Recalling the dead girl to life: V. 38. And He cometh to the house of the ruler of the synagog, and seeth the tumult, and them that wept and wailed greatly. V. 39. And when He was come in, He saith unto them, Why make ye this ado and weep? The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth. V. 40. And they laughed Him to scorn.
Upon arriving at the house of Jairus, they were met by sights and sounds that emphasized the fact of a dead person's being on the premises. Even the poorest Jews felt constrained to hire two pipers and at least one woman to take care of the mourning in the case of a death.
Note: Mark calls attention, above all, to the turmoil, to the confused din caused by the many mourners; Matthew speaks of the minstrels and the piping; Luke refers to the weeping and bewailing. They were busily engaged when Jesus stepped into the house with His companions, weeping and howling without restraint. But Jesus took charge of the situation at once. He reproached them for the noise they were making, stating that the child was not dead, but sleeping. Those were the words of a man that lived in the certainty of the resurrection, Jesus Christ, the Master of death, who has conquered and bound death.
"These words we should diligently note, that the Lord here says: The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth; for they are comforting words, for which, if they were purchasable, we should gladly pay all, in order that we might remember, understand, and believe them. For he that can look upon a dead person as though he were merely lying in bed; he that can change his eyesight so that he can look upon death as a sleep, he might well boast of a peculiar art, which no man otherwise possesses. Therefore learn from this gospel that death, in the sight of Christ the Lord, is nothing but a sleep, as we see here that He wakes the dead maiden with the hand, as out of a sleep" (Luther, 13a, 980).