Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, has fallen at Jesus's feet in desperation: his twelve-year-old daughter is dying. Jesus agrees to come. While they are on the way, a woman presses through the crowd and is healed by touching his garment. During that delay, messengers arrive from Jairus's house: “Your daughter is dead.” At that moment — when the news is worst, when hope has officially ended — Jesus speaks his five words over the sound of the messenger's report. He does not address the report. He addresses Jairus.

From the writers we read together

Brennan Manning

Franciscan priest and author of The Ragamuffin Gospel (1934-2013)

Manning wrote often about the faith that is required not at the beginning of the journey but in its middle — when the news has come that the thing you feared has happened, and Jesus is still asking you to believe. He called this the “second naivete” — the faith that knows the darkness and believes anyway, not because the darkness has been explained but because the resurrection has been announced. Jairus does not have the resurrection yet. He has only five words spoken over the worst report of his life. Manning would say: that is always all we have, and it is enough.

The crowd at the house laughs when Jesus says the girl is sleeping (v. 40). Laughing at Jesus is the reasonable response when all the evidence points toward death. Manning's theology was built around the people who, like Jairus, chose the five words over the crowd's reasonable laughter. It is not a comfortable faith; it is a faith that has walked all the way to the dead girl's room and told her to get up. And she does.