Jairus

Jairus was a ruler of the synagogue – a respected layman responsible for the house of worship, very possibly the Capernaum synagogue the centurion had built. Rank did not survive the sickroom: with his twelve-year-old daughter dying, he pushed through the crowd and “fell at Jesus’ feet,” begging (Mark 5:21-23).

Then came the test no parent could bear: Jesus stopped. A woman in the crowd had touched his garment, and while he insisted on finding and blessing her, the minutes bled away – until messengers arrived with the sentence: “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” Jesus overheard, and spoke straight past the report into the father’s collapsing heart: “Do not fear, only believe” (Mark 5:35-36). At the house he put out the professional mourners (“she is not dead but sleeping” – and “they laughed at him”), took the girl’s hand, and said in Aramaic the Gospels preserve like a treasured relic: Talitha cumi – “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” She got up and walked, and Jesus, ever practical, told them to get her something to eat (Mark 5:37-43).

Jairus’ story is braided forever with the hemorrhaging woman’s: two desperate people, twelve years of suffering and twelve years of life, one interruption that trained a father’s faith to hold on past a death notice.

In the New Testament

• The raising of Jairus’ daughter (Mark 5:21-43; Matthew 9:18-26; Luke 8:40-56)