Beloved congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, in Genesis 2 God said, “Don’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day you eat of it you shall surely die.” And Adam ate, and Adam died. And thereafter death pursued the sons of men, for no matter how many years they kept death at a distance, death finally laid them by the heels, and, even after 969 years read of Methusaleh, “and he died.”

     Surely that will be true of you and of me too, whether you are 75 or you are five, death is a fearsome bloodhound, Adam gave him our scent, and he will dog our tracks until he overpowers us at the end of the trail.

     Yet our old fathers in the first covenant raged against the dying of the light. The howling hound of death bayed close to young David for many years, prompting him to write: “The pangs of death surrounded me, and the floods of ungodliness made me afraid. The sorrows of Sheol surrounded me; the snares of death confronted me.” (Ps 18:4-5 NKJV)

     For, cried David, what profit is there in my death? “Return, O LORD, deliver me! Oh, save me for Your mercies’ sake! For in death there is no remembrance of You; in the grave who will give You thanks?” (Ps 6:4-5NKJV)

     But the promise was there, for Isaiah wrote: He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces; the rebuke of His people He will take away from all the earth; for the Lord has spoken. (25:8)

     The Lord God had spoken the Word, and the Word became flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ, who in this passage confronted death and defeated death.

     Jesus had crossed the lake from the country of the Gadarenes, and was probably in the region of Capernaum, on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. Jairun, who approached Him, was a ruler of the synagogue. Shall I review for a minute what a synagogue was? It was not the temple, for the Lord had told His people that only at the temple at Jerusalem could they bring their offerings, and that was where they brought their worship. However, when Solomon’s temple was destroyed about 586 BC by Nebuchadnezzar and he brought the rest of the Jews into captivity, in all the lands where they settled they began to make meeting houses. The word synagogue is from the Greek and means to lead together, an assembly then, a congregation. Just like our word “church” which not only means the gathering of the body of Christ, but also means the building where they meet, so the same became true for synagogue.

     In the synagogue the Jews came together every Sabbath, they offered prayers together, sang Psalms, read from Moses and the prophets, and had the passages explained to them. As a ruler, Jairus watched over the congregation, kept order, regulated the schedules of reading, and carefully listened to the explanations of the law given by the scribes.

     This was the man, then, who came to Jesus and asked Him to heal his daughter, who was seriously ill. Jairus made an urgent request, for, he said, “My little daughter lies at the point of death. Come and lay Your hands on her that she may be healed, and she will live. Jesus agreed, began to walk towards Jairus’ house, and then was interrupted by the woman with the issue of blood. When she had been healed, exposed, and Jesus was still talking to her, somebody came from Jairus’ house and said to him, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any longer?”

     His daughter was dead. What now? If Christ was like other doctors he comes too late. While there is life there is hope, hope that some means may be found to bring a cure, to keep life going. But when life is gone, what’s the use? It’s past recall. All the skilled doctors in the world can only work with a life that is there; but when it’s gone the doctor’s job is done.

     So what was Jairus to think? Ordinarily for a child of God the thought may be, “The issue has been determined, the will of God is done, and I’ll just have to accept that. The Lord gave, the Lord took away.”

     Or perhaps like David when the little baby boy of Bathsheba was lying sick. David fasted and wept, and prayed passionately that the Lord would b e gracious. But when the baby died, he stopped weeping. He said to His servants, “He is dead. Why weep anymore? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.”

     Or perhaps Jairus’ thoughts were a little harsher. “If the Master hadn’t stood around like this with this woman, He probably would have made it to my house in time to heal her before she died. Why did He stop anyway? He knew the woman who touched Him was healed. Why did He have to go through all that conversation? It didn’t change anything, except that in the meantime my darling daughter died. She’s dead.”

     So what was Jairus to think? Ordinarily for a child of God the thought may be, “The issue has been determined, the will of God is done, and I’ll just have to accept that. The Lord gave, the Lord took away.”

     Or perhaps like David when the little baby boy of Bathsheba was lying sick. David fasted and wept, and prayed passionately that the Lord would be gracious. But when the baby died, he stopped weeping. He said to his servants, “He is dead. Why weep anymore? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.”

     Or perhaps Jairus’ thoughts were a little harsher. “If the Master hadn’t stood around like this with this woman, He probably would have made it to my house in time to heal her before she died. Why did He stop anyway? He knew the woman who touched Him was healed. Why did He have to go through all that conversation? It didn’t change anything, except that in the meantime my darling daughter died. She’s dead.”

     What are our thoughts when we cry to the Lord to save us and it seems that He delays and delays and delays. We are in physical or spiritual, or emotional anguish, and at times find ourselves at the point of crisis, and yet. . .no deliverance. And we may cry with the Psalmist, “My God, why have You forsaken me?” Where is the God of promise? Where is the God of salvation? Why do You hide Your face, Lord?

     Yes, these were the anguished prayers of godly men and women of old, and perhaps these are the prayers and cries that are wrung from our hearts today. Does God hear? Are His mercies locked up somewhere? Has He forgotten us?

     The child was dead. Cut off in the flower of her years. Just twelve years old. Amazing isn’t it? In verse 25 Mark tells us that the woman with the issue of blood was sick with it for 12 years. For 12 years she had lived in the gloom of impending death, and suddenly, when she touched the hem of Jesus’ robe, she was healed, the gloom and darkness was past, and the sun had risen in her life.

     Jairus’ daughter had lived for 12 years in the wonderful sunshine of joyful childhood, loved and loving, carefree and healthy. Now suddenly, sickness had come upon her, and the sun of life and health that had shone on her so brightly was setting, and now had gone below the horizon, and she had gone into the blackness of death. The joyful sunshine in Jairus’ life had gone out. There is something so tragic about the death of a young child.

     As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, He said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not be afraid, only believe.” Fear not. . .only believe.

     Jesus had delayed, but Jairus was to believe that no one is the loser by the gain of others. Because Jesus took the time to bring this woman into a personal relationship with Himself, because Jesus took the time to say to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction.” Because He took that time, He didn’t steal that time from Jairus. It is not as thought when God shows mercy and kindness to others we know, that somehow they were first in line and we have to wait our turn, and wait and wait until it seems to late. Our crisis has passed, our troubles are past the point of recovery. It’s too late. . .no one is a looser in the mercy of the Lord because others are gainers.

     “Do not be afraid, only believe.” Only believe! Jesus was speaking to Jairus, still an Old Testament saint. We live after Jesus had died and risen from the dead. But what was Jairus to believe? Does the Old Testament speak of the resurrection?

     Well, yes, of course. And if I was in our Bible Study time again I would ask someone to tell me where God’s promises of life from the dead are found in the Old Testament. One, of course, is in Ezekiel 37. Ezekiel sees a valley of very dry bones, the whole house of Israel. God asked Ezekiel, can these bones live? Ezekiel answers, “Lord, you know.” God commanded Ezekiel to speak to those bones, God commanded the wind to come into them. Through the Word and breath, Spirit of God, they arose from the dead. Yes

     Old Testament? Yes, Jeremiah records, “Thus says the LORD: “A voice was heard in Ramah, Lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.” Thus says the LORD: “Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded, says the LORD, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy. There is hope in your future, says the LORD, that your children shall come back to their own border.” (Jer. 31:15-17 NKJV)

     Yes, do no be afraid, only believe. Believe in the promises of God, for faith is the only remedy in times of utter hopelessness. Faith is informed, nourished, fed, grows, on the promises of God.

     For us, after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are exhorted by St. Paul, “But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.” (1 Thes. 4:13-14 NKJV)

     Do not be afraid, only believe. Faith hopes in the future during the present on the basis of the past.

     “Then He came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and saw a tumult and those who wept and wailed loudly. When He came in, He said to them, “Why make this commotion and weep? The child is not dead, but sleeping.” And they ridiculed Him. But when He had put them all outside, He took and father and the mother of the child, and those who were with Him, and entered where the child was lying.” (Mk 5:38-40 NKJV)

     What shall we make of this? It would seem that in Jesus day when someone was so sick that death was near, the professional mourners stood ready to begin weeping and wailing, playing funeral music on flutes, tearing their clothes, throwing dust on their heads. Our passage says there was a tumult. It was a crowded scene. Jesus said, “Why make this commotion?”

     Did the Jews mourning for the dead degenerate into heathen wailing and weeping, as those who had no hope? Had their funeral practices copied those of the world?

     And what of ours today? More Christians today omit reference to the 11^th Article of the Christian Faith, “I believe in the resurrection of the body,” content themselves with taking comfort that the soul of the departed has gone to heaven, and now we can cremate the body, because, after all, it’s the soul that counts, the body is nothing. But that is pagan.

     When Jesus came in, He said to them, “Why make this commotion and weep? The child is not dead, but sleeping.”

     Of course the Bible often refers to the dead saints as sleeping. When Lazarus, the friend of Jesus, died, He told the disciples, “Our friend Lazarus is sleeping, but I go to awake him.” The disciples said, “Well, Lord, if he is sleeping, he is getting better.” Then Jesus told them plainly, “He is dead.” What Jesus was telling Jairus and others in saying that she was sleeping, was that death is not final for God’s children. Death is like sleep, for when we see a child sleeping we have no fear, but expect to see the child wake up again. To sleep means to surrender consciousness in the simple faith that we will wake up.

     Death seems so final for us too, doesn’t it? It’s hard for us not to think of it that way. The end of everything. Death always seems to be creeping up on us, sometimes at a distance, and sometimes close at hand.

     I think there was a book named Peter Pan, and a movie made after it. In the movie Captain Hook was called that because he had lost one hand to crocodile, and had a hook instead. The crocodile though, having tasted how good that hand was, wanted to eat the rest of Captain Hook. The crocodile had swallowed an alarm clock, and because of that where ever he went you could hear that tick tock of the clock. So whenever Captain Hook heard that tick tock, he was scared to death. The crocodile was after him again, and was close by. That fear was always with Captain Hook. For a time he heard nothing, and could finally relax, but suddenly, as he was dozing, there was that horrible sound again, tick tock, tick tock. So that terror never quite left him.

     The crocodile is the dragon, that old dragon. And it would seem to us, that he is never that far behind us. At times, when there is a threat of cancer or some other dreaded disease, the tick tock comes so close. . .horribly close.

     But listen to St. Paul in Hebrews 2, “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” (Heb. 2:14-15 NKJV)

     There it is. . .exactly what we are talking about. Jesus came to destroy him who had the power of death, and release us from fear.

     Fear not. . .only believe. “The child is not dead, but sleeping.” And they ridiculed Him. Perhaps they too, as so many today, took the notion of the Greeks, that the body was just a ragged piece of garbage enclosing the soul, and that the resurrection of the body was something to ridicule. You remember that the Greeks at Athens laughed when Paul spoke of the resurrection of the body. And I’m afraid that many Christians today are in danger of falling into that heresy.

     “I believe in the resurrection of the body.”

     “And they ridiculed Him. But when He had put them all outside, He took the father and the mother of the child, and those who were with Him, and entered where the child was lying.” “He put them all out.” And that is a rather tame translation of the original, for what it means is that Jesus threw them all out. He cast them out. He expelled them, banished them. It carries with it the idea of violence.

     There is simply no place near Jesus, nor near any of His wonderful works for those who are skeptics, for those who ridicule, who scoff and scorn the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Jesus Himself expels such people. Jesus only took Peter, James, and John with the child’s mother and father, and went into the room where she was lying dead. Then, says our text, “He took the child by the hand, and said to her, “Talitha cumi,” which is translated, “Little girl, I say to you arise.” Immediately the girl arose and walked.

     He took the child by the hand. Again, Jesus is touching the unclean, touching a dead body, and that made someone unclean for some time. But this is Jesus, the Son of God, whose holiness is so complete, so perfect, so powerful, that nothing can pollute it, nothing can contaminate it, but instead of receiving uncleanness, He radiates holiness and life. Nothing of sin flows into our Savior, but He gives righteousness and holiness.

     What comfort for the sinner coming before a holy God. We need have no fear that the horribleness of our sins, the filth of our minds and hearts are a barrier to coming to Jesus. We will not effect Him, but if we come to Him in faith, He will effect us. He took the child by the hand, and said to her, “Talitha cumi, Little girl, I say to you arise.” Here again we have what we saw earlier, and that is that the word of Christ’s command carries with it the power to obey that command. Jesus spoke to a dead body, a girl hearing, sight, feeling, everything was gone. No blood flowed through her veins. No messages traveled along her nerves. She was dead.

     The command of Jesus gave life, and in giving life gave the power to obey. And so it is for you and for me. Do we find Christ’s commands so often impossible? Read the Sermon on the Mount again, and see how impossible it seems to obey what Christ commands.

     St. Augustine struggled with that truth. In his confessions he said, “Domine, da guod iubes it iube quod vis.” “Lord, give what you command and command whatever you want.” “Do not fear, only believe.” Christ works while He commands; He commands while He works. “Talitha cum, Little girl, I say to you arise.” Immediately the girl arose and walked.

     “Talitha cumi.” These were Aramaic words, words that Mark left in the original and then translated for his Greek readers. Aramaic was the common language spoken among the Jews, and “talitha cumi” was a home phrase, a family sentence. The little girl had heard it so many times. As a toddler, when she fell down, mommy reached down her hand, took the little girl’s hand, and said, “Talitha cumi.” Little girl, get up.

     When the little girl had slept through the night, mommy came into her bedroom, saw her there all rosy with eyelashes laid against her cheeks, and mommy said, “Talitha, cumi.”

     So Jesus used the same words, “Talitha, cumi.“ Wonderful words, aren’t they? And some day, some day soon or distant, you will sleep the sleep of death. And then the day will come when Jesus comes to your bed room, the place where your body is resting, and to you, whether you went to sleep a fair flower at the age of 12, or whether you go to sleep when you are 95, aged, wrinkled, stooped and white-haired, He will say to you, “Talitha, cumi.”

     And you too, like this young girl, will immediately arise and walk, and leap, and enter into a life of endless day with your Savior. And for the many of our loved ones whom we have laid to rest, hear St. Paul again: “But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of god. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.” (1Thes. 4:13-18 NKJV)

     And for you and I, who sometimes are still paralyzed with fear at the prospect of what men call a fatal disease, hear again the words of the Spirit of Christ explaining why Christ did come into this world in our flesh and blood: “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” (Heb 2:14-15 NKJV)

     Fear not, do not be afraid, only believe. “Fear not” is a command, and we may and must believe that with that command Christ works in us the power to obey it. Let me finish with a poem by John Donne, Elizabethan poet and preacher, and as you may know, John Donne is a favorite of mine. This is a sonnet, Holy Sonnet No. 10.

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,

For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,

Die not poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell’st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

AMEN.