Museums. I have always loved museums. Even as a little girl I have marvelled at their grandeur and stateliness. They loom into the sidewalk as if to say, “Here I am, full of treasures. I know all about the past and have seen so many wonders your eyes will not believe themselves.” Granted, I have not been to many and in no means do I pretend to be a coinosseur of museums, but ever since I was a girl I have dreamed of going to the Louvre. I think it all happened on a trip to New York City a few years back. When, walking through the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I over heard a conversation about how wonderful the Louvre was and how any self-respected art lover would be found there and not in this tiny little museum know as the Met. I couldn’t imagine a museum that was bigger and better and more stately than the one that I was currently standing in. I saw pictures of the Louvre once, on a friend’s digital camera and my heart fell in love. Some day, when I travel Europe, I will go to the Louvre and marvel at what it has to offer.

In the meantime, I will explore any museum I find and enjoy and appreciate art in all forms. This brings me to my newest favorite painting. I saw this at the Musée des Beaux-Arts. I turned a corner and there it was. On a plain wall in some part of the museum where I thought I had gotten lost. As soon as I saw it my heart broke and I stood in front of it for almost half an hour wiping tears from my face. (I’m sure that the security guard was wondering about the apparently emotionally unstable girl standing in front of the painting worried that I would try to tuck it under my arm and make a break for it!) But the thing is, I had just wandered through a section where the only images of Jesus were a young, poor, innocent boy or a defeated shell of a man being hung on a Cross. I think this painting made such an impact because it was clearly different than all the others. This one had life, color, hope. I love what the Savior did for me on that day at Calvary, but I have spent too much of life leaving Him defeated, laiden with pain and on that Cross. He rose again and I think that we never truly live until we understand that He lives too. He came down, off that Cross, in one piece. He conquered death so that we don’t have to live within its clutches.

This painting is a scene from when Jesus raises Jairus’ daughter. Jairus was a temple leader and went to seek the one called Messiah when his daughter fell ill. While he was explaining his case to Jesus a servant from his house came to tell him that unthinkable had happened. His daughter had died. She was no more and Jairus was urged not bother Jesus anymore. Can’t you just see that scene in your head? I can. A father, taking his last chance, fighting through the crowds trying to get to Jesus and earnestly pleading with Him to come and see his daughter. He eventually agrees and before you know it Jesus and entourage is headed to your house. Your heart lifts a little and you are trying not to get too excited until one of your house staff comes, with tear filled eyes, and probably whispers in your ear, “Master, I’m afraid that your daughter is dead. Let’s not bother the Rabbi any longer. Come on let’s go, come on. Stay strong. That’s right keep walking. Just breathe. I know that this is hard but we don’t need a crowd right now. Come on, let’s go.” What an awful, gut wrenching feeling. Here Jairus is, his daughter’s salvation is coming, he can see the roof of his house from here. Jesus is not three feet from him. He can see the dirt under Jesus’ finger nails and smell that He has been traveling. This just isn’t fair. It’s not fair. He is so close and yet so far away. Before Jairus’ thoughts can turn to all the things he could have done instead that would have saved his daughter, Jesus simply says, “Don’t be afraid, just believe.” What audacity, here is Jesus looking Jairus in the face, Jairus has just lost precious little girl, and all He can say, “Just believe”? I don’t know about you, but that is not how I cope with death. Not in the slightest.

When they get to Jairus’ house, Jesus clears the crowd and exclaims that she is simply sleeping and not dead as they all assumed. He enters her room and touches her hand and she opens her eyes, takes a look around and gets out of bed. I bet that there was not one jaw that didn’t hit the floor that night.

But I wonder about this girl. Did she know who Jesus was? Was she accustomed to the lines on this man’s face before he woke her? Was she immediately at peace when she saw him sitting on her bed? Did she grasp the severity of what he had done for her, for her father, for her family and for the neighbors listening at the door? With a simple “Little girl get up.” He had restored a life and a broken family. All because Jairus had faith enough to bother the Rabbi and wait for his miracle to come.

Which makes me think that perhaps Jesus is less occupied with His death on the Cross than you and I might think. It makes me wonder if His mission was not to die here on earth, but to impart life to all have the courage that it takes to “bother” Him. Jesus could have easily held Jairus and his wife while the mourned the loss of their daughter. He could have imparted some beautiful heavenly wisdom in a wonderful eulogy as they laid her low. He could have simply shrugged and apologized for the fact that He couldn’t get there fast enough and encouraged Jairus that they would soon be together at the Lord’s table when Jairus reached eternity. But the point is that He didn’t. He raised that little girl and brought her life out of the grave. That is the point. He restores life. That was His mission and we miss out on that when we leave Him to die in defeat on the Cross like so many of the paintings that I saw in the museum that day. When we forget that Christ has life giving power we leave Jairus’ daughter in her bed, tucked into an eternal slumber. We miss out on so much. Can you imagine the partying that happened in that house that day, and for the days to come? Can’t you just imagine the joy of Jairus and his wife as they tucked their little girl into bed that night thanking, with every fiber of their being, the Savior who had made that moment and so many more like it a possibility again?

I love this painting and this story because there is life in it. It is dripping with life, from the hand of Jesus to the eyes of the little girl to the fly on her arm. The whole thing just sings life. Which is what the Savior does to all of us. He offers us life. He has given me life, and I can taste it. I recently read a blog on not letting yourself have a “near-life experience” by simply succumbing to the slow bleed that can be our lives and not allowing life to imparted to you from a loving and caring Father. I think that those are words we need to hear, and we need to hear them often. There are so many ways in which we can die prematurely and be found not alive while life is happening right around us. I don’t want that to be me. And I don’t want that to be you either. I want life for you and for your little girl. It is too precious of a thing to leave on the bed of one that you love, or on the Cross of one who loved you. Choose life, at all costs, Jairus did and I know that He never regretted it.

And as much as I love museums, all that they can show us is how life was lived, or preserved or guessed at or interpreted. They can’t show us how to live now or what the next steps for us are. Only life and Creator of it can do that. So until I get to the Louvre, and wherever the path from there takes me, I will live my life as a celebration of the One who raised this little girl, both the one lying in the bed and the one being reflected by the computer screen as I write this, and enjoy this life with gusto and zeal because it is a gift. Given to me by a Messiah who enjoyed His and makes mine count.