The Healing of Jairus' Daughter

*** Narrative Lectionary *** Lectionary Reading: Mark 5:21-43 CLASSIC POEM: The Healing of the Daughter of Jairus Nathaniel Parker Willis Like a form Of matchless sculpture in her sleep she lay— The linen vesture folded on her breast, And over it her white transparent hands, The blood still rosy in their tapering nails. A line of pearl ran through her parted lips, And in her nostrils, spiritually thin, The breathing curve was mockingly like life; And round beneath the faintly tinted skin Ran the light branches of the azure veins; And on her cheek the jet lash overlay, Matching the arches pencill’d on her brow. Her hair had been unbound, and falling loose Upon her pillow, hid her small round ears In curls of glossy blackness, and about Her polish’d neck, scarce touching it, they hung Like airy shadows floating as they slept. ’Twas heavenly beautiful. The Saviour raised Her hand from off her bosom, and spread out The snowy fingers in his palm, and said, “Maiden! Arise!”—and suddenly a flush Shot o’er her forehead, and along her lips And through her cheek the rallied colour ran; And the still outline of her graceful form Stirr’d in the linen vesture; and she clasp’d The Saviour’s hand, and, fixing her dark eyes Full on his beaming countenance—AROSE! *** This poem is in the public domain, and may be read in a live-streamed worship service. CONTEMPORARY POEM: The Raising of Jairus’s Daughter Margaret Mackinnon SNIPPET: You have to imagine it, as they all did: It was as if He’d come to her in a dream. The walls of the space where the dead girl lay were like water, wavering, like the reflection of water, blue like the blue at the beginning of night. And the light blazed and bent … [ READ THE FULL POEM ]