Can you imagine what the people must have thought?
Today, people know about CPR and have defibrillators and all sorts of equipment to save someone who has a heart attack or suddenly stops breathing, and we take for granted that medical science can save people in so many situations.
In Jesus time, it you couldn't feel or hear someone breathe, they were dead. And, in fact, they usually did die because there was no way to save them.
They must have been both happy and fearful that Jesus saved this child. Happy because she was alive and could rejoin her family; and afraid because they couldn't understand how one could bring anyone back to life.
In Luke's version of this miracle, the ruler comes to Jesus because his daughter is sick and asks him to come so that she won't die and while they are on the way, servants come and say she has died, and he shouldn't bother Jesus any longer.
Regardless of how it happened, the child lives. But just like the son of the widow of Naim and Lazarus, and those whom medical science is able to bring back to life, they all died. So will we!
But Jesus does bring them and us back to life – eternal life! Whether we are one who was able to be resuscitated or not, like the child in the miracle we will one day die and enter eternal life.
Jesus healed those in the Gospels, and God has given the scientists of today the ability to heal as well as to prolong life but this is not our permanent home.
Our home in heaven will be so much better as there will be no more suffering or pain. We will live on eternally with all those who have gone before us.
Like the ruler in this passage, the widow of Naim and Martha and Mary, we too need to believe.
