CRITICAL NOTES
Luke 8:40. Returned.—I.e. to Capernaum. Gladly received Him.—The word “gladly” is inserted by the translators, but it is implied in the phrase in the original: “welcomed Him” (R.V.).
Luke 8:41. Jairus.—In Hebrew, Jair (Judges 10:3). Ruler of the synagogue.—The affairs of the synagogue were ruled by a college of elders, one of whom was president or “ruler.” It is interesting to see that faith in Jesus was not altogether wanting among the official class in Galilee. Come into his house.—“Jairus had not the faith of the Roman centurion” (Farrar).
Luke 8:42. Lay a dying.—Was at the point of death. St. Matthew, who does not mention the coming of a messenger from the house of Jairus (here noted in Luke 8:49), describes her as “even now dead”: he anticipates, that is, the mention of her actual death.
Luke 8:51. To go in.—Rather, “to enter in with Him” (R.V.). Peter, and James, and John.—These same three disciples were chosen by Jesus to be witnesses of His transfiguration and to be near Him during His agony in Gethsemane.
Luke 8:52. All wept.—Rather, “all were weeping and bewailing her” (R.V.). I.e. in the house, not in the chamber of death. The word translated “bewail” meant originally to beat or strike oneself: probably there is a reference to beating the breasts as a sign of grief. St. Matthew mentions “the minstrels” or flute-players, who together with other professional mourners were ordinarily employed on such occasions. Not dead, but sleepeth.—I.e. she is as one who sleeps, for she is shortly to awake. A similar word is used of Lazarus, John 11:11.
Luke 8:54. And He put them all out.—To be omitted: omitted in R.V., probably an interpolation from the parallel passages in the other Gospels. Maid, arise.—St. Mark gives the exact Aramaic words used, “Talitha cumi.”
Luke 8:55.—The command to give her to eat shows that she was restored to actual life with its wants and weaknesses, and in that incipient state of convalescence which would require nourishment.
Luke 8:56.—St. Matthew tells us that secrecy was not maintained; but, on the contrary, “the fame thereof went abroad into all that land.” We need not suppose the parents were disobedient to the command of Jesus; an event of the kind, known to so many, could scarcely be concealed.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Luke 8:40-42; Luke 8:49-56
The Sleeping Child awakened.—Sorrows and need make short work of prejudices. Jairus, as a synagogue official, was probably not over-favourable to Jesus; but he must have known of the cures already done in the synagogue at Capernaum, and so he forgets his doubts and dignity, and flings himself at the feet of the new Teacher, who, whether a heretic or not, may heal his little girl. His “faith” was probably merely a belief in Christ’s miraculous power; and he was far behind the heathen centurion, who did not ask Jesus to come, but only to speak. But his agony was sore, his need great, his beseeching plaintive, and Jesus does not stop to put him through a catechism before He responds to his prayer. We are taught to think more loftily of Christ’s willingness and power by His swift and exuberant answers to the poorest faith. Jesus has just come from exhausting toils on the other side of the lake; but He asks for no leisure, but goes with the impatient father at once, attended by a gaping crowd of sight-seers. Take our Lord’s three sayings (Luke 8:50; Luke 8:52; Luke 8:54) as guides to the narrative.
I. He invites and encourages faith even at the moment when all seems hopeless.—The impatience of Jairus was justified by the message of the child’s death. His faith, such as it was, was ready to collapse. He could believe that Jesus could heal, but to bring to life again was too much to expect. It obviously had not occurred to him as possible. How should it? And at that moment, when the last faint spark of light in the father’s darkened heart has been blown out, Christ, for the first time in the story, speaks. His words sound strange and almost meaningless, “Fear not.” What more was there to fear? The last and worst had come. “Only believe.” What was there to believe now? “She shall be made whole.” But she is dead. But there lies hidden to be found by the believing father a comfort which was enough for faith to lay hold of, though it might not be put in plain language. He gives Jairus enough to cheer him and relight the flame of hope. He never bids us not to be afraid without bidding us believe in Him, and giving faith something to cling to. A true faith will accept His assurances even when they seem to imply impossibilities; and many a mourning heart that has heard Jesus speak thus over the dear dead whom He has not raised, knows how true it is that dying they have been “made whole,” and live a fuller life.
II. He announces that the irrevocable is not irrevocable to Him and His, for He comes to awake the sleeper.—This word was spoken in the house, at the door of the chamber. Flute-players, and hired mourners, and curious neighbours, and all the crowd that comes to buzz round sorrow, were there; and a yard off, on the other side of a wall, lay the poor child quiet and deaf to it all. It is absurd to imagine that the saying of Christ is to be taken literally, and that the child was simply in a swoon or trance. The bystanders’ unfeeling laugh is proof enough that what men call death had unmistakably taken place. They had seen the last moments, and knew that she was dead. What then does the saying mean? Jesus is not dealing in sentimental fine names for the unchanged horror, as we sometimes do; but His change of names follows a change of nature. He has abolished death, and, while the physical fact remains, the whole character of it changes. Sleep is not unconsciousness. It suspends the power of affecting, or being affected by, the world of sense, but does no more. We live and think and rejoice in sleep. It has the promise of waking. It brings rest. Therefore our Lord takes the old metaphor which all nations have used to hide the ugliness of death, and breathes new hope into it.
III. His last word is the life-giving one in the death-chamber.—Silence and secrecy befitted it. He kept out the noisy mob, and with the parents and the three chief disciples enters the sacred presence of the dead. Why this small number of witnesses? Possibly for the sake of the child, whose tender years might be disturbed by many curious eyes; but also, apparently, because, for reasons not known to us, He desired little publicity for the miracle. How simply and easily the stupendous deed is done! One touch of His hand, two words, the very syllables of which St. Mark gives, and “her spirit returned.” He is the Lord both of the dead and the living, and His word runneth very swiftly over the gulf between this world and the abode of the dead. They sleep lightly, and are easily waked by His touch. Their sleep, while it lasts, is sweet, restful, conscious, if they sleep in Jesus. As for the weary body, it slumbers; and as for the spirit, it may be said to sleep, if by that we understand the cessation of toil, the end of connection with the outer world, the tranquillity of deep repose; but, in another aspect, the sleep of the saints is their passing into a fuller and more vivid life, and they are “satisfied,” when they close their eyes on earth, to open them for heaven, and sleep to “awake in His likeness.”—Maclaren.