The maid is not dead, but sleepeth.
The healing of Jairus’s daughter
On His way to perform one act of love, He turned aside to give His attention to another; He had a heart ready to respond to every species of need. Love is universal, humanity is the sphere of its activity. Delay was only apparent; it was impossible to convey a spiritual blessing to one who was not spiritually susceptible. The soul of Jairus by the miracle wrought on the woman was made more capable of blessing than before. This is the principle of the spiritual kingdom.
I. The uses of adversity.
1. The simplest and most obvious use of sorrow is to remind of God.
2. The misuse of sorrow. We may defeat the purposes of God in grief by forgetting it, or by over-indulging it. Sorrow is the school for all that is highest in us.
II. To come to the principles on which a miracle rests.
1. The perception of it was confined to the few. Peter, James, John, and the parents. Spiritual susceptibility necessary.
2. It is the intention of a miracle to manifest the Divine in the common and ordinary. They show that Christ is the Saviour of the body. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
God confers His gifts with distinct reminders that they are His
He gives us for a season spirits taken out of His universe brings them into temporary contact with us: and we call them father, mother, sister, child, friend. But just as in some places, on one day in the year, the way or path is closed in order to remind the public that they pass by sufferance and not by right, in order that no lapse of time may establish “adverse possession,” so does God give warning to us. Every ache and pain: every wrinkle you see stamping itself on parent’s brow: every accident which reveals the uncertain tenure of life and possessions: every funeral bell that tolls-are only God’s reminders that we are tenants at will and not by right-pensioners on the bounty of an hour. He is closing up the right of way, warning fairly that what we have is lent, not given: His, not ours. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
The shaggiest use of sorrow is to remind of God
Jairus and the woman, like many others, came to Christ from a sense of want. It would seem that a certain shock is needed to bring us into contact with reality, We are not conscious of our breathing till obstruction makes it felt. We are not aware of the possession of a heart till some disease, some sudden joy or sorrow, rouses it into extraordinary action. And we are not conscious of the mighty cravings of our half Divine humanity; we are not aware of the God within us, till some chasm yawns which must be filled, or till the rending asunder of our affections forces us to become fearfully conscious of a need. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
Jesus moved by all kinds of sorrow
Here, too, we find the Son of man the pattern of our humanity. His bosom was to mankind what the ocean is to the world. The ocean has its own mighty tide; but it receives and responds to, in exact proportion, the tidal influences of every estuary, and river, and small creek which pours into its bosom. So it was in Christ; His bosom heaved with the tides of our humanity: but every separate sorrow, pain, anti joy gave its pulsation, and received back influence from the sea of His being. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
The ruler’s daughter
1. On the way to the Ruler’s house, Jesus meets with an unlooked-for cause of delay. It must have been trying for the ruler to see Jesus stop and ask, “Who touched Me?” But he is patient.
2. Meanwhile chose at home are witnessing the death of the child. Unbelief says it is useless to trouble the Master any more. On our providential blessings the Lord writes death before He grants resurrection and life. Sight has gone; he must walk by faith.
The dead child restored:-
1. Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life, and He restores out of death in all its stages.
2. Jesus bid them not to weep, because the maiden is not dead, but only asleep. The body sleeps, not the soul.
3. Christ raises her with His word; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God and live.
4. Jesus commands that something be given her to eat. Let young converts be duly nourished by word and doctrine, then let them go and work for Christ.
5. The parents are enjoined to tell no man; they are to make no noise about her, but to keep the child and the matter quiet. She was to be brought up quietly in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. (A. M. Stuart.)
The insolence of sense, as opposed to faith
The eye of faith can discern what to the eye of sense is often invisible; and looks with simple conviction to what the other as simply rejects. “They laughed Him to scorn,” etc. And were they not right as far as their knowledge went? Could not Jesus who had opened the eyes of the blind raise the dead? They might have reasoned thus. They were too wise in their own conceit to think of looking with the eye of faith. How often does this strange levity of the people of Capernaum take the rein of men’s thoughts even in the most solemn subjects-the doctrines of Christianity; the sacraments-which appeal to no outward sense-they will “augh to scorn.” So to with the humble duties of the Christian and the lowly means with which he works; how often treated with contempt. How much there is in which a devoutly-trained faith may discern truth and comfort and promise of good, where the mere human eye might discover nothing but perplexity or disappointment. (J. Puckle, M. A.)
A science of palmistry
“Thy hand-are not all hands alike.) Is there a science of Palmistry-are there those who read the man in the hand-are not all grips of the same intensity? Why say, “Thy hand”-could no other hand be found? We are sometimes shut up to the help of one man, even in our lower life. “O for our own doctor: his very voice would do the patient good. O for our own physician; he knows just what to give when the sufferer is in this crisis of agony. O for our old mother: there was healing, there was comfort in her gentle hand. O for the old father-if he had been here he would have found the key to open this gate. O for the old pastor that first showed us the light and brought us to prayer-he would know what to say to us just now.” We have, therefore, analogy to help us in this matter. In the great crises of life there is often only one hand that can help us. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Hired mourners
I joined the mourners on the third day. Directly I entered the house, I heard the minstrels and the loud cries of the people. Professional mourners were in constant attendance to keep up the excitement, and dances and dirges succeeded each other, with intervals of wild and hysterical weeping and shrieking. There are girls who have a morbid taste for the excitement, and are celebrated for the facility with which they fall into fits of uncontrollable weeping. The real mourners and the amateur actresses in these scenes are usually ill afterwards, but the professional assistants do not appear to suffer from the fatigue or excitement, and they do not lose their self-control for a moment (Mrs. Rogers.)
Differing expressions of grief
The South and North differ greatly from each other in this respect. The nations of the North restrain their grief-affect the tearless eye, and the stern look. The expressive South, and all the nations whose origin is from thence, are demonstrative in grief. They beat their breasts, tear their hair, throw dust upon their heads. It would be unwise were either to blame or ridicule the other, so long as each is true to Nature. Unwise for the nations of the South to deny the reality of the grief which is repressed and silent. Unjust in the denizen of the North were he to scorn the violence of the Southern grief, or call its uncontrollable demonstrations unmanly. Much must be allowed for temperament. (F. W. Robertson.)
The death of children
Ah! we sometimes, I fear, compel Jesus to take away our children, that through the bereavement He may overcome and melt savingly our callous hearts. It mindeth one of another little story worth telling. A shepherd had folded safely and well a flock of ewes-all save one, which would not enter, do what he would. The gate was flung wide open, and with all gentle restraint he sought to guide it in, sparing it the rough bark of his dog. But no! still it would run back. At last, for the shades of evening were falling, and folded all must be, if he were not to be too late for home himself, he sprang out, seized her lamb, raised it tenderly to his bosom, laid it right upon his heart, as he would his own nestling babe, and carrying it within the fold placed it down there. Then, ah! then, the poor ewe ran in after her little lamb, and was saved with it. It is a parable. But fathers, mothers, still away from the Good Shepherd, and grieving sorely over your Willie or Mary, will you not run in after your little lamb? Will you compel Him to take another and another? (Grosart.)
A dying daughter
As a little girl of four lay dying, the following conversation took place between her father and herself. “Papa, does the doctor think I am going to die?” With a bursting heart, her father told her the truth. “Papa, the grave looks very dark. Won’t you go down with me into it?” “I cannot go until the Lord calls me.” “Then, papa, won’t you let mamma go with me?” It almost broke the father’s heart to utter the same truth as before. Turning her face to the wall, she wept; but then, having before this been taught of God, prayed. Soon, therefore, she looked up with a joyful face and said, “Papa, the grave is not dark now, Jesus will go with me!”