“One of the synagogue officials, 

named Jairus, came forward.

Seeing him he fell at his feet 

and pleaded earnestly with him, saying,

‘My daughter is at the point of death.

Please, come lay your hands on her

that she may get well and live.’

He went off with him,

and a large crowd followed him and pressed upon him.

…While he was still speaking,

people from the synagogue official's house arrived and said,

‘Your daughter has died; why trouble the teacher any longer?’

…He did not allow anyone to accompany him inside

except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James.

…He took along the child's father and mother

and those who were with him

and entered the room where the child was.

He took the child by the hand and said to her, ‘Talitha koum,’

which means, ‘Little girl, I say to you, arise!’

The girl, a child of twelve, arose immediately and walked around.

At that they were utterly astounded.

He gave strict orders that no one should know this

and said that she should be given something to eat.”

Some of us may be amazed and some of us incredulous at the miracle of raising Jairus’s daughter. My own scientific mind questions the veracity of the account. Miracles can’t happen, can they? Maybe the healing of one born blind, but raising someone from the dead? If God is who he is, we are who we are, and the universe is what it is, then there is a reasonableness to God’s direct intervention into human history. Our faith, though unprovable, is based on this reasonableness. Our faith is for thinking people, but it is still faith. It is a gift from God and a call to trust what we do not fully understand. Our “leap of faith” is not to an unreasonable ascent to a set of beliefs, but an abandonment into the loving arms of our Father. Sometimes in spite of it all, we trust in God. We should humbly stand in awe before the power of human intellect, but we also recognize its limits. There is something more, a mystery beyond knowing, unconditional divine love that draws us into its embrace. I do not know that Jesus raised a little girl from the dead, but I whole heartedly believe that he did. I trust in God who brings life from death. How he did it, not that he did it, is what really interests me. 

This is a very intimate encounter. There are no special effects, no dramatic details, no great publicity, no trumpet blasts. Limited to her parents and his closest disciples, Jesus simply speaks two words to her (in Aramaic, no less) and she gets up. It is not the act of a showman, a magician, or a fraud. It is an immanent act, close and intimate, quiet and personal. It’s an act of divine love. Jesus raises her to life as if it were the most natural thing for him to do, like waking her from sleep or giving her something to eat. Somewhere in the midst of this impossible miracle done in such a mundane way is the revelation that God is the God of life and love, that life and love are the most natural things for God. That is not an abstraction. It is the very details of our lives and how we love. God is close to us. God speaks in the same way to the weakness, sin, loss, and death in us. Quietly and personally, in the depths of our souls, God speaks to each of us, God speaks to you, “My child, arise!” Sometimes in spite of it all, faith is trusting we will.