Don't Tell Anyone! [Proper 8, Year B]

[Our lessons were Wisdom 1:13-15, 2:23-24; Psalm 30; 2 Corinthians 8:7-15; and Mark 5:21-43.]

In our Gospel reading today, after Jesus’ raises Jairus’ daughter—we never learn her name—from the dead, he said something rather odd. “He strictly ordered them that no one should know this…” In fact, that was a frequent instruction of Jesus—that the things he did should not be reported. Why did Jesus say this? Why didn’t he want his deeds trumpeted throughout the countryside?

I think it might be for this reason: At this point, before his death and resurrection, the miracles of Jesus lacked context. To the people of Galilee and its surrounding areas, the acts of Jesus must have seemed only isolated displays of power. But, the real meaning of Jesus’ authority over death was not that he could do miracles or that, with enough faith, the worst things of life would pass us by. (We particularly know that to untrue.)

Jesus’ death and resurrection show us what it really means for Jesus to be greater than death. Jesus wasn’t spared suffering and death. He wasn’t resuscitated merely so he could die again. Instead, God took the life that Jesus had led—a life like ours—and the death he had died—even as we die—and transformed them into something new and better, revealing a new meaning and purpose to human life.

God doesn’t promise us a freedom from the pain and loss and grief and death that is a part of the human existence. Neither does He promise us freedom from the joy and pleasure and passion and excitement that are a part of life.

Instead of removing or protecting us from these things, God does two things. First, God knows all of our human experiences and lives all of them. He sanctifies us and our lives by His experience of them. God shares every aspect of our lives.

Also, God promises us a resurrection like that of Jesus. This means that nothing will be truly lost. God will make something new and renewed of our lives and of our deaths, and of the lives and the deaths of every one for whom he died—which is truly everyone. God promises that there is meaning and hope in each of our lives and in each of our deaths. God promises that His word of love will be the strongest word, and the best word, and the last word. God promises us that He will make all creation new, and that we will indeed be a part of that.

And we can take comfort that our parting from the dead is only temporary. We pray for the dead, not because they need it, but because we do—it helps us keep them close in our hearts. It helps us remember, that as they are with God and God is with us, so they are with us always. As we said in our Psalm:

Weeping may spend the night,
but joy comes in the morning.