Charles Spurgeon Commentary Mark 5:40

"And they laughed him to scorn. But he, having put them all forth, taketh the father of the child and her mother and them that were with him, and goeth in where the child was." — Mark 5:40 (ASV)

And they laughed him to scorn.

Can you picture the scene? These people, who had been hired to weep and wail, had not much of the spirit of mourning in them, for they laughed directly and derisively; they turned upon the mighty Master of life and death, and laughed him to scorn.

But when he had put them all out, –

That was the best way to answer the scorners. It is no good arguing with people who can cry or laugh to order: "when he had put them all out," –

And they laughed him to scorn.

What a wonderful picture this must have been — the Lord of glory in the center of a vulgar, mocking crowd who laughed him to scorn! But it is not the man who is laughed at who is necessarily contemptible; it is often the laughers who are the most deserving of scorn. It was so here in Christ's day, and it has often been so since.

But when he had put them all out,

They were not worthy to be answered in any other fashion.