, are you crazy?

What do you think that’s going to do? But then against all odds, against everybody’s expectations, they had all mocked Jesus when he said, she’s not dead, she’s just asleep. Against all their expectations, he walks in there, he puts his hand on her hand and says, get up and walk.

And she does. That’s an incredibly surprising development. unless you realize that the man standing in your house is the very voice that in Genesis 1 spoke to nothing and commanded it to be something and nothing obeyed and became something.

For him to say, be alive, that’s a huge feat. It’s an impossible feat for any of us. But compare it to speaking the universe into existence.

This was nothing for Jesus. She got up. She got up for one reason.

Because Jesus commanded her to live. And this tells us that Jesus is God with power over life and death. The family, it says in verse 42, was astonished.

They were overcome with great amazement. I love the Bible’s capacity for understatement. You know, and I read somewhere too where skeptics think the gospel writers can’t be trusted because they have this Christian bias.

They have this wild-eyed fanaticism. You can tell in his writing that Mark is excited. way, I mean, the way everything’s shortened to the point, he gets right to the action, he uses the word immediately, or some variation of that, over and over.

He’s excited, but he’s not out of control. He’s not just making stuff up. He’s not just throwing stuff down on the page.

He doesn’t exaggerate here. He says, they were overcome with great amazement. There’s a bit of understatement there.

It’s like the times I’ve told Charla, you know, some story has happened, I’m telling her the story. I am just, I am the most furious I have ever been. And sometimes occasionally she’ll look at me and kind of chuckle because there’s no indication I’m furious other than the fact that I’m saying I am as furious as I’ve ever been.

Called understatement. That’s what he’s doing here. They were overcome with great amazement.

I bet, I bet they were panicking and celebrating all at the same time. I bet it was one of those circumstances where you just don’t even know how to respond. They were astonished.

They, as I said earlier, they believed that Jesus could heal their daughter. Even if it was a last-ditch effort, even if it was, no pun intended, a Hail Mary. And that’s a football thing, right?

Your very last chance. I’m not a sports guy, but I hear that phrase used a lot. So some of you sports people have to tell me if I use that right.

Even if it was a last-ditch effort, they had some confidence that Jesus could heal their daughter, but I don’t believe for a second they expected to witness him raising her from the dead when they went and got him. And yet that’s exactly what he did. And he told them to keep quiet.

By the way, I love, I love the little detail that Jesus says, get her something to eat. By the way, I’m slipping back into apologetics mode here. The gospels are all made up.

Why would you make up that detail? Seriously, if you’re making up a story about Jesus brought some girl back from the dead, and by the way, he said she’ll want a snack. That’s a detail you’re not going to make up and throw in there because it’s not important unless you’re just telling what happened.

So Jesus told them to keep quiet, though, about what they had seen. He told them that in verse 43. But you’ll see in Matthew 9, verse 26, Matthew said they were not so great at the following instructions.

Because Matthew 9, let me make sure I’ve got this correct here. Matthew 9, 26, the report of this went out into all that land. Jesus said, don’t tell anybody.

And they said, okay, tell everybody? you know what I I know technically it’s disobedience to the lord but I think we ought to cut them a little bit of slack about that because he had just done something incredible I don’t know how you keep that news to yourself they went out and they told absolutely everybody because they could not keep quiet about what they had seen because they had witnessed the power of god in their midst in their home in their daughter’s life. They had seen the power of God at work, up close and personal, in living color.

They’d seen it. Jesus Christ came into their home and into their lives and made their dead daughter live again. I think I’d be telling everybody and asking forgiveness later too.

And so Mark tells us this story for a couple of reasons. He tells us this story, number one, because it actually happened. Matthew, Mark, and Luke were all written independently of each other.

Matthew and Luke may have peaked at Mark’s work, but what we have are three accounts, three independent accounts of what happened here. Not just some made up story, not just some dream that Mark had. He tells us the story because it actually happened, but he also makes sure he tells us the story because of what it illustrates.

I’ve been telling you for weeks that the passages we’re looking at through here, Mark is making the case that Jesus Christ is God. We typically say that’s John’s job. That’s what John focuses on.

John just uses his outside voice. But Mark is no less than John making the case that Jesus Christ is God. Because look at what we’ve seen just tonight.

And I don’t mean tonight here in February of 2022. I mean tonight in this long day or so that we’ve been looking at. Just look at what’s occurred.

Jesus Christ has spoken to a storm and told it to knock it off, and the storm listened. Jesus has illustrated that he has a power over the natural world that none of them have and none of them can explain. Then they get to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.

They come to a man who’s been demon-possessed for years. Nobody can do anything about it. Jesus says, get out of there and go into the pigs, and they get out of there and go into the pigs, and it terrifies everybody.

Jesus has just demonstrated that as much as He has power over the natural world, He has power over the supernatural world. He goes back across the sea. This little girl has died.

He tells her, stop being dead, and she stops being dead. And He demonstrates that on top of everything else, He has power over life and death. Now, if I were to tell you a being has absolute power over the natural world, an absolute power over the supernatural world, an absolute power over life and death.

Who am I describing? Three letters, starts with G, ends with odd. Yes, very good.

All right. I know you know the answer, but I think you’re afraid I’m trying to trick you. And nobody wants to be wrong on the internet.

God, Mark is making the case here that Jesus Christ is God, and this is just one more brick in that wall. It’s one more exhibit in the case that he’s offering. And Mark doesn’t tell us that just so we can know Jesus Christ is God, but he’s calling us, he’s calling his reader, initially he’s calling his Roman audience, but he’s calling us today to put our faith in this God in human flesh who walked among us and brings the dead to life.

That’s what Jesus came to do. This is one of those, I’ve used the statement before, and I’ve realized it’s one of those statements that I’ve heard attributed to every possible speaker, like some of the Abraham Lincoln quotes and Mark Twain quotes, and sometimes they’re the same quotes. I don’t know who actually said this, but Jesus Christ did not come to make bad men good.

He came to make dead men live. And that’s what Mark wants us to understand. Not so we can have head knowledge of it, but so we can believe it and we can trust Jesus and we can live like it.

Like Jesus told the ruler of the synagogue, like he told Jairus in verse 36, do not be afraid. only believe. Now in that immediate context he was calling Jairus to trust in his ability to heal his daughter.

But ultimately he had the ability to heal and raise his daughter because he’s God. And the call to us is the same. Don’t be afraid, only believe.

Mark is presenting us with an eyewitness view on Peter’s behalf of Jesus Christ showing who he is. And Mark gives us that picture because he’s inviting us to believe.