Crawford avalanche., 1900-04-12
Explanatory.

OF lHdt year. III is related Dy Matthew
@: 1920 and Luke (S: 1856, as well as
by Mark.
Explanatory.
Jesus had just returned from the region
of Decapolis, on the east of the Sea of
Galilee, having crossed the sea by boat,
and found crowd waiting for him on
the shore.
"One Of the rulers of the synagogue,
Jairus by name;' the synagogues were
administered by board or committee of
leading men. Having power over the ed
ucation as well as the worship Of the peo-
pie, their position was important. The
synagogue in Capernaum must have been
a large one. That so important a per-
son as Jairus should PROSTATE himself on
the ground before Jesus showed great
self-abasement.
The father was in great haste and great
anxiety. His daughter was beyond the
reach OF human skill and near the bor-
der of the unseen world. He had left
the family lamenting and despairing. If
only the healing touch of Jesus could be
laid upon her she might come back from
the shadow of death and the great grief
might be averted. 1t was the last hope.
All the fathers love was wrapt in his
swift entreaties as he lay there on the
ground before Jesus. No father or mother
desiring the true good OF n child ever
came to Jesus in vain. Mothers brought
their babies and he blessed them. The
widow of Main had her son restored to
her even from the dead. But when the.
wife of Zebedee came asking worldly
honors for her sons, Jesus sternly rebuk
ed the selfish ambition of the mother and
the sons.
The delay recorded in verses 1854
must have been infinitely vexatious to
the father, in whose sight every instant
was precious. 1t is likely he felt bitterly
toward the poor woman who was the
innocent cause of the stop on the way. In
hours of great sorrow few men can fully
appreciate the sorrows and needs of 9th
ers unless they have learned in the
school of Christ.
The messenger bearing the news of the
girls death brought also the death knel
of Jairus' hope; for how could it be that
the dead could be raised? A few such
cases, indeed, had been talked about,
but who actually believed they could be
true reports! The end was come now;
and all because of q few minutes delay.
But Jesus did not suffer the father to re-
main in suspense. He promised that the
child should be restored Luke =: 50).
The confusion and noise of an Oriental
funeral are said to be great Mourners
have a way of bowling at the tops Of
their voices, rather than merely express
ing grief by tears or involuntry sobs.
"Talitha cumi" is Aramaic, and very
simple popular speech. "Damsel, l say
unto thee, arise" is rather more stately
than the two words that, Jesus spoke.
They mean something quite as tender and
perhaps almost playful, as mothers
call to a child half awake. Jesus had
spoken of the daughter as sleeping" in
a beautiful figure that was, for his
mighty power, a sublime truth. SO he
took the limp little hand in his own and
said: Get up, little girl"
Everything about the incident is sim
pie, informal, quiet, natural. How diff
ferent from the raising of Lazarus, where
the crowd was gathered together at the
mouth of the tomb and the Lord cried.
Lazarus, come FORTH" and the dead man
came gliding out OF the darknessnll wrap
ped in his grave clothes. In that miracle
we get the impression of Jesus majesty
anu uWlul DONtT over ututH anu int
grave. In this we feel his gentleness and
compassion.
As an Easter lesson it is natural TO con
meet the story with Jesus resurrection
a very different event. For the daughter
of Jairus was raised from her deathbed
to go right on with her home duties in
the same way, with the same body, which
after awhile sickened and died again. The
resurrection Of the dead, as is taught in
the New Testament is something far
different. 1t is true that in the case of
Jesus the human body that died was in
some way transformed into the resurrec-
tion body but that the change was a tre-
one is shown by the new charac-
teristics of that body during the forty
days and by the ascension. The resur-
rection body of believers cannot be such
a body as that; for in the vast majority
of cases nothing of the mortal body more
than few bones or some scattered dust
will be left. When we speak of the res
direction of the body we no longer mean
that the identical particles of the mortal
frame will be assembled and made into
a new body. We mean that the immortal
spirit will be clothed in some body, some
that will enable il to express
itself far more perfectly than the mortal
body could ever do. Paurs contrasts be-
tween the corruptible and the incorrupti-
bic are as full Of eloquent suggestion and
splendid prophecy as they were when he
wrote them. They are in advance of