On 4 September, the Greek Orthodox Church reads one of the New Testament’s most affecting accounts of fear, grief and faith: the raising of Jairus’ daughter.
The Gospel appointed for the 14th Friday after Pentecost is Mark 5:22-24, 35-43 and 6:1. It begins with a father who has run out of options. Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, approaches Jesus, falls at his feet and pleads with him to come to his home. His young daughter is dying.
Jesus agrees to go.
But before they reach her, the news arrives that Jairus has been dreading. His daughter is dead.
“Why trouble the Teacher any further?” the messengers ask.
Jesus responds with five words that have become among the most recognisable in the Gospel of Mark: “Do not fear, only believe.”
It is a brief sentence, but the circumstances in which it is spoken matter.
Jairus has not been told to have faith while there is still a reasonable chance that events might turn in his favour. The message comes after that possibility appears to have vanished. His daughter has already died. The people arriving from his home see no reason for Jesus even to continue the journey.
Christ does.
At the house there is already mourning. Mark describes people weeping and wailing. Jesus tells them that the child is “not dead but sleeping”, and they laugh at him. He sends the crowd outside, takes the girl’s parents and Peter, James and John into the room, and approaches the child.
Then comes one of the few occasions in the Gospels where the Aramaic words spoken by Jesus are preserved.
“Talitha cumi.”
“Little girl, I say to you, arise.”
Mark records that the 12-year-old immediately rises and begins to walk. Jesus then gives an almost strikingly ordinary instruction after an extraordinary event: she should be given something to eat.
For Orthodox Christianity, the account reaches beyond the story of one family.
The Resurrection stands at the centre of Orthodox Christian belief. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese describes Christ’s Resurrection as the supreme declaration of the faith and teaches that, through it, Christ conquers the power of sin and death.
Seen within that tradition, the raising of Jairus’ daughter is not simply an account of an astonishing healing. It points towards something larger. Death, which appears to those gathered in the house to be an absolute conclusion, is not presented as having the final authority.
That does not make the passage a simple promise that faith will ensure every illness is cured or every tragedy reversed in the way people hope. The Gospel itself is more demanding than that.
Jairus is asked to trust Christ at precisely the point when the evidence available to him says there is nothing left to hope for.
There is also something distinctly human in the way Mark tells the story.
Jairus occupies a position of standing in his community. He is identified as a ruler of the synagogue. Yet when his daughter is dying, status becomes irrelevant. He falls at Jesus’ feet and asks for help.
There is no lengthy speech and no attempt to preserve dignity. There is simply a father terrified of losing his child.
Then, having asked for help, Jairus has to keep walking beside Christ after being told that help has come too late.
It is this interval that gives the Gospel much of its force.
“Do not fear, only believe” can sound reassuring when removed from its context. Within the story, it is anything but easy. Christ is asking for faith when Jairus has just received the worst news of his life.
Orthodox faith is therefore not presented here as the absence of fear. Jairus has every reason to be afraid. Nor is belief portrayed as pretending that suffering does not exist. The house is full of people mourning because something terrible has happened.
Faith enters directly into that reality.
The Gospel appointed by the Church for today is accompanied by Galatians 2:6-10, and together the two readings offer an interesting counterpoint.
In his letter, St Paul recalls his encounter with James, Cephas, or Peter, and John, figures he describes as “pillars” of the early Church. They recognise that Paul has been entrusted with taking the Gospel to the Gentiles, just as Peter has a particular mission among the circumcised.
Their final request is notably practical.
They ask Paul to “remember the poor”, something he says he was already eager to do.
It is an easily overlooked line, yet it prevents faith from becoming purely internal.
The Gospel speaks about belief in a moment of profound fear. The Epistle turns outward, towards responsibility for another person.
Taken together, the readings offer a picture of Christian faith that is neither passive optimism nor private conviction. It asks for trust in God when circumstances cannot be controlled, while insisting that spiritual life remains connected to the needs of people around us.
There is another detail to today’s liturgical calendar that reinforces this sense of faith expressed through action. On 4 September, the Church also commemorates the Hieromartyr Babylas, Bishop of Antioch, as well as the Holy Prophet and God-seer Moses. The Divine Liturgy appointed for the day includes hymns honouring both figures.
According to Orthodox tradition, Babylas was Bishop of Antioch during the persecution of Christians under the Roman emperor Decius in the third century. He was eventually martyred after refusing to compromise the sanctity of the Church in the face of imperial power.
Yet it is Jairus, standing somewhere between desperation and belief, who gives today’s Gospel its emotional centre.
His story has endured because the situation is immediately recognisable even when the miracle is not. There are moments when people can act, plan, seek advice and search for solutions. There are others when every available option appears to have been exhausted.
The Gospel does not deny the terror of those moments.
Instead, Christ’s words are spoken directly into one.
“Do not fear, only believe.”
And then he keeps walking towards the house.
Read also From Outlaw to Saint. What the Life of Saint Moses Teaches About the Possibility of Change
