Matt 9:24-25, “‘…the girl is not dead, but sleeping’…He went in and took her by the hand, and the girl arose.”
Jesus does not merely turn back death in this text, He redefines death. When He says, “the girl is not dead, but sleeping,” He—as the Creative Word of God incarnate—names death anew. In the authority of His own victory over death, He assigns a new identity to death; and He names it sleep.
Of course, death is still the unnatural rending of the immaterial self from the material self, and so is truly an occasion for grief….and yet, according to Him for whom all things (including death) exist,—and who therefore has authority to define all things—according to Him, death is sleep.
Jesus renames “Death” as “sleep” because, to Him whose perception defines reality, it is not the finality that it seems to be to those who live in its shadow. No, for Him who descends into shadow from the heart of the Father of heavenly lights so that He might swallow up the veil of death in His own definitive experience of it, for Him who knows Himself from eternity to be the Firstborn from the dead and firstfruits of the resurrection, for Him, death is sleep….and a sleep from which He—and all whom He wills—can awake at any time.
To the Lord of Life, waking one from death is as easy as waking someone from a light sleep. He takes her by the hand and, just as a child who has fallen asleep on the couch wakes when her father rubs her back, so too this little girl opens her eyes and is awake; is alive. That she was raised from the dead is a miraculous display of God’s mercy and kindness and authority….but more than the raising up of this little girl, the almighty display of authority in this passage is the way that Jesus redefines and renames our ancient enemy.
O Death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting? He for whom you exist, He whom you attempted to devour, but who instead devoured you, He has given you a new name, He has called you “sleep.” And all those who are in Christ can lie down and sleep in peace for YHWH sustains us (Ps.4:8), and we know that when we awake we will still be with Him and will be satisfied with His likeness (Ps139:18, 17:15).
