Not dead, but sleeping

A few years ago, a guest speaker from a Bible college visited our church. In Sunday School he gave an overview of the book of Mark. Afterward when he took questions, I took the opportunity to ask something that bothered me. Why, I asked him, in Mark 5, does Jesus say Jairus' daughter was sleeping?

They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. And when he had entered, he said to them, "Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping." And they laughed at him. Mark 5:38-40

I get impatient with euphemisms. I prefer people to say what they mean plainly. "I mean... she was dead. Why did he say she wasn't dead?" She was definitely dead.

He thought for a moment, then reminded me of the language the Bible uses when people died in the Old Testament. It says things like "He slept with his fathers." He said that this could be an allusion to that Old Testament language and a rebuke to the people there for mourning without hope, forgetting about the resurrection.

This was an incredible thought to me. I mulled over his response for a long time, and slowly it dawned on me: if the Lord of Life is standing in your foyer, you are indeed just "sleeping" for there is no doubt at all you will get up when he takes your hand.

...Just some thoughts on a snowy April day eagerly awaiting spring, looking forward to Easter.

And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: 'I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Matthew 24:31-32