Amen, Richard! What a blessing it is to have the opportunity to express our praise and thanksgiving to God in unique ways that will draw souls to Christ! While we remain in a world where we suffer, we remember that this is affords us the opportunity to be more like our Savior, and to enter into His joy of seeing souls redeemed!
Christ came to heal and restore even the dead to life!
Jairus pressed closer to the Saviour, and together they hurried to the ruler's home. Already the hired mourners and flute players were there, filling the air with their clamor. The presence of the crowd, and the tumult jarred upon the spirit of Jesus. He tried to silence them, saying, "Why make ye this ado, and weep? the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth." They were indignant at the words of the Stranger. They had seen the child in the embrace of death, and they laughed Him to scorn. Requiring them all to leave the house, Jesus took with Him the father and mother of the maiden, and the three disciples, Peter, James, and John, and together they entered the chamber of death.
Christ calmly dismissed those whose spirit was not prepared for the miracle about to be wrought, and had His three closest disciples with Him. Jesus handled the situation with such divine love and majesty, though it was trying to Him.
I was impressed with the thought of how Christ was affected by the experience of the crowd surrounding the daughter of Jairus in light of a section of Manuscript Releases, Volume 3, page 427, that I have also been blessed by recently:
We are forming characters for heaven. No character can be complete without trial and suffering. We must be tested, we must be tried. Christ bore the test of character in our behalf that we might bear this test in our own behalf through the divine strength He has brought to us. Christ is our example in patience, in forbearance, in meekness and lowliness of mind. He was at variance and at war with the whole ungodly world, yet He did not give way to passion and violence manifested in words and actions, although receiving shameful abuse in return for good works. He was afflicted, He was rejected and despitefully treated, yet He retaliated not. He possessed self-control, dignity, and majesty. He suffered with calmness and for abuse gave only compassion, pity, and love. {3MR 427.1}
Imitate your Redeemer in these things. Do not get excited when things go wrong. Do not let self arise, and lose your self-control because you fancy things are not as they should be. Because others are wrong is no excuse for you to do wrong. Two wrongs will not make one right. You have victories to gain in order to overcome as Christ overcame. {3MR 427.2}
Christ never murmured, never uttered discontent, displeasure, or resentment. He was never disheartened, discouraged, ruffled, or fretted. He was patient, calm, and self-possessed under the most exciting and trying circumstances. All His works were performed with a quiet dignity and ease, whatever commotion was around Him. Applause did not elate Him. He feared not the threats of His enemies. He moved amid the world of excitement, of violence and crime, as the sun moves above the clouds. Human passions and commotions and trials were beneath Him. He sailed like the sun above them all. Yet He was not indifferent to the woes of men. His heart was ever touched with the sufferings and necessities of His brethren, as though He Himself was the one afflicted. He had a calm inward joy, a peace which was serene. His will was ever swallowed up in the will of His Father. Not My will but Thine be done, was heard from His pale and quivering lips. {3MR 427.3}
I absolutely love this revelation of Jesus, and when I think of how the spirit of Jesus was jarred by the hired mourners, I am reminded that He was human and touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and He experienced struggles and torture of soul amid the presence of those who were full of unbelief. Christ did not sin in any of the trying experiences through which He passed. "He sailed like the sun above them all"!!! As you see the sun in the sky, remember that as you become a partaker of the divine nature, you can "sail like the sun above" the trials and weaknesses to which you are subject, abiding in Christ and reflecting all of the fruits of the Spirit so that not one is missing, because you have Christ within you! I am so thankful for the character of Christ, and for how we are to form characters also for heaven by beholding His matchless charms of grace!