Luke 8:49-56 While he yet spoke, there comes one from the ruler of the synagogue's house, saying to him, Your daughter is dead… I. DEATH AND LIFE ARE TERMS WHICH HAVE A SPIRITUAL AS WELL AS A PHYSICAL MEANING. A dead man physically is not always truly dead, and a live man physically is not always truly alive. The first occasion on which the ominous words — life and death — were used ought to teach us the mystery hidden in these terms. In the Garden of Eden there was the tree of life, which could not be merely physical life, since Adam was alive before and after he had access to that tree. And there again was another tree, with which the sentence was coupled, "The day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." Of that tree Adam ate, and so died — although physically he continued to live for nine hundred and thirty years. No one can have failed to notice how decidedly our Lord corrects the earthly, carnal, and limited ideas of the Jews in reference to the great mysteries of life and death. How often He used words which were beyond, aside from, and even against the common mode of speaking; not, surely, for the sake of singularity, but in order that he might recall and affirm the whole truth. When, e.g., people were indulging in loud and formal lamentation over the death of the ruler's daughter — as if she were literally lost for ever — as if her death were death in the fullest sense — as if the separation of her soul and body were the saddest event which could befall her or her family; when our Master saw through, not only the obtrusive formality of this loud grief, but penetrated the false notions on which rested the deep grief of her parents and those who sincerely lamented with them, He bade them know that their lamentations were out of place, for that she was not dead, but asleep. And when they who were wailing for her laughed Him to scorn; and when they, too, who wept for real sorrow, were incredulous — He demonstrated the truth of His assertion, for "He took her by the hand, and the maid arose." II. DEATH, IN ITS POPULAR MEANING, IS BEST EXPRESSED BY THE TERM SLEEP. in giving to the separation of soul and body the title "sleep," Christ has disclosed to us the true doctrine of the resurrection of the body, together with a warning, and comfort, which must not pass without distinct notice. 1. The doctrine. The exact phraseology of the Creed teaches us with authority the evangelical truth that we shall rise again; but the lesson can be also learned in the fact that the body of the Jewish maiden — when deprived of the soul — slept. They who sleep, awake again; if the dead body be not dead, but asleep, that is to say, if the term "sleep" be the most accurate one which He who gave us speech could single out, to describe the fact of physical death, then no dogmatic statement, no decree of council, could more clearly affirm the fact of the resurrection of the body. 2. The warning. There is no power in sleep to change one's moral character; as we lie down, we rise up again when awake. Again, in sleep, though the body be motionless, the spirit is active. There are dreams that trouble, as well as those that please. 3. The comfort. Is it no comfort to be told that the friend you thought to be dead only sleeps? Is it not a perfect protection against over-much sorrow to receive the great mystery set forth here? There was a time when Christians took great consolation from this very truth, when it made them ready to die, and resigned to see those near them die at the call of God. Go look at the catacombs of Rome, and see in the records which those faithful caverns have preserved of the creed and life of our Christian fore-fathers — how the early Christians thought of death. The inscriptions are full of faith. Hero a mother "sleeps in Jesus" — there a child "sleeps in Jesus" husband, wife, and friend — they all "sleep" — there is no sign of death in the catacombs. Our martyred forefathers of the early Church may teach us how to live, to die, to bury, and to mourn for our dead. Our Master teaches us in the text that we are not to sorrow for the sainted dead as those who have no hope. They "sleep." They shall rise. (Bishop W. H. Odenheimer.) Parallel Verses KJV: While he yet spake, there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue's house, saying to him, Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master. |
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