The Miracles of Jesus

Raising Jairus' Daughter

Capernaum by the sea · Galilean ministry · Mark 5:21-43

By the Sea of Galilee, a synagogue ruler named Jairus fell at Jesus' feet and begged him to heal his little daughter, who was dying. On the way, a woman with a long hemorrhage touched Jesus and was healed, and the delay seemed fatal. Messengers came saying the girl was dead. Jesus told Jairus, Be not afraid, only believe. At the house, past the mourners who laughed at him, he took the child by the hand and said Talitha cumi, Damsel, arise. She rose at once and walked, being twelve years old. Jesus told them to give her food and to keep the matter quiet, treating the astonishing as tender and ordinary.

The scene

Jesus had just crossed back over the lake, and a crowd pressed around him. Into that crush came a man of standing, a ruler of the synagogue, doing what such a man would not lightly do in public. He fell down at the feet of the wandering teacher.

His need had stripped away his dignity. His only concern was a dying girl at home.

What Jesus did

Jesus went with him, but on the road a woman with a twelve-year flow of blood touched his garment and was healed, and Jesus stopped to draw her into the open. To Jairus the pause must have been agony. Then the worst news arrived: the child was dead, and there seemed no reason to trouble the teacher further.

At the house the mourning had already begun, and when Jesus said the girl only slept, they laughed him to scorn. He put them out, took the parents and three disciples, and went in to where she lay.

She rose immediately and walked, and Jesus, having conquered death in the room, asked that she be given something to eat.

What the sign reveals

This sign reveals that to Jesus death is like sleep, a state from which he can wake a person with a word. To the mourners the girl was gone beyond recall, and their laughter measured how impossible his claim seemed. Jesus did not argue. He spoke to her as a mother wakes a child in the morning, and she rose. What terrifies us he handles as gently as dawn.

It reveals his tenderness in power. He took her by the hand, a touch, not a spectacle. The Aramaic words Mark preserves, Talitha cumi, are the homely speech of the household, little girl, get up. Having done the greatest thing, he attends to the smallest: she is hungry, so feed her. The one with authority over the grave cares that a child has not eaten.

It also reveals faith tested and honored. Jairus had to keep walking behind Jesus after the news came that made walking pointless. Only believe was not a denial of his grief but a hand held out over it. He believed enough to bring Jesus home, and there he saw what belief had not dared to hope.

The detail that Jesus put the scornful mourners out of the room is not incidental. Where unbelief mocked, he would not perform. He kept only the parents and the three who trusted him, and there, away from the noise of despair, life came back. Mark seems to want us to notice that faith and unbelief cannot occupy the same room in the same way, and that Jesus works his deepest wonders in the presence of those who will trust him.

Its place in the Gospel

Mark tells this story with the woman's healing folded inside it, one miracle wrapped around another, so that they interpret each other. The woman had been bleeding twelve years; the girl was twelve years old. One was an outcast, unclean and unnamed; the other was the cherished daughter of a leader. Jesus has time and power for both, and he calls the outcast woman Daughter even as he goes to raise the ruler's daughter. You can read her story at the woman with the issue of blood.

The delay that seemed cruel was the very thing that deepened the miracle. Had Jesus arrived in time, he would have healed a sick child. Because he was late by human reckoning, he raised a dead one. Mark lets us feel that the interruption was not an obstacle to God's plan but part of it.

This is also one of the moments Jesus takes only Peter, James, and John, the inner three who would later see the Transfiguration and Gethsemane. They are being shown, step by step, who he is.

How it meets us

The words spoken to Jairus travel straight to us: Be not afraid, only believe. They are spoken at the exact moment when fear seems the only sane response, when the message has already come that the situation is beyond hope. Jesus does not wait for good news before asking for trust. He asks for it in the dark, on the road, after the worst has been reported.

Jairus teaches us how to pray. He came with a specific, urgent request and laid it plainly before Jesus. He did not pretend to be strong. He fell down and besought him greatly. There is no more excellent posture for the desperate than this one, and no request too small or too large to carry to Christ.

And the story guards us against giving up in the delay. Answers to prayer often come by a road that runs through apparent defeat. What looks like Jesus being too late may be Jesus preparing to do more than we asked. Bring him the thing you have almost stopped hoping for, and meet him there.

The last thing Jesus did in that room was ask that the girl be given something to eat. It is a small mercy tucked inside a great one, and it tells us how he saves. He does not leave people dazed by the miracle; he returns them to ordinary life, to bread and family and the next morning. The God who conquers death also remembers that a child gets hungry, and no need of ours is beneath his notice.

Where it points

Jairus' daughter rose to finish her childhood and then, in time, to die again. Her raising was a sign pointing past itself to a greater rising. The hand that lifted her from her bed would be nailed to a cross, and the mouth that said Talitha cumi would fall silent in a tomb. Then, on the third day, no one needed to speak a word over Jesus, for the Father raised him, and death lost its final claim.

Because Christ is risen, his word over every believer is the same word he spoke in that room: arise. To those asleep in death he will say it on the last day, and they will rise as simply and surely as a girl of twelve stood up and walked. The little Aramaic command is a rehearsal of the trumpet that is coming.

The command Jesus gave to keep the matter quiet is telling as well. He did not raise the girl to build a crowd or a reputation; he did it for her and for her parents, out of love, and then asked that the wonder not be paraded. His power was never at the service of his own fame. It was, and is, at the service of the ones he loves, spoken quietly into a private room where a family's whole world had just come back to life.

See what his own rising secures for all who trust him at the resurrection.

Can these things really happen?

Many honest readers ask whether miracles can happen at all. Since the Enlightenment, some have argued that the laws of nature rule them out, that a report of a wonder is always less likely than a mistake or a legend. Christians answer that the laws of nature describe how the world normally runs; they do not forbid the God who made it from acting within it. A miracle is not nature breaking down but its Author drawing near. You do not have to settle that question before you read; you only have to read honestly and ask what best explains the witness before you. We look at this more fully in miracles and the laws of nature.

Frequently asked questions

What is the meaning of the raising of Jairus' daughter?

It shows that death is like sleep to Jesus, a state he can reverse with a word and a touch. He tells Jairus to be not afraid but only believe, then takes the dead girl by the hand and raises her, revealing tender power over the grave and honoring the faith that kept walking after the worst news.

Where in the Bible is the raising of Jairus' daughter?

It is told in Mark 5:21-43, with parallels in Matthew 9 and Luke 8. The event happened in Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee, and the account is famously interwoven with the healing of the woman with the issue of blood, whom Jesus healed on the way.

What does Talitha cumi mean?

Talitha cumi is Aramaic, the everyday language Jesus spoke, and Mark translates it as Damsel, I say unto thee, arise. It is the homely speech of a household, roughly little girl, get up, and its tenderness shows that Jesus treated raising the dead as gently as waking a child from sleep.