I was horrified to discover that students in the UK are being given a death sentence. I thought this didn't happen anymore, so to find out that it happens every day was even more terrible.

You may be relieved to hear that I am not referring to literal execution. In the gospels we see Jairus approach Jesus and ask him to raise his daughter from the dead. When he sees the many mourners, Jesus says, "Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep." They laugh at him when they hear this, but Jesus proceeds to take her by the hand and say to her "Little girl, I say to you, get up!" She does exactly that and starts walking around.

It amazes me that this is so often described as an account of Jesus raising someone from the dead. The people say she is dead. Jesus says she is not dead but sleeping. We read this today and are amazed by the story and agree with the people that she was dead. We disagree with Jesus. I realise that sleep is used in the Bible as a euphemism for death. But Jesus is making a distinction between the two here and I am inclined to trust his discernment on this one. 

Throughout his ministry on this earth, Jesus looks at death and redefines it, beats it, ends it and overcomes it. He hates the death of young people and he even goes to a funeral of a young man and raises him from the coffin saying, "Young man, I say to you get up!" The same thing he said to Jairus' daughter.

But just like the mourners of Jairus' daughter, we too easily give up on our friends today. When it comes to faith, we are leaving students for dead instead of believing that they are asleep and on the verge of being woken to fullness of life. I believe Jesus says of the millions of students in the UK that do not know him, "they are not dead, they are sleeping." Let's not disagree with him and condemn them to death. Let's not give up on them. Let's refuse to conform to this world's understanding of death and chose the life that Jesus offers.