New Thoughts (8/31/07-9/10/07)
I will begin this study considering something I wrote while thinking about Jairus and what he went through. I had written, “Desperate need is the strongest antidote for pride.” Well, I clearly can’t say with any certainty that this was an issue for Jairus. I can, however, say that it’s an issue for many of us, myself included. We are a proud people. For many, this is the thing that makes accepting Jesus so very hard to even consider. See, to accept Jesus is to accept our own desperate need, and pride cannot allow that to happen.
Many of us will have gone through life thinking we were pretty good people. We are convinced that if there were some glaring character flaws evident in our early years then we have overcome them. We are convinced that through sweat and toil we have improved ourselves, shaped our future, laid hold the reins of destiny and steered our course to suit ourselves. We have put all manner of energy into convincing ourselves how good we are, how clever, how successful, how beautiful. Is it any wonder that we have raised a new generation that is so used to hearing how special they are that they seemingly can’t survive without a constant diet of praise? We have simply been treating them as we treated ourselves!
Into this world of self-delusion comes somebody telling us how we are in need of a Savior, but who can hear it? Like these folks hearing Jesus say the girl is only asleep, we laugh it off as utter nonsense. We certainly know better than to think that. Why, we have broken no laws. There are no outstanding warrants for our arrest. Our health is fine. We exercise and eat right. Hey! We even help out at civic events every once in awhile. Our accounts are in good order, our kharma’s good (whatever that means). So, what exactly is it that we need to be saved from? Sin? Weren’t you listening? Who have I murdered, who have I robbed? See, so long as I’m convinced of my own goodness, you can’t convince me of my need.
But, once that need is made clear, then pride falls shattered to the ground, and the message of the Gospel can get through. Making that need clear may be, probably is, beyond our ability. It takes the conviction of the Holy Spirit to break through and get us to look at the truth. Sometimes, I think, it is through just such crushing circumstances as we see Jairus facing that we finally get it.
It is interesting, in Mark’s account, how often we hear this man referred to as ‘the synagogue official,’ and how rarely he is mentioned by his name. In fact, other than mentioning that this official’s name was Jairus, his name is never used again, there. Likewise, Luke only mentions his name in passing, and thereafter refers to him by his position. Matthew never even bothers with the man’s name. They are drilling home a point. Here was an official of the synagogue come to bow down before Jesus. Considering what they went through with the official order of religion this would be of great significance to them. Those folks from Jerusalem might deride this official as being from the back woods, but still, he was an official, and this official had humbled himself before the Teacher.
His desperate need had broken down any semblance of pride he may have had in himself. People may have known who he was as he came through the crowds to find Jesus, but he wasn’t making a show of it himself, so far as can be seen. When he comes to Jesus, he doesn’t come with demands of respect for his position, he bows himself before an acknowledged Superior. When the crowds hamper his progress, he doesn’t call for the deference his title might demand. Perhaps most notably, when the whole procession stops as Jesus deals with the importunate woman, there is nothing about Jairus tugging at Jesus to get back to his own needs. Whatever may have gone through his mind, and I have no doubt he agonized for the delay, he kept it to himself. There was no place for pride. There was only desperation.
His complete submission to this Teacher Who has told him not to be afraid is evident in the happenings back at his house. The mourners are there. People have come to help him shed the tears that he must surely shed over the loss of his daughter, and yet Jesus has commanded that they all get out of the house. His claims sound like the words of a simpleton. She’s not dead? Of course she’s dead. They could all see that plain as day. To side with this Teacher when He is spouting such obvious nonsense would be the end of his office, I am sure. Who could put any confidence in a man who would believe such insanities? Yet, when Jesus says clear them out, he clears them out. Desperate need. There is no room for considerations of position and prestige when the need is so clear. You could as easily call it desperate hope, I suppose, for any hope he had would have to be desperate to remain in the face of such overwhelming evidence. Only believe. He must have been repeating that to himself like a mantra, to keep faith under the circumstances. But, he was submitted. He was humbled before this Man, and he would do what he was told to do.
Now, I grant that the example laid out here is a physical, material matter. It is a need that really doesn’t go beyond this life that has grabbed hold of Jairus. Of course, it is a pride that doesn’t go beyond this life either. Whatever office he might have, whatever place of importance in the house of God, it would avail nothing beyond the grave. In the grave, it has been said, princes and paupers look just the same. So it is with the lives of men in the sight of God. The things that so grab our attention are of no consequence to Him. The things He concerns Himself with are deeper than that. They are found in the hidden, inner life of the conscience. They are found where character starts, where character is most true: in the places we think only we see. There is where He looks, and there is where He passes judgment. All the outward acts of charity, all the efforts to treat other people properly are worth nothing if the inner character is not fit.
We can look to the motive behind the action. Why those acts of charity? Was it just for the deductions? Was it so that people would think better of us? Why the proper treatment of those we work with? Was it no more than ‘enlightened self interest’? Was it fear of reprisal? Perhaps, the hope of some compensation? There always seems to be something in us that will tarnish the best of efforts, some reason behind the actions that makes them less than they appear. We all have a trace of Pharisee in us. This is why we find God saying that we are every one of us in need. Whatever the appearance, the reality is that we have been rebels against His rule. However much we have constrained our outward actions to abide by the letter of the Law, our hearts and minds have been far from it. Like President Carter, we all are forced to confess, if we are truthful, that we have in one way or another broken with God’s Law in our heart. What Jesus has made plain to us is that what is broken in the heart is already broken in the life, whether or not there is ever any outward evidence of it. The Law against which the heart has rebelled is a Law of the heart, and therefore, the penalty of that Law is already due, again, whether or not there is ever any outward evidence of the breach.
That is our desperate need. Whether or not we are dealing with physical ailments, whether or not there are crushing trials of any sort facing us in the physical, material flow of life, the need of the spirit, of the heart, threatens to destroy us if we do not find a Savior. Eventually, the conscience which God devised in the soul of man will break through however many layers of prideful self-congratulation have been plastered over it to keep it quiet. No matter how much effort we have put into convincing ourselves of our goodness, the conscience will break in and tell us the truth about ourselves. Sooner or later, pride must go, and desperation reach out for the One Who can save.
A change of topic, now. As I was digging about in preparation for this study, it occurred to me how John had been prepared by God to come through the loss of his brother. As I noted then, even pillars need support. John, who is indeed one of the early pillars of the Christian church, whose faith in and love for Jesus, the Christ of God is so great a model for us, must surely have suffered great sorrow when Herod had James murdered. It seems evident that those two brothers had always been close, and now John must face the world without the support of his older brother. But, Jesus had already seen to that need by providing Peter. As His time of ministry drew to a close, we find Him making arrangements where these two, Peter and John, will need to work together. We see that teamwork in the way these two operate after Jesus has gone home. There is a closeness between these two that surpasses even that of blood. “There is a friend who is closer than a brother.” It seems Jesus had made a living parable of these two to express that great truth about Himself.
In a more mundane sense, though, John was going to need a man of faith who could support him through the loss of James. We can argue, I am sure, that John’s faith was sufficiently strong that even the loss of James wasn’t going to phase him. However, such an argument would seem to deny the humanity of the Apostles, which Scripture does not do. Certainly, there was excitement among them as they came to grips with the power of the Holy Spirit which had been bestowed upon them. Certainly, there was a weight of duty upon their shoulders as they realized the responsibility that had been left to them: to establish the new Church. Faith may even suffice in such a one when his brother is taken from him, even when he is taken for himself being a pillar in this same business of establishing the Church. It may suffice, but the likelihood of that is vastly reduced where there is not another man of faith to lend his support.
This is why there is a church body. This is why we are forewarned not to forsake the concept of coming together in fellowship. It is the rare man whose faith can weather every trial with no other of like faith to walk by his side. As God said in the creation, “It is not good for man to be alone.” He is but dust, and fragile in his isolation. Very few ever find the strength of Job to cling to. More often, we find we need another of like faith to keep us strong through our own weakness. For John, allowing that he had suffered any such weakness, the support he was given was Peter. I think, too, that this worked in the reverse. For Peter, when there were moments of weakness, John was there to lend his strength of belief.
This is just as true for Jairus as we find him in these events. He, too, is a pillar in the house of God. He has been standing as a representative of God for the area in which he lives. It’s not, in this instance, about how good a job he has been doing in his position. It is quite simply that he is in that position. He is set as a reminder of God’s power, to be a support to the people of his community in their own moments of weakness. But, who shall the leader lean on when it is his own moment? He, too, needs a visible, tangible support to keep him mindful of God’s very present help in time of need.
The more I think on this, the more convinced I am that this woman’s healing was accomplished at ‘just such a time’ so that her testimony could serve as his support. Apart from the evidence of her healing, accomplished right there in his presence, what Jairus had was stories and rumors. Stories and rumors are nothing upon which to hang one’s faith. They are certainly not going to suffice when the evidence of the senses shows conclusively that, “your daughter has died.” This was not story and rumor. This was the plain, incontrovertible evidence of a corpse laid out in one’s own house. If all he had to counter this was the talk of the people, it would be beyond belief that he should believe the word of this Stranger.
However, God has arranged that coincidental interruption along the way. If it had simply been about healing that woman of her problem, she could have gone quietly back to her life, perhaps spoken of it at some later date. If it were simply about her healing, or even simply about the restoration of this girl to life, there would be no call for mentioning any more details of these events than Matthew brings out. Yet, there it is: this issue of the woman having suffered for twelve years, and Jairus’ daughter being twelve years old. I had previously looked for some significance in the number itself, but that’s not the point. The whole point is that it would awaken Jairus to the similarities in the situation. It is a mental hook, thrown out to draw his attention to what had just happened, and to serve as a reminder in the face of the news that was just coming.
Even pillars need support. Had Jairus not just heard this testimony of God’s power when these others came with their testimony of the devil’s power, he would likely have heeded the advice of those late arrivals, and given up. Instead, he has a foundation upon which to build when Jesus says, “only believe.” He has just witnessed what Jesus can do, as it were, by accident. Yes, there’s reason to believe He can even pull off the healing of his dead daughter when He really puts some effort into His works. It wouldn’t be the first time. Jairus had doubtless heard the stories about that interrupted funeral procession, the son restored from his coffin to his mother. That would have seemed a wild story up until a few minutes ago. Now, it is distinctly possible. Now, all things are possible!
So, let me say this: We never know how important our own words of testimony may be. We are called to testify, that much we know. But, we are not promised that we shall know why we were called to testify when we were. We are not always going to be given the benefit of hearing what our words have done. That is just as well, because if we knew it would doubtless puff up our pride once again, and we would be back at the point of needing to experience a desperate need to help us shed that pride.
It is a wonderful aspect of God’s plan that He has so designed us that we continue to need the support of others however strong we may be. It is equally wonderful that He goes to such lengths to ensure that we have the support we need. He does not require us to believe without reason. He does not call us to a blind faith, but gives us every reason to believe. Only then does He come and say, “Trust me.” It may well be that it is still harder to believe than not to, but that will not be because of a lack of reason to believe. It will be due to the opposition of an unbelieving world.
So, here we have poor Jairus. He is faced with two sets of data, two bodies of evidence. On the one hand, his relatives have come to him and told him his daughter is dead. They are not fools, his relatives. They are not likely to be playing a prank on him, nor are they so daft as to be mistaken about what they say. Indeed, the body of evidence in their favor only grows as they come nearer the house. The mourners have been brought in, the professionals. They are certainly familiar enough with death to make no mistake about it.
Over against this set of evidence is the healing he has just witnessed; that, and the word of the Man Who healed. “Only believe.” That really doesn’t seem like much to hold onto against such a wave of evidence, does it? Yet, there is the command of the Master. “Don’t be afraid, only believe.” Luke’s account adds a promise that the daughter will be made well, but I wonder. Was that said, or was it what folks remembered after the fact? Did He really give Jairus a promise to hold onto, or just the challenge of belief? Well, part of me, at least, says that God would not have had Luke record words that weren’t really said. It is not, after all, unfitting that He would provide yet one more bit of support to this pillar, so that he can weather what is still ahead of him. God does not test us beyond our ability, remember. To face the evidence of death in his daughter’s bedroom with no more than ‘only believe’ to hold on to might well have been too much of a test. ‘Only believe, and here’s My promise of her healing,’ though, has something to lay hold of. Yes, she is clearly dead, but He has promised her healing, and these eyes have seen what He can do. If He has promised it, He will do it.
I suppose I must reiterate what seems to be necessary so often in these settings: There is no call upon Jairus to deny the truth of what he sees. Nowhere does Jesus say, “don’t believe your eyes, believe Me.” Nowhere does Jesus advise Jairus to refuse the word of those who have come. There is not exclamation of, “I reject that!” Truth is, our refusal to accept the truth is futile, anyway. If somebody speaks to us of the facts of a particular situation, simply denying the facts really won’t change a thing. The idea that it will has nothing to do with Scripture and everything to do with New Age nonsense. In fact, I would point out that our habit of denying the facts is what kept us separated from God for so long. Until He could get us to ‘fess up to the fact of our own unrighteousness, He could not convince us to lay hold of His own. In laying hold of His righteousness, there is no thought or advice that we ought in the same breath start denying our own unrighteousness. No. It is a constant confession that we in ourselves are utterly unworthy of the grace which has been given us, yet that grace has been given and in Him, and only in Him, we are declared righteous in spite of ourselves.
Yet, when we come to things like healing, we garble up our thinking. We decide that we must deny the reality of the situation to lay hold of the promise that it will change. Well, if we couldn’t seek out His righteousness until we acknowledge our own unrighteousness why would we think it sensible to expect that we would seek out his healing while denying our own sickness? Why, for that matter, do we even think it reasonable that the God of all Truth would be calling upon us to lie about our present state in hopes of His future promise. It is so thoroughly inconsistent with His nature as to be an abomination in His sight! How dare we suppose such behavior is sanctioned by a Holy God?
He has not called Jairus to refute his senses, nor to decry those who have come as liars and sons of the devil. He has simply said, “Don’t be alarmed by these facts.” Yes, the evidence is there, and plenty of it. But, there is a time, Jairus, when the evidence must be set aside in light of the promise. It is not a denial of the evidence, for the evidence is there in plain sight. It is the proclamation of a greater Truth, that God is able. Even with this evidence of defeat, even with the situation so clearly beyond the power of man to change, God is able. The opinions of the public cannot change God’s ability.
That is something else I think we must realize. For, people have got it in their head that unbelief is somehow more powerful than God. They look to that passage where it is written that Jesus could not do many miracles because of the unbelief in Nazareth, and they think this is a model for Christian life. They find in that a cause to accuse those who are not showered by what they deem to be the blessings of God. It is because of your unbelief. It is not that God is weak, it is that you are a hindrance to Him. Well, I ask you: which is greater God’s power or mine? It is, of course, a rhetorical question. If my power were greater then I should be god, and not He, yet it is manifestly not so. I also have the evidence of my own conversion to prove the point, at least for myself. It was not by my will that I came to Him, but by His will. It was not my idea to seek out God, it was His idea to open my eyes. Unbelief didn’t seem to stop Him then, and I sincerely doubt it ever has. We just like to give ourselves more credit than is our due.
No, the reality lies closer to that one who said, “Yes, I believe. Help my unbelief.” Because, the reality is that our professed belief is never all that strong. If we hold to faith believing it is only because the Holy Spirit is hard at work in us, helping us to hold on. Oh, that we would understand these things. Yes, we must set aside what the senses are telling us, but not in denial, only in acknowledgment that there is something greater than that evidence. There is Someone more powerful than the bonds of life and death. He holds the keys and should He decide that the time for death is not yet, then death is not coming, even if it is in the room.
There is a time when we must set aside the opinions of others. Again, it has nothing to do with refusing their testimony or rejecting their prophesying. My goodness! If they are truly prophesying, then how do you propose to reject the very word of God? No, if the prophesy is not for good, then it is for warning. It is not to be rejected but to be taken to heart that the heart might be changed. That is the way to change the prophetic word, by changing the heart, not by refusing the message! Israel had a habit of refusing the message. It didn’t accomplish much that was good, did it? Ninevah, on the other hand, took the warning to heart and changed its ways, at least for a time. That had some impact. That moved the heavenlies. For, God is always moved by a repentant heart, never by the stiff-necked.
So, these are the things Jairus is counseled to. Yes, the evidence is bleak. Yes, the words these men bring is true enough. There’s no sense pretending it isn’t, for you’ll be seeing it for yourself soon enough. But, here is something bigger than that: Your daughter will yet be made well. The One Who created the heavens and the earth yet reigns, and He has this promise for you. So, hold fast, and you will see the hand of the Lord come swiftly to save your daughter. I tell you plainly, if Jairus had not heard this as God’s promise, and not just the word of some teacher, then he would not have held on. He was a man of God, though, and he recognized that where there is God’s promise, there is reason to believe. Whatever the evidence, however bleak the situation, there is reason to believe. God has said it, and that is sufficient.
For us, I would add this one caveat, though: We need to be certain it is what God has said and not simply what we have wanted to hear. We need to really consider those promises in Scripture that we tend to lay claim to. Some of those are not general issue. They were not given to the seed of Abraham, but to specific individuals in specific situations. We can lay claim to such promises all day long, but God is not obliged to honor our claims. There is more than enough in what He has truly promised. Lay hold of that! The greatest of these promises is simply that as we turn our attention to His kingdom, as we make His priorities our own, He will see to our needs. God provides. And, that is more than enough.
Turning to the moment when hope is fulfilled, it is such a simple thing that Jesus does. He simply takes the child’s hand and tells her to get up. Isn’t that something! Remembering that He had told the crowd that she was just asleep, this is a most appropriate way to go about her restoration, I think. When it came time to bring Lazarus back, He would speak differently, but here it is simply a wake-up call. Was she, as the people thought, truly dead and gone? Yes, I suspect that so far as physical matters go, that body was quite dead. But, there is more to death than the body, just as there is more to life than the body. The soul is the issue in all things. If we wanted to get technical with regards to His comment, we might suppose Him to be saying that the soul had not yet fully separated itself from the body. This would, however, be little more than speculation, and not likely to be worth the effort of pursuing.
What is striking in this situation is the simple truth it reveals. When God commands, the spirit obeys. This strikes, once again, at the idea that we are captains of our own souls, as we like to believe. It proclaims a distinct boundary to our proudly maintained free will. We are free to choose, it is true, in many things, even in most things. But, there comes a moment of command. It is a vastly different matter than when God advises, suggests, requests or otherwise seeks to direct our course. Even the Law, for all that it is written in the form of a command, is really the outline of our suggested course of life. It does not, in the end, have the power of that direct command of God that is evident in this scene. If it had, I doubt not that man never would have failed to keep that Law, for when He commands, obedience is not an option, it’s a necessity.
When He commands this child to arise, her spirit obeys immediately. It is a command, and it is the command of the Supreme Being, the Creator of that spirit. This is the power before which every knee will bow. This is the power of Whom every tongue shall confess. He alone holds the power to proclaim that His will most assuredly will be done. He alone can have that confidence in His word. How great the blessing, then, if we heed His word before it becomes a command in such power, if we gladly choose obedience now, instead of grudgingly accepting the inevitable obedience later.
I will turn now to that particular word Jesus chooses to use in calling this child back. Now, in all honesty, I would have to suppose that Mark’s account is likely the most accurate in terms of the specific wording. He is, after all, relaying the words of an eye (and ear) witness to these events, as we suppose, whereas Luke is comes along later to sift memories in reaching his narrative. There is also the evidence of the Aramaic in what Mark has recorded, which would seem to make clear that Jesus was addressing His words to a ‘little girl.’ Following Strong’s sense of the derivation of that word, I see that we come back to the word for a little lamb. What a fitting address, then, to hear from the lips of the Shepherd!
This might, in fact, explain Luke’s choice of words in his account. He has come to the more ‘generic’ term for a child, paidion. Well, he is Greek and he is well-educated, and this doubtless strikes him as a reasonable word to use. We cannot really know what has led him to this choice of words other than to recognize the hand of the Holy Spirit in its choosing. That said, the clear and obvious sense of the word he has used is that it indicates a half-grown child. In other words, here is one who is neither an infant nor has she reached the age of maturity. She is entered into those ‘in between’ years, although by her culture’s standards she was much closer to maturity than we would think her to be.
There is, however, another sense which the word paidion carries, that of a servant. Interestingly, by that usage, it would generally indicate a servant of the king. As God is the King of all kings, it takes on the sense of indicating a servant of God. What a picture these various meanings paint for us, of the heart of Jesus towards this young girl! She is a dear little lamb. She is the one who has left the safety of the fold, and here is the Shepherd come to rescue her from her peril. She is the very parable of Israel! And that, I think, is a thought I want to return to.
At the same time, she is a servant of the King, although one not yet fully in her maturity. Would it be stretching the material too thin to suppose that this child, young has she was, had already developed a heart after God? Her environment would certainly allow for such a thing. Let us suppose that Jairus is not the political hypocrite that was so prevalent in the Temple hierarchy of Jerusalem. He is far enough from the centers of power to be a true leader in the synagogue. He has certainly led truly in coming before Jesus in such humility. He has certainly led truly in trusting the promise of Jesus over the evidence of his immediate situation. Perhaps, then, there is a true faith beating in his heart, a faith that has been true for many a year, if never tested as it has been now.
If that is the case, then it would be quite natural that his child should imbibe of the faith upon which he is sustained. She is certainly old enough to have given it some thought in her own right. Indeed, were I to judge her by the child of this age, I would say she was at that age where the reality or the hypocrisy of her father’s profession would be clearly evident to her. If his faith has been as consistently true as it appears to be during this brief episode, then she has seen true faith. Perhaps, then, she has taken such true faith to heart even in her own, half-grown youth. Perhaps it is this which the Spirit addresses through the words Luke chooses. Here, in this child, was a not-yet matured, but yet not infant servant of the Living God. If we allow this much, we must suppose that she is so by her own choosing, for the record of Scripture shows that those who serve God serve Him willingly, gladly choosing to be joined to His household for life.
This might even stand as the reason she is returned to life. She is not yet fully prepared for serving in the house of God. This life might, I suppose, be looked upon as a training ground in which we learn how to serve our Lord and Master. It is here, after all, that we face the trials, that we meet with suffering and rejection and pain and sorrow. It is here that we begin to test the strength of our faith, and here that we build up the spiritual muscles to battle the enemies of doubt and fear. It is here that we learn to walk in the victory of Christ Jesus. When we have joined Him in His kingdom, and His reign has been established, we are promised that the times of tears and sorrow will have passed. The time of trial will have passed. Then, we will be mature servants of the Living God. For the present though, we are as this young girl, immature servants at best. Immature, yes, but not infants.
Along those lines, it is interesting to see how one servant learned from what he saw on this occasion. There came a point when Peter was in a similar situation. While the woman who lay dead before him was not a child in terms of physical age, she was, as I have just said, still maturing as a servant of God. The account given of her life by those who knew her would seem to indicate that she had grown well, but there is always more growing to do, isn’t there? So, Peter comes to this woman and calls upon his memories of the scene we have been studying. One could almost suppose him to be asking himself, “what would Jesus do?” He thinks back and he knows exactly what to do. He prayed. That, first and foremost, was of absolute necessity. Faith demands prayer. Then, he moved boldly in the ways His Master had taught him by example. He took the woman’s hand and spoke almost exactly what Jesus had spoken. “Tabitha, arise!” (Ac 9:40).
So, what was it about Peter’s effort that caused the successful outcome? For, Tabitha most certainly did arise. Was it because he had so carefully followed the example Jesus set? Was it because he had used the moves, said the words? I tell you, no! Emphatically no! What made the difference was belief. Peter wasn’t playing games of “let’s try this and see what happens.” Had he mimicked Jesus perfectly in every least nuance of his speech and his movements it would yet be to no avail without the one vital matter. Had he not had faith in the God of heaven and earth to move as He had promised; indeed, had he not known with full conviction that what he undertook to do was in perfect accord with God’s purpose in that situation, nothing would have come of it.
While I am reminded this morning that we are not to be so fatalistic in our understanding of God’s sovereignty as to suppose our actions make no difference, yet we are to understand His sovereignty. We ought to be particularly aware of His sovereignty when we are praying and when we are ministering in His service. It is a foolish and dangerous thing to play at ministering in His service when all we are really doing is pursuing our own ends. God will not be mocked, as He has said. Those who proclaim solely for personal gain may fair well for a season, but they do not prosper. They may gather riches for a time, but they gather those riches as a testimony against themselves. They may know ease for the few years of this life, but an endless age of punishment awaits, whether they see its beginnings in this life or not.
It is matters such as this that cause me to become so concerned over how I see some of my fellow believers approaching my God. They have, as I view it, slipped over the line that divides a bold approach to the throne from proud presumption. Frankly, I don’t care how clear and true the promises of God are upon which we stand in prayer; true though they are, they do not give us the standing to tell God He has to do what we require of Him. We are in no position to require anything of Him! We are in a fine position to request it, and we can request in the confidence of knowing His faithfulness to His promises, but demand it? I think not! How shall we dare to come to the Lord of lords and King of kings as if we were of equal or greater rank? It shows a terrifying lack of understanding to do so.
Likewise, I earnestly desire that we might get away from our formulas for prayer. This seems particularly prevalent in the area of deliverance ministry. It seems that every person who ministers in this area has his or her own set of ritual gestures and carefully worded phrases that simply must be gone through if the deliverance is to be expected to work. As if God depends upon such rites! He has long since made plain that His concern is with the heart and the soul, not the position of our fingers as we call out to Him. All the violent hacking motions of our hands will cut off nothing in the spiritual realm. At the same time, one man of real, true faith will cut off all those attacks that the hand-motions seek to ward off without so much as moving a muscle. It is not our fancy phrases or our choreography that wars in the heavenlies, it is our spirit and our faith.
Returning to this child who has arisen, there really is something in her situation that puts me in mind of the rebirth that is the foundation of Christian faith. I had commented that she is, as it were, a parable of Israel. In that she models this rebirth, she is, as well, a parable of the Church. Whether or not this is the intent of God in performing this particular miracle, there it is: a parable played out in real life. She is, as I wrote earlier, the paidion, the little sheep who has skipped out of her Father’s fold. She is the young servant of the King, sealed to Him for life. Consider her in her humanity, in her upbringing. She has been raised in the house of a faithful man, by all appearances. She has been raised in the faith of her fathers, taught the Truths of the One True God. Yet, she is dead.
Well, hasn’t that been the situation for any number of us! We have had all the benefits of being raised in a Christian society, however much it has fallen from its earlier graces. We have, most of us, had the benefits of being raised in a Christian family. We have been taught the things of God since we were small. Yet, for years we were dead. We knew it all, but it hadn’t changed us. We may have even been in the church the whole time, and yet we were as dead as if we had never heard of this Jesus. See, the knowing isn’t enough. It’s the same story as I was talking about with ministry. The mere gesture of being in church, the mere ability to rise at the right moment, sit at the right moment, memorize the group prayers and the congregational responses; none of this means anything until the Master comes and takes our hands.
It is only when He comes and whispers in our ears, “child, arise!” that all these things we have been doing begin to take on any meaning at all. It is only when our spirit hears His Spirit, and responds to the command of its calling that life begins. This is why the Christian faith is spoken of in terms of a rebirth. It is not that the physical life is nothing. It is that the physical life is a worthless thing apart from the life of the spirit. Until He comes and imparts that rebirth in us, we are no better than zombies, walking as though alive, but just as dead as if we were already in the grave.
We all, the Scriptures remind us, have gone astray like little sheep. In that straying is death. In our departing from the clear marked path of the Lord’s righteousness, we invite our destruction. Yet, we do so, and we do so constantly. It is not that we don’t want to do what is right, to live what is right. It is simply that we are little sheep, half-grown teens in the kingdom of God, and as such, we tend to be a bit absent minded and foolish. Like any teen, we are torn between the desire to be mature and the desire to remain in the freedom of our youth. We are at that cusp in our growth where it seems the benefits and the demands of what lays ahead are in near perfect balance, and it is so hard to remain confident that the one is worth the other. We are like Israel in the desert, never quite sure whether the land ahead is a better choice than the certainty of the Egyptian past. And, like Israel in the desert, we blind ourselves to the fact that the choice really is between life and death.
But, God is merciful. He does not suffer His sheep to remain strays. He does not suffer His children to remain immature. Rather, He comes looking for us in our wanderings. He reminds us of our heritage and, indeed, reminds us that we are closer to our heritage than once we were. He builds hope in us that we may persevere in the Way. He quickens our souls to the reality of kingdom life that we may persevere in this earthly life, holding fast to our faith to the end, knowing that fullness of life continues after the end.
Well, I grant I am investing a fair amount of meaning in a choice of words which would appear to be the choice of one writer, yet the point is worth considering. It also makes at least a little more sense out of the way Jesus attempts to silence the parents as to what He has done. That is something we have seen Jesus do before. It was there in the case of the leper He healed, and then sent to the local priest to present the proper Mosaic offerings and have himself proclaimed Levitically clean (Mt 8:4). In this case, there is no such immediately obvious point to His command.
But, let us understand that former case more fully and perhaps we will understand the present case. Think about that leper. He opted to ignore the command, having already obtained what all that he was after. So, he runs about town telling one and all how he has been healed of his leprosy, and he credits this Jesus for the healing. Now, our initial reaction to this is one of being pleased because the name of Jesus was being magnified. We must stop, though, and consider: How can Jesus’ name – His office and His authority – be magnified by being ignored? Well, think of what would have transpired had this man obeyed. He would have gone to the priest, and the priest would have little choice but to proclaim him Levitically clean. Here is point number one: The man had his healing, it is true, but he didn’t have the cleansing that really mattered. His body looked better on the outside, but his spirit was clearly still that of a hidden rebel. Had he obeyed, it would have given evidence to an internal change to match the external. Had he come desiring both the internal and the external cleansing, I have no doubt both would have been his. But, he came in search of no more than the physical, and he received no more than the physical.
That is point number two: While Jesus would not refuse those whose interests were merely in the physical blessings He could impart, these were not His great concern. His concern was and is and ever shall be for the spiritual, eternal issue. What use is physical healing when the soul is left to rot? What point is there to delaying physical death when eternal death is still fixed in place? This, I suspect, played a large role in Jesus’ constant downplaying of the healing aspect of ministry. Yes, it’s there. Yes, it’s always happening, but He will not allow it to be the focus.
Finally, there is point number three: Had that man gone to the priest as he ought, Jesus points out that it would be a testimony to the priesthood. A testimony of what? Of the great power of Jesus’ ministry? No. It would be a testimony of the power and the presence of the Living God. It would be to the glory of God, not the ministry. This is the greatest issue that Jesus is trying to address. While it is ‘all about Jesus,’ as we like to say, it is really all about God. It is not all about healing. It is not all about deliverance. It is not all about material prosperity and freedom from every trial. It’s about God being glorified by our lives and our responses no matter our circumstance. It’s about a faithfulness to God that transcends circumstance. That’s what commended Job, after all. His worshipful honoring of God was not contingent upon a constant shower of blessings as Satan supposed it to be. No, even with every tangible blessing of this life stripped away and every woe of this life heaped on, he continued to honor God. “Thou He slay me, yet will I trust Him,” is the only confession that true faith can make.
The issue with a healing ministry now is the issue that attended upon the healing ministry then. The healing becomes a distraction from the point. Indeed, it becomes an idol. Remember the staff raised up in the wilderness? It, too, was implemented for healing and deliverance. But, it became an idol by the people’s inordinate worship of the object. It distracted them from true worship as they focused on the material benefits. Such a distracted worship cannot develop a true strength of faith, for faith is never exercised in the good times. It is exercised by the trials.
So, Jesus sent that man away with a command that should have led to God getting the glory rather than Jesus. Yes, that’s a fine distinction given that Jesus is a fully God as the Father. But, Jesus, though fully God, was here in flesh. He had, as Paul tells us, willingly stripped Himself of His fullness. He had set aside the prerogatives of the godhead to come and live as a man. As such, the honor that was His due as the Son of God, He would defer and deflect to the Father, because at that time, though He remained fully God, He chose to function as fully man. As a being fully man, He could not properly accept the honor that is due God alone. Throughout His ministry He healed, but He healed as evidence of the power of God, not the power of Himself.
He healed, as it were, to attract the children of God to their Father, to remind them of Who their Father is. He healed, as a beacon to the Word of Truth which He would speak. Always, healing was accompanied by teaching, because the healing wasn’t the point, the lesson taught was the point. Too much focus on healing would prevent the lesson from being heard and understood. The mind focused on receiving tangible benefits isn’t really paying much attention to the speeches that precede the benefit, nor will it stick around to listen when once the benefit is obtained.
Still, this command must have been particularly perplexing to Jairus and his wife. Let us suppose that they complied. It is certainly possible, perhaps even probable that they did. But, that would do no more than stop the most immediate details from being told. That crowd that Jesus had chased out of the house hadn’t gone far. Nor could they miss the fact that the girl they came to mourn was up and healthy. Word was going to spread with or without these two. Indeed, if they did heed His command, the clear evidence that something happened must have made it that much harder not to explain what. How many times must they have been questioned about what they had seen in that room, what had transpired? Yet, they are compelled to say little more than that blind man Jesus later healed. “All I know is that once she was dead, and now she lives, God be praised!”
Here is a simple truth: Where the power of the Spirit is truly operating, the word will spread. It happened right there at the opening of Jesus’ ministry. He had been led into the desert to have His credentials confirmed and now He returned to Galilee ‘in the power of the Spirit’ (Lk 4:14). What happened? Word spread. Here, in the house of Jairus, the power of the Spirit has clearly been at work again. What will happen? Word will spread. It is inevitable. Indeed, I don’t think Jesus has any intent of stopping the spread of the word. He is only seeking to shape the message properly, to keep the ‘fame’ in proper kingdom alignment. After all, if His ministry is all about making people aware that the kingdom is upon them, then shutting down discussion of the kingdom’s clear presence is a strange approach to take to the mission.
Furthermore, there are those occasions where Jesus explicitly commands people to speak of what they have just seen. “Tell John what you have witnessed,” he instructs that man’s disciples (Mt 11:5). And, lest they forget what they had seen, He lists things out for them: The blind regain sight, the lame get up and walk. Lepers are cleansed and deaf people regain their hearing. The dead are raised up (as we have just witnessed here), and the poor are told the gospel.
Notice how Jesus orders these things. Whether or not He is laying them out in ascending order of importance, He has certainly chosen to save the best testimony for last. The dead are raised up to life. While they have been witness to physical restoration to life, I wonder if they recognize that they are also being exposed to the spiritual restoration to life. That is, after all, the very foundation of Jesus’ ministry. That is the summary purpose of the kingdom on earth, to rescue those who are death’s captives and restore them to life in the Spirit of the Living God. Spring up oh wells! Come, and drink of this fountain, and I will give you life!
This matter of resurrection, properly understood is a direct parallel to the last and greatest evidence Jesus gives them: The poor are told the gospel. Well, what is the gospel? It is the great good news that life, real life in God is possible. It is the great good news that we need not remain enslaved to sin as we are today. There is hope and a future even now. The King has not abandoned you nor has He given up on you. Though you have rejected Him so many times, yet He comes once more with the offer of pardon and of a life of freedom as a child of His own household, a true child of God, rather than one in name alone. Has such an offer ever been made before or since? Go tell John. The Forerunner has proclaimed truly that the kingdom is near, and He whom the Forerunner announced proclaims truly that the kingdom is here. In your midst, you see it breaking through, reclaiming lost territory and lost souls. Choose you this day.
Now, if that wasn’t saving the best for last, I don’t know what is. Do you see, though, that as wonderful as all these physical manifestations are, as much as they impress us, they are the lesser proofs, the most minor of wonders as Jesus measures them. Yes, they are (or were) beyond man’s power. But, the power to heal the body is next to nothing. After all, it must be evident that the blind man who regained his sight would just lose it again in the grave. So, too, the lame man’s ambulation, and the deaf man’s hearing. The leper who was cleansed would become unclean again in death, and even the dead man who was raised up from the grave would return there at some point. None of these miracles change a thing in the eternal scheme of things. It is only that last one which has the power to work real, irreversible change.
All those other things were certainly evidence that the Spirit of God was with Him. But, it is in the fact that the gospel was received by so many (though it seems but a few to us) that is the real evidence of the Spirit’s power. All these other things are quite apart from the will of man. For, man is hardly likely to will himself to remain deaf, blind, or leprous. And, surely, it is beyond the dead man to will much of anything! But, in the accepting of the gospel, it is the very will of man that has been healed and overcome. That is power! The power to break the bonds of the enemy is well and good, but the power to break our own stubborn resistance and turn our desire toward the good is even greater.
Father, I pray that You would keep my own attention on those greater things. I, too, can fall into the trap of pursuing You only as my banker, my doctor or my insurance agent. I, too, can lose sight of the truth of You, that You are my Lord first and foremost. Teach me, Holy One, to pursue Your purposes more than my benefits. Create in me a heart that loves life more than all these things, a heart that will pursue Your ways.
The last point I have to pursue in regards to this passage concerns the disciples, and particularly, Jesus’ choice of three from their number to be elevated. It’s hard to look at these three and not wonder why they were the ones He chose. Indeed, it’s not particularly obvious why He chose any at all, and having chosen, why He chose but three. The three He selects are, so far as we know, among His first disciples, but if that were the criteria for His selection, there ought to be four. But, the count is three. Perhaps He merely wanted to ensure that the required two or three witnesses were present to validate this story when it finally did come out. We could take a more mystical view of it, and suppose that He chose three to represent the Triune nature of God, but that seems quite a stretch. Given the ministry focus of fulfilling the whole of the Law, I think, perhaps the former reason is perhaps more reasonable.
Yet, there is something about these three that Jesus saw. For, it is not only on this occasion that this trio is taken from the ranks to go off with Jesus. There are at least two other occasions, and both of them, I note are occasions of great importance to the purposes of God in this ministry. The greatest event we find these three standing witness to is that of the Transfiguration. They were privileged to be there on the mountaintop with Jesus as He took on something closer to His true aspect. The purity of His heavenly estate shone in and through Him. Yes, and with Him stood Elijah and Moses, the Forerunner and the Prophet. This was a truly momentous occasion for the kingdom. It was the first and only time that Moses ever stepped foot in the land of promise, and as such, is a testimony to the mercy of God. I’m not sure I could say what this meant for Elijah other than that he was given to witness the fulfillment of all he had held fast to. He had been taken up in the chariots of heaven and now he was here for what we might consider the great war counsel. It is interesting, is it not, that we have three who stand witness from the kingdom of heaven and three who stand as witness from the world of man? And yet, the vision was to be sealed up for a time. When it was revealed to the world, there would be need for those three who had witnessed the events to corroborate the veracity of the story.
Then, we find them much nearer the end of the ministry, there in the dark of the garden as Jesus went aside to pray, as it were, one last time. No, it was not truly the last time He prayed, but it was the last time He would have the opportunity of this time alone with His Father. Oh, and He is feeling the full anguish of what He must do. He is fighting His own flesh as much as ever He had to in the course of His purpose. He was, we are told, tempted in every way, suffered every weakness of flesh that we have known in ourselves. The difference, of course, is that He overcame every temptation and every weakness. What is so beautiful and instructive in this scene is to see that even the Son of God is willing to pour out His misgivings in the ears of the Father. He and David have this same habit in prayer. They do not come to the Father in feigned holiness of mind, pretending to feelings that they don’t really have at the moment. If there is fear and anxiety, they bring it before Him. If there is anger or frustration, they bring it before Him. How better to deal with such things? There is also this that they share in common: wherever their prayer has started, it ends in that same full acceptance of God’s nature and God’s way. “Nevertheless, Thy will be done.”
For David, this often meant leaving revenge to another, or for another day. It meant waiting longer for his promised inheritance, a promise he had from God Himself. It meant seeing his enemies better off than himself for a time. Yet, as he turned these feelings over to God, he could come to the place of seeking the salvation of his enemies rather than their destruction. He could reach the place of desiring unity and mercy more than strict justice and revenge. He could come to the place of seeing things from God’s perspective, at least a little.
For Jesus in the garden, I wonder how different this was. He, too, could have pursued revenge rather than submission to what must come. He, too, would have to wait a little longer for His inheritance. He, too, would have to suffer most immediately the sight of His enemy prospering for a time. Yes, and He, too, turned all these feelings over to God. Only by these means could He come to the place of seeking the salvation of mankind rather than their destruction. Only then could He once again look upon the fallen creation He had come into and desire mercy more than justice. It took a great deal of effort and struggle on His part, as witnessed by the sweat of blood, but He came to the place of seeing things from God’s perspective once again, and this gave Him the strength to finish the mission.
Seeing these other two occasions of the triple witness from these disciples makes me wonder if the scene presented here isn’t of greater importance to the purpose of Jesus’ ministry than it first appears. What would it be, though? This was neither the first time nor the last that He would raise somebody from the dead. If anything, it was probably the most obscure of the three occasions we know of. That young man rising from his coffin in the midst of the funeral parade was bound to have caused even more of a stir than this did, and that came earlier, I believe. As for Lazarus, well everybody knew about that. Indeed, as many people came looking for a glimpse at the dead man who walked as came to see Jesus after that. So, what sets this apart?
I am drawn back to the mention of this girl’s age, and the potential symbolism of the number twelve. It is, as I saw in the first half of this story, the number of completion, even as it is the number of the tribes and the apostles and so much else that we come across in the unfolding story of the kingdom. There is also this which makes this particular resurrection unique: it is happening in the presence of the official religious order. It is happening before the eyes of the representative of Mosaic Law.
Oh, my! This begins to bring together some thoughts. The penalty of the Law is death. Indeed, it is only the breach of the Law that has brought death into God’s creation. Here we have the representative of the Law and the representative of Life together, and the representative of Life is as much as proclaiming the Law satisfied, and Law’s representative is there to put his seal on that satisfaction. I wonder, is it in this moment that Jesus irreversibly took upon Himself the burden of our penalties? In calling this child to arise, had He not also implicitly agreed that He would pay her fine for her instead? Did Jairus understand this? Did His disciples? Probably not. They were too thrilled by the mere fact of life restored to really consider the implications.
This may very well be one of the main reasons Jesus had for requiring these two to keep their silence as to what had actually happened. Again, the fact of the child’s return to life could never hope to be hidden away, but the details of how it happened are a whole different matter. I see, as well, that Jesus may well have been protecting Jairus by this command. He knew, certainly, that there was growing opposition to His ministry amongst the ranks of the Temple hierarchy. They would hardly look kindly upon one of their own shouting out such wonderful confirmation of that ministry’s power. Again, He shows mercy! And, in doing so, He also ensures a remnant for Himself. Though the whole of the Jerusalem power structure might turn against Him and against God, yet there would be those to teach His people Truth, to proclaim the real Messiah and the real hope of life. See my daughter? There she is, living proof of the hope of life! Put your trust in Him.
This may explain the present situation, and the need for three witnesses, yet it still doesn’t quite answer the questions: why three? Why these three? Well, let us set aside the first of these, and satisfy ourselves with the Levitical witness clause. It is sufficient. That leaves us to wonder at the choice. Our natural inclination is to suppose that there must have been something special about Peter, James and John that prompted Jesus to choose them from amongst all the others. Yet, up to this point in the narrative there has been nothing that we could point to that would mark them out. Indeed, so far as I can find, there is nothing in the records of the Evangelists that ever gives us reason to look upon James as special except for the fact that Jesus chose Him.
I would maintain that this same reality applies to all three choices. There is nothing we shall find in Peter, James or John that qualified them for this choice. There is nothing in them that made them stand out in Jesus’ sight. His choice was not made based on anything in them. His choice was made based on the will of heaven. The choosing of these three from amongst the twelve, just as our own choosing from out of the millions who live upon the earth, is nothing at all about us, and all about God. He chooses because of His own secret counsels. He chooses as He wills with little consideration for our present estate. Indeed, had He chosen based on our present estate, who would be chosen? For all are found wanting – severely wanting. The record shows that He chose us while we were yet His enemies, that He chose us for no other reason that His choice, leaving us no cause to boast. So it is with these three. They are chosen, but there is nothing in that of which they can boast. There is nothing they could point to and say, “He chose me because I …”. No, the only answer, for them and for us, is, “He chose me because He…”.
Perhaps that is exactly why He chose as He chose, that we might see His choice was not based on their accomplishment but upon His will. In that, there is hope for every one of us, for we, too, are chosen not for what we have done, but for what He is intent upon doing. And, where He is intent upon doing something, we have more than sufficient evidence that He will do it!
