Mark 5:35-40 “While Jesus was still speaking, some men came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue ruler. ‘Your daughter is dead,’ they said. ‘Why bother the teacher anymore?’ Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, ‘Don’t be afraid; just believe.’ He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James, and John the brother of James. When they came to the home of the synagogue ruler, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. He went in and said to them, ‘Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.’ And they laughed at him.”

We know the day will come when the doctors can’t put us back together again. We have to let go of life. We have to let go of those we love. We can’t let it make us let go of Jesus. That is the temptation. “Why bother the teacher anymore?”

When death challenges our faith like that, that is just when Jesus is most useful. That is when he offers you and me the same comfort, the same invitation he gave to Jairus. “Don’t be afraid. Just believe.”

There is another enemy of faith in this story. The unbelieving see death as final and permanent. It is only sad. Even among the Jews, who generally believed in the resurrection, Jesus found the scene at the home of Jairus too much. The Jewish people of Jesus’ time often employed professional mourners, as though more tears and louder cries somehow honored the person who had passed. Tears are appropriate at a funeral when they are genuine, and they do honor the dead. But God’s people shouldn’t grieve like those who regard death as final, and permanent, and only sad. Those people may gather to “celebrate a life.” But all they can do is remember the past, and think about what they have lost.

When we have Jesus, we have something to look forward to, a happy future with those who have died. Jesus is the Prince of Life. Even if he did not intend to raise this little girl from the dead on this very day, his words “The child is not dead but asleep” were comforting and true, and the people at Jairus’s home should have known better. Even as Old Testament believers, Moses had taught them that the Lord was the “gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in love, forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” David revealed that “He does not treat us as our sins deserve.” Daniel wrote that “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life…Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens.”

So Jesus was not the first to suggest that death was more like a sleep, or to know the reason why this should be so. He was simply the one who came to make it all a reality by dying to win our forgiveness, and rising to promise us life. And now he was here, at the home of Jairus, assuring the sad parents their daughter was merely asleep, and that she would wake to life again.

“But they laughed at him.” They still do, and at us for believing him. Atheist Richard Dawkins mocks Christian faith in God as ridiculous as believing in “flying spaghetti monsters.” Comedian and talk show host Bill Maher calls Christian faith in God “the purposeful suspension of critical thinking” and the God of the Bible a “psychopath.” Over 55 years ago, after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev dismissed the idea of God by saying, “Gagarin flew into space but didn’t see any god there.” And so it goes.

Smart people, funny people, powerful people, and perhaps a few people we know personally mock our faith, and perhaps we start to have our own doubts. “Don’t be afraid.” Jesus says. “Just Believe.”