Only Believe

I think there are a few lessons for us in the story of the healing of the daughter of Jarius. When this ruler of the synagogue came to Jesus “he fell at his feet, And besought him greatly, saying, My little daughter lieth at the point of death: I pray thee, come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed; and she shall live.” Jesus went with him and Jairus must have walked in great haste as they headed towards the house where his little girl was. He had found the Master—she would be okay if they could just get to the house in time before she passed away. As they went the woman with the issue of blood was healed on route, and perhaps the interruption was troubling for Jairus who no doubt felt he was racing the clock to get to his daughter with Jesus. As soon as the woman was healed, “There came from the ruler of the synagogue’s house certain which said, Thy daughter is dead: why troublest thou the Master any further?” Jairus may have been thinking something like this: “If only we could have gone faster, if only I had gotten to Jesus sooner, my daughter could have been healed. I was so close to getting Jesus to my daughter but now I have failed and she is gone.” Things had not worked out on Jairus’s timetable, but the Lord was not operating on that but on His own. I love his words to Jairus, “Be not afraid, only believe” (Mark 5:22-23, 35-36). We all have blessings we want to come to us at a certain time that we believe are urgent, and we may feel like hope is lost when what we seek from the Savior doesn’t arrive on time. But He doesn’t always work according to our watch, and surely He would say to us as well in that moment, “Be not afraid, only believe.” He may have a different miracle waiting for us if we can continue to trust in Him even when things don’t work out initially.

                Another one of the lessons from this story is that we need to have faith in Him to obtain the great blessings He has in store for us. When Jesus got to the house and announced that “the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth” the people “laughed him to scorn.” I believe it was because of that caustic show of unbelief that He sent them all away—those who had no faith would not be allowed to see the miracle: “When he had put them all out, he taketh the father and the mother of the damsel, and them that were with him, and entereth in where the damsel was lying.” Though perhaps troubled and struggling, I believe Jairus and his wife did indeed have faith and were certainly not among those who were mocking. The people then who were allowed to stay consisted of His apostles and the parents of this little girl—those who believed in Him. It was before this group that the Savior healed the girl, raising her from the dead. After this incredible miracle, He “charged them straitly that no man should know it” (Mark 5:39-43). I wonder if the reasoning for this was the same that motivated His earlier teaching to not “cast ye your pearls before swine” (Matthew 7:6). Though certainly people would find out about the fact that the girl was alive, He did not want the group who had been mocking to learn the details of the account of this supernal miracle. They had chosen to be skeptical and so they would not receive the blessing that hearing this story would have given them.

                I love the last line of this story: “[He] commanded that something should be given her to eat.” He was so in tune with the needs of this little girl that He recognized she was hungry. Jairus and his wife were perhaps in such shock that such an idea wouldn’t have occurred to them for a long time, but Jesus recognized what she needed and commanded that she should be taken care of. This is surely a lesson for us that He knows our needs—even the temporal ones—and will bless and help us accordingly. And it very well may be that He inspires someone else to help us and meet those needs. Either way, this account helps us see that He knows us perfectly and is watching over us. This beautiful story teaches us that we can trust His timing in our lives; we can trust that He can do miracles to bless us; and we can trust that He is watching over us with great love.