“Do Not Fear; Only Believe”: Jairus’ Daughter

This sermon is part of a Lenten midweek series on resurrections in Scripture.

Text: Mark 5:21-43, 2 Cor. 5:1-8, Heb. 2:14-18

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

            We’ve been traveling through death toward resurrection this entire Lent. We’ve seen God’s life-giving power working through the prophets. We’ve seen Jesus’ own resurrection life continuing through the work of the Church with the resurrection that His Apostle Peter worked for Tabitha. Now, as we draw closer to Holy Week, we’ll come to Jesus Himself, the source of all resurrection power. This evening we will see two desperate people: one is a father who’s coming face to face with his daughter’s death; the other is a woman facing a deadly threat even as she’s already socially dead within her culture. And in the midst of all this death, we’ll hear Jesus speak three times. He’ll speak about fear, faith, and the power to destroy death.

            Jairus was a synagogue ruler. He was not a rabbi or a priest. He was a layman who carried significant responsibility within his synagogue. He was in charge of overseeing worship services, maintaining the synagogue building, and choosing readers and public teachers—much like a member of our church council, but with even more responsibility. These synagogue rulers were often wealthy, as they were benefactors of the synagogues. They were always prominent members of their communities. And in a prospering town like Capernaum, Jairus would stand out even more in both of those categories. But for all of his status and wealth, Jairus falls on his face before this wandering preacher Jesus. His money can’t save his daughter. His standing in the community can’t heal her. She’s dying, and his fear that this could be the end strips away all pretense and worldly rank, as it does for us all.

             “Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live,” he begs Jesus. Although he assumes that Jesus must be present with his daughter to heal her, as other miracle workers were known to be, as the prophets themselves were in centuries past, Jairus’ fear has driven him to the right person. He knows he can’t save his little girl; he knows that no one else can fight death. But he does hold out hope that this Jesus can. This is what death ultimately does—it strips away everything, all human powers, all our imagined solutions, until the only thing we can do is cling to our Lord. And this is precisely the right place to be. Fear, when it drives us to Jesus, can be a good instrument.

            Jesus doesn’t spend any time explaining to Jairus that He doesn’t really need to be in the same room as the girl to heal her. He doesn’t give Jairus any further lectures on how earthly wealth and respectable status through doing good in the community can’t recue from death. Instead, Jesus hears the desperate plea of faith and He answers. They depart immediately toward Jairus’ house. Hope swells in Jairus’ chest.

            But now comes the complication: Jesus is delayed. As Jesus is making His way through a crowd, a woman with a discharge of blood for twelve years (and it is no coincidence that Jairus’ daughter is twelve years old as well), sees this Jesus walking through the crowd. She’s heard of the healings He’s performed, so she thinks, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” Like Jairus, she’s desperate. She’s ceremonially unclean, meaning she hasn’t been able to attend synagogue (yes, the very same one that Jairus has so carefully managed), or go to the temple for the required sacrifices and blessings there. She’s socially isolated, as good as dead—no one can touch her, which is why she thinks to herself in the humiliation she’s faced for over a decade that even just touching Jesus’ garments, not His person, would heal her. She’s been financially ruined by going to every doctor that could claim to heal her, but couldn’t, even after they took every penny they could.

            But in desperate faith, she reaches out and touches his clothes. And miraculously, the bleeding ceases. Jesus stops in the crowd. “Who touched my garments?” He felt the power go out from Him. The woman comes forward, trembling in fear, and fell down on her face in front of Him, confessing everything. And in mercy, Jesus simply loves her and says, “Daughter, your faith has saved you; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” He doesn’t reprimand her for her timid yet bold faith. He doesn’t say that she should have done it another way. He simply lets her live in the gift that her faith has grabbed onto and she can go in peace.

            But as for Jairus, every moment Jesus is delayed is a dagger to the heart. Every minute his daughter could cross the threshold into death. The delay feels cruel, beyond what Jairus can understand or tolerate. And isn’t this a feeling we know all too well? We pray, and it seems that Jesus delays. Prayers feel unanswered. Help isn’t visible on the horizon. The solution we’ve been praying for is tied up. Lord, why won’t you hurry?

            And then, every parents’ nightmare, the message arrives. While Jesus was still speaking to the woman who had just been healed, a messenger came from Jairus’ house: “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” The interruption was fatal. If Jesus hadn’t been slowed down, maybe He could have made it in time. But now it was too late. The Law had spoken its final word: the girl was dead and nothing Jairus had done, nothing he could do, was able to stop it. What he feared was now reality. And for us mortals, that does seem to be the last word. Dead is dead. We know this from experience. This is the path of fear that we walk so often, that we know so well. Fear drives us to lifeless resignation—that gut feeling that this is just how things are. Then it pushes us into despair. It grabs us by the collar and drags us to the edge of the grave, points in the empty pit and says, “This is all there is. Accept it.”

            But Jesus doesn’t accept it. He overhears the messenger and interrupts this message of death. He speaks directly to Jairus’ worst fears. “Do not fear,” He tells the bereaved father, “Only believe.” He doesn’t try to distract Jairus. He doesn’t hold out false hope, that maybe the girl isn’t dead. He doesn’t speak platitudes. He simply says, “Do not fear,” the message that so many angels have told so many mortals, that so many prophets have proclaimed to God’s people, that every Gospel message begins with. Do not fear. It’s not because death isn’t real. It’s not even because death isn’t important. It’s because Jesus, as the book of Hebrews told us tonight, destroys the one who has the power of death and He will deliver all those through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. Death is real, it is terrifying, but Jesus has come to do something about it.

            “Do not fear; only believe.” He doesn’t tell Jairus—or us—to believe harder, or believe more. Just believe. Have that mustard seed, that smoldering wick of faith, even when everything else is screaming the opposite. Why? Not because it’s the strength of faith that overcomes these terrors, but because the One faith is clinging to is strong enough to destroy them.

            Jesus takes Peter, James, and John—the three who will see His Transfiguration—and He leaves the crowd behind. He shuts out the mocking laughter of those who don’t think He can actually do anything about death; those who think they know the real world better than wide-eyed believers in Jesus’ power. He puts them outside. Resurrection is not for those who mock God and laugh at life. Jesus touches the girl’s hand—the same touch that the bleeding woman craved, now freely given to the girl—and Jesus encounters death head on. He confronts death, touches it, unafraid of the uncleanness that comes with it, for He will deal with that soon enough on the cross. And then Jesus speaks to her, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” It’s personal. It’s intimate. To impress that, Mark writes the actual words that Jesus spoke, in Aramaic, the heart language of the people in Capernaum, “Talitha cumi.” And immediately the girl got up and began walking. It wasn’t gradual, it wasn’t a partial or slow restoration. It’s complete and total, as soon as Jesus speaks the words. It’s the same word, cumi, that will be used for Jesus’ own resurrection.

And it’s the same word that will be used for your resurrection. For Jesus will call you by name. He already has in your Baptism. He’ll do it again when He returns. Yes, it may seem that He is delayed. It might seem that it’s taking forever. You may watch Him grant the prayers and healings of others and wonder why yours hasn’t arrived yet. But it is coming. He will speak as tenderly to you as He did to Jairus’ daughter. He will raise you, smash all your fears into oblivion, and give you life that amazes you.

This is what resurrection does: it overwhelms us. It breaks our normal ways of thinking. It shatters our understanding of how the world works. Creation doesn’t revolve around death. Those things we think are permanent and forever are not. You’re about to witness that next week during Holy Week. Begin your prayers now that you will not scoff or allow fear to drive you to anything other than Jesus. Let His Word of life reshape you. Let what He says about reality determine what you believe, instead of your own experience or understanding. Resurrection is coming—for Jairus’ daughter, for Jesus, for those who cling to Him in faith, and for you. I say to you: “Son, daughter, arise.” In the name of Jesus, who will raise us. Amen.