TALITHA QUMI

TALITHA QUMI

"The dead shall arise!" (Psa. 88:10) This is one of the signs which are to suffice for John the Baptist in prison. To the good sister, to the hard-working Martha, Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth, and believeth in me, shall never die." (John 11:25) The resurrection is a rebirth in faith, immortality is the permanent affirmation of this faith.*

The Evangelists know three resurrections, historical events narrated with a sober but explicit statement of the evidence. Jesus raised up three who were dead: a young lad, a little girl, and a friend. (Matt. 9:18; Luke 7:12; John 11:14)*

He was entering Nain, "the beautiful" set on a little hill some miles from Nazareth, and met a funeral procession. They were carrying to the grave the young son of a widow. She had lost her husband a short time before; this son alone had been left to her; now they were carrying away the son in turn for burial. Jesus saw the mother walking among the women, weeping with the amazed and smothered grief of mothers which is so profoundly moving. She had only two men in all the world who loved her; the first one was dead, the second was now dead; one after the other, both of them disappeared. She was left alone, a woman alone without a man. Without a husband, without a son, without a help, a prop, a comfort. Gone the love that was a memory of youth, gone the love that was hope for declining years. Gone both those poor, simple loves. A husband can console his wife for the loss of their son; a son can make up for the loss of a husband. If only one had been left! Now her lips were never to know another kiss.

Jesus had compassion on this mother; her grief was like an accusation. "Weep not," (Luke 7:13) he said.

He went to the side of the lifeless and touched him. The boy was lying there stretched out, wrapped in his shroud, but with his face uncovered, set in the stern paleness of the dead. The bearers halted; all were silent; even the mother, startled, was quiet.

"Young man, I say unto thee, Arise." (Luke 7:14) And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And He delivered him to his mother. He "delivered" him because he was now hers. Jesus had taken him from the land of death to give him back to her who could not live without him, that a mother might cease from weeping.

Another day as he was returning from Gadara, a father fell at His feet. His only little daughter lay at the point of death. The man's name was Jairus, and although he was a leader at the Synagogue he believed in Jesus. They went along to­gether. When they were half-way, a servant met them, saying, "Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master." (Mark 5:35) But when Jesus heard it, He answered him, saying, "Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole." (Mark 5:36) And when He came into the house He suffered no man to go in, except Peter, and James, and John, and the father and the mother of the maiden. And all wept, and bewailed her: but He said, "Weep not; she is not dead, but sleeps." (Mark 5:39) And they laughed Him to scorn, knowing that she was dead. And He put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called, saying, "Maid, arise." (Mark 5:41) And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway: and He com­manded to give her meat. She was not a visible spirit, a ghost, but a living body, awakened a little weak, ready for a new day after feverish dreams.

In the New Testament it was this of which the Apostle Paul spoke to his people as "the hope and resurrection of the dead” (Acts 23:6, Acts 24:21, Acts 26:6-8). Our Lord referred to the same event as a special resurrection in which only those would participate who are "sons of God, being sons of the resurrection" (Luke 20:35-36, ASV); and in another place He speaks of it as "the resurrection of the just" (Luke 14:14). To have a part in this resurrection was  so great a prize, according to the Apostle Paul, that he could afford to lose everything in its attainment; and actually count the loss as nothing (Phil. 3:8-11). In the light of this well-attested Biblical doctrine, it would be passing strange if nothing were said about it in the Apocalypse which is pre-eminently the New Testament book of the coming Kingdom.

“But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage” (Luke 20:35)