When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side,
a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea.
Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came
and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly,
“My little daughter is at the point of death.
Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.”
So Jesus went with Jairus.
And a large crowd followed Jesus and pressed in on him.
While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say,
“Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?”
But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue,
“Do not fear, only believe.”
He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James.
When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion,
people weeping and wailing loudly.
When he had entered, he said to them,
“Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.”
And they laughed at him.
Then he put them all outside,
and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him,
and went in where the child was.
He took her by the hand and said to her,
“Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!”
And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age).
At this they were overcome with amazement.
He strictly ordered them that no one should know this,
and told them to give her something to eat.
***
Though having only read it once, the chapter, “Deadman at Grandview Point,” in Edward Abby’s Desert Solitaire, is one which remains with me viscerally. In college, having never been around death, I remembered it for its seemingly crass and inhumane treatment of the dead, their body being retrieved from the wilderness by a group of rangers as the deceased’s loved one walks ahead. Abby writes,
“The dead man's nephew, excused from this duty, walks far ahead out of earshot. We are free as we go stumbling and sweating along to say exactly what we please, without fear of offending.
"Heavy SOB. . . .”
"All blown up like he is, you'd think he'd float like a balloon," "Let's just hope he don't explode." "He won't. We let the gas out." …
"Why'd the _ have to go so far from the road?"
"There's something leaking out that zipper." “Never mind, let's try to get in step here," the sheriff says. "GD, Floyd, you got big feet."
"Are we going in the right direction?" "I wonder if the old fart would walk part way if we let him out of that bag?" “He won't even say thank you for the ride."
"Well I hope this learned him a lesson. I guess he'll stay put after this. . . . "
Abby’s description is the shop talk of those who deal with death and it is not dissimilar to the hired mourners who confront Jesus and Jairus, not dissimilar except for the Ranger’s awareness of earshot and the acting mourners lack. In each there are those whose job it is to navigate death, be it slugging a body in a bag through the wilderness, or being paid, as was the custom in Biblical times, to wail loudly and weep outside death’s door. The scripture reads,
Some people came from the leader’s Jairus’ house to say,
“Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” …
When they came to his house, Jesus saw a commotion,
people weeping and wailing loudly.
When he had entered, he said to them,
“Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.”
And they laughed at him.
Its hard to imagine the insensitivity of telling a person their loved one is dead, with the phrase, “Why trouble the teacher any further.” As if the teacher’s trouble is not worth the honor of the dead, that he has not the time for the largest grief - of a parent over their child. It is hard to imagine until you have seen the bedside manner of a great healing doctor attempt to deliver the hard news. It is hard to imagine the about face of those hired to mourn instead laughing at death, until you yourself have attempted the charades of trying to remember at which cardinal direction is the head of coffin at which you must stand to preside over a funeral, subtle pointing and shaking of heads from the funeral director to the pastor as if we were signing baseball plays. It is hard to imagine laughing at the bloat of a body in a bag until you have attempted the twist and pull, and vaseline remedies of removing rings off a now comatose cadaver. Its hard to imagine the regularity of death until you’ve repeatedly felt its weight, delivered the news, and been summoned to mourn. Edward Abby describes,
Thus we meditate upon the stranger's death. Since he was unknown to any of us we joke about his fate, as is only natural and wholesome under the circumstances. If he'd meant anything to us maybe we could mourn. If we had loved him we would sing, dance, drink, build a stupendous bonfire, find women, make love-for under the shadow of death what can be wiser than love, to make love, to make children?-and celebrate his transfiguration from flesh to fantasy in a style proper and fitting, with fun for all at the funeral. But-we knew thee not, old man. And there is, I suspect, another feeling alive in each of us as we lug these rotting guts across the desert: satisfaction.
I can imagine that satisfaction. I imagine it like being alone in the church after a graveside service of someone I had only known in death, hanging up my stole, and unzipping my formal black robe and placing it on its wooden hanger in the closet, back to its place and the end of a cycle, until a baptism, or marriage, or another funeral calls it out again, as it will and has over and over for generations. It is as Abby describes, “He is gone-we remain, others come. The plow of mortality drives through the stubble, turns over rocks and sad and weeds to cover the old, the worn-out, the husks, shells, empty seedpods and sapless roots, clearing the field for the next crop. A ruthless, brutal process-but clean and beautiful.” It is to load up the body bag in the coroners car and watch it drive off, and have the comfort that this time it wasn’t you, and the equal comfort that someday, like every day, it will be you, like it is eventually for everyone else. Abby writes finally, “A part of our nature rebels against this truth and against that other part which would accept it. A second truth of equal weight contradicts the first, proclaiming through art, religion, philosophy, science and even war that human life, in some way not easily definable, is significant and unique and supreme beyond all the limits of reason and nature. And this second truth we can deny only at the cost of denying our humanity.” I suspect this is what the hired mourners too are dealing with, the satisfaction of death, of the heavy permanence of a body through the desert and of its finality. Which sometimes, in our attempt to cope is, a doctor with his young children all to familiar with the pain of miscarriage and still birth delivering the news in a way that will always be too scientific and sterile, “Why bother the teacher any further.” It is, unfortunately, to laugh when Jesus says, she’s only sleeping, because as one who deals with death, you know its permanence and repetition.
But there are other times, when in reaching out to touch the hand of death, we find life. In all his healing stories, I think Jesus, must have had his own experience with the dead because he knows to touch the girl’s hand. When families were not yet arrived in the hospital to say goodbye, we would wrap warm cloths around the hands of their loved one, knowing the extremities were the first to turn cold and yellow then blue, and wanting the family to feel that warmth rather than the startling cold. When they would enter we would place our hand on the patient’s shoulder to show that touch was okay; that it too was part of saying goodbye. Then the body would turn cold, and the family, would become ready. I wonder if this was Jesus’ intent to show the family a better way toward death, rather than the crass and shop talk. I am not sure if Jesus said, she is only sleeping because he knew that a child’s death was the hardest to accept and it was unconscionable to hear it as an aside or through laughter. I wonder if Jesus came to help the process of grief fall into the larger picture of life and death. Death was something he knew. Jesus knew that the warmth of her hands would not have remained over the length of the walk, and so finding them still warm, in surprise he said, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!”
There are moments like this too. Where the unexplained becomes the lore of miracle, and the fight to thrive overcomes. Where a baby born desperately underweight is an adult with a story you cannot notice from the exterior. When a split second, or a fraction of a hair separates life and death. Where the unlikely hood of our existence is remembered in the gracious relief of a parent. I think of Alex going overboard on our rafting trip and my reaching in to grab him, and the other time I sent him on a sled toward every pole on Anthony lakes, yelling bail and crying once I knew found out he turned out fine. He and I, now even. I think of the organ donation list. I think of time I saw three doctors work with sacred precision to procure organs that one life might become a next. All this is rare, but it too points to our fragile humanity, and that we will forever be insufficient to the great cycles of life. Jesus knows this. He knows that in the balance is a preciousness, a precariousness, and I think thats why he came with Jairus, and I think that why he came for us. Yes, so some might be saved, and life, and be healed in the way of miracle, but also that we would know the right way to touch the hand of death, to be an example for the crossing over and the crossing between this life and the next. To guide the hired mourners the way of the rangers, understanding earshot. To count not even for Alex and I but two for Christ and to be there when no one wins. To be the jokes which help carry a body through the desert, and the solitude and peace surrounding the nephew walking ahead. To be both in the gift of life and the certainty of death. Jesus comes to us in this balance.
