“She’s Dead”

Luke 8:49-50

He was asked to come and do something about an urgently sick girl. On the way, he was detained by a woman who had a long-term, though not life-threatening physical problem. Actually, to be honest, the woman didn’t detain him – he himself had chosen to do some follow through on her situation. The result for the original urgent need? The girl died.

In this passage in Luke, Jesus was available to help – and he could do something about the situation. He could heal the girl, if only he made it there in time. But Jesus also knew that there was little difference between God’s power to heal a sick girl and God’s power to bring that same girl back to life if she died, though there are far more cases of the former than of the latter, simply because immortality is not a part of our present human condition.

Jairus, the girl’s father, however, did not know any of that. He did not know that Jesus could just as easily bring the girl back to life as heal her. He did not know that Jesus was actually willing to do both in this very case. Even if he had heard stories of Jesus bringing the dead back to life, I’m not sure this synagogue ruler, religiously devout as he was, would have connected that understanding of Jesus with the plight of his own daughter.

As Luke paints the story, just as Jesus is sending the healed woman off in peace, someone from Jairus’ household comes with the news that the girl has died. No sense bothering Jesus anymore, the messenger says. Strange that Jesus would have allowed himself to be delayed, but such is the workings of a Master who has absolute trust in his own Father and that Father’s timing.

We are not given Jairus’ reaction to the news of his daughter’s death, and perhaps it is because Jesus doesn’t allow time for Jairus to react. Anguish, fear, grief, self-doubt – if only I had gone to Jesus faster, if only I had hurried him along more quickly. Jesus does not allow Jairus to go there. Instead, Jesus tells him, “Don’t be afraid.” He doesn’t chastise Jairus for lacking faith, though he does encourage Jairus to exercise what faith he has. He doesn’t even rebuke Jairus for being afraid. He just calms him with a “Don’t go there.”

In fact, if this father had not been welling up with anguish, fear, grief and self-doubt at the news of his daughter’s death, there would be serious questions to raise about the man’s love for his daughter or his own ability to feel God-given emotions. These are emotions that, barring some unusual divine intervention, allow us to cope with inevitable loss, allow us to process human events and experiences as the humans we were created to be. We were all designed to express feelings and emotions that are common to all people and natural for all of life and that bring healing in their own way to the deepest of human pain.

However, Jesus, who participated in creating these very emotions, knows that what will come immediately into that earthly father’s being will be an overload of those same emotions and, more than likely, Jairus will go into some form of shock to shield him from unbearable pain. So Jesus is quick to pull this father back from that emotional brink.

Jesus calms the man with, “Don’t be afraid,” not because those emotions are wrong, but because Jesus knows what is going to happen next and he wants that father engaged for what will surely be the happiest moment of his life. This is not Jesus testing Jairus’ faith to see if he has enough to help Jesus raise the girl to life. This is Jesus bringing calm to an earthly father’s heart so that this man can be drawn into what Jesus is about to do for him.

What happens next leads me to understand that Jesus was going to heal that girl no matter what. The girl’s healing was because of Jesus’ love, regardless of the reactions and responses of those around her. Certainly the girl herself had nothing to contribute to the imminent miracle. She was dead. But Jesus wanted Jairus to know that, while emotions are healthy if expressed as God intended, he did not need to go there, not yet. For the story wasn’t over and Jesus wasn’t finished.