Do not fear. Do not weep. Go in peace.

The woman who seeks healing comes trembling to Jesus. An unclean person isn’t to touch a clean person. She had. He tells her she can go in peace.

Jairus is desperately seeking Jesus to ask Him to heal his daughter who is on the verge of death. Jairus is told that it’s too late. She died. Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid.” I can imagine scenarios of his wife saying, “I told you to go sooner, but you wouldn’t until it was too late!” What regrets could have followed being told, “It’s too late. You took too long.”

Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid.” He tells Jairus to believe and the girl will be well. He takes Jesus as His word.

He tells the mourners to stop weeping. They laugh at Him.

Was Jesus lying when He said that the girl wasn’t dead but sleeping? Jesus can’t lie, so we have to answer no there. Jesus will use the same word when talking about Lazarus. Jesus says that he is sleeping and the disciples are encouraged that he will recover, so Jesus has to point out that Lazarus is dead. Jesus calls it sleeping. He has a different view of death than the rest of them. Life goes on after death. They were sleeping and awaiting resurrection to a new life.

I pointed out in the last lesson how Jesus sent the demoniac out as an evangelist and didn’t ask that the man follow Him.

In the story of raising the girl from the dead, Jesus doesn’t call them to follow Him. He doesn’t send them out as evangelists either. He tells them not to say anything. I’ll say it again. Jesus wasn’t after numbers. He wasn’t trying to build a following. He obeyed His Father. He loved God and others. He wasn’t working from ambition or looking to Himself in any way.