Jairus is a leader at the local synagogue. His twelve-year-old daughter is dying. He comes to Jesus and begs him to heal his little girl. Jesus agrees. However, he’s delayed along the way when he stops to heal a woman with chronic bleeding.
Then word comes to Jairus that it’s too late. His daughter is dead.
Jesus ignores their words and tells Jairus to just believe. Apparently Jairus does.
When Jesus arrives at Jairus’s house, the mourning for his daughter’s passing is already under way. Dismissing the crowd, he leads her parents and three disciples to her body.
He takes the dead girl’s hand and tells her to get up. Much to everyone’s shock, she does. Then she walks around, very much alive.
We don’t know what this girl experienced in the spiritual realm when she was dead or what her life in the physical realm was like afterwards.
But she must certainly have lived with an appreciation for her father’s strong faith and the knowledge that her second chance at life is because of Jesus’s power over death.
The deep, unwavering faith of Jairus believes Jesus can heal his daughter. But Jesus does more. He provides the ultimate healing when he restores life into her lifeless body.
Do we have the kind of faith that raises the dead?
[Discover more about Jairus in Mark 5:22–42 and Luke 8:40–56.]
Read more about other biblical characters in The Friends and Foes of Jesus, now available in e-book, paperback, and hardcover.
A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.
