I did this message several years ago, and then revisited it this past week. I thought it worth posting even though it is a bit long.
Sunday, November 5, 2006
In 1990, an ice
storm hit Roanoke. My best friend took
to the streets to see how fast his sled would go. It was a back road, and it should not have
been a problem. But, he got going so
fast, he lost control and rammed into the bottom of a parked car. He ended up with 60 stitches in his head. He could have been decapitated. A few years later, fully recovered, he
married his college sweetheart and began working with his dad. Then, at 26, his wife left him for another
man. She was the only woman he had ever
loved and she was gone. Broken hearted,
he began the painful road to recovery.
Then one day, he woke up and could not move. My friend is a natural athlete. He can dunk a basketball; he can run for
miles without stretching & without getting tired or sore. In pick-up football games, no one can cover
him. He woke up and could not move his
body. His brother discovered him, got
him to the hospital, and within a week, the unexplained illness was gone and he
was back on his feet, healthy again.
Around the time he turned 30, his company fired his father. He still had a job, but his father was
dismissed. He had to recover once again,
and this time in very awkward circumstances.
A few years later, he left that company to work for his father’s new
company. A few years after that, he was
the one fired. This past summer he
remarried. Physically, emotionally,
relationally, my best buddy from high school has had to go through periods of
healing; and, sometimes it was hard to know if the healing would ever
come. But, it has and it continues
to. And, I think my friend’s story has
some unique aspects to it, but it not uncommon.
People have injuries to the
body. We have crushing blows that hit
the heart. We need help overcoming the
things that wound us. Today we begin a
series of 6 messages from the Gospel of Mark on miraculous healings. It’s the supernatural power of Jesus on
display. Scientists, doctors, and
historians have no explanation for the stories we will hear. Did these miracles really happen? Is it just legend, or exaggeration, written
down generations after the fact? Is it
wishful thinking? Wouldn’t it be great
if there was a guy who loved everybody and healed everybody? Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
I believe the stories of Jesus’
miracles are real, historical. These
things, the healings included, happened.
So what do we
learn from them? How does it help the
church and the faith of individual Christians today to know the tales of
miracles Jesus performed 2000 years ago?
And why, of all the miracles, we would zero in on healing?
I have am in some way connected
to over 20 people that have needed some form of care - the emergency room, the operating room, the
hospital, home health care or hospice care.
Some were over 80, but not all. I
spent time with children who did not know if they would live or die. A lot of these folks I visited were a part of
this church or my former church; others weren’t. Some were members of my own family. Some were friends from years ago. Over 20 people, in 2006, and the year isn’t
over. Why talk about healing? Everyone needs it. And, I believe the healing offered by Jesus
happens today.
However, before we talk about
being made well and being made whole, we must acknowledge some problems. The first one is the lack of 21st
miracles. I have never been associated
with a healing that a doctor could not explain.
Maybe you have, but most I know have not. Most today have never seen or heard about a
truly miraculous event. It’s an age of
science and highly developed medicine.
Maybe the miracle is what God has allowed brilliant doctors to
learn. I don’t discount that at
all. But, the unexplainable seems to
fall into the realm of superstition and is not the stuff educated people listen
to. That’s the first problem.
The second is not everyone is
healed. I know a pastor from El Salvador
whose granddaughter was diagnosed with leukemia late last year. I visited her and prayed with her family at
UVA hospital in Charlottesville. Her mom
and sister confidently told me that if the leukemia killed her, they would
testify that she had gone to be with the Lord and give Him glory. If she survived they would praise God for the
healing. The little girl felt the same
way. Her doctor did not give her much of
a chance to make it. But, we received a
report in June that after some radical treatments that had a low success rate,
she was cancer free! Praise God!
In the book Disappointment with God, Philip Yancy tells about a thriving church
that he visited in a village in Peru.
That sentence itself is cause for joy.
The people of this region had been steeped in ancient traditional
religions until a missionary came and introduced them to Jesus. When he visited, Yancey discovered a church
that had grown strong over its 40 years of life. He also discovered a small, forgotten stone
monument; a tribute to one of the missionaries who helped found the church. God worked through this young man to
introduce the entire village to Christ.
But, the young missionary’s 6-month old son was hit with an onset of
vomiting and diarrhea. The child
died. As the village around him grew in
faith, the young missionary was arrested in grief. His heavy heart made him so sick; he was
pulled from the mission field, never to return to mission work.
What’s the difference in the 2
stories? In the first one, a pastor’s
granddaughter survived. In the second, a
missionary’s son died. Why did one live
and not the other? If we credit God with
healing in the 1st case, do we blame God for not delivering in the 2nd? I don’t have an easy answer – no one
does. I am highly suspicious of anyone
who offers trite answers. The hardest funeral
I ever did was for a 6-month-old child.
We don’t see as many miracles
today as we read about in Mark. That’s a
problem. Some people are healed and some
aren’t. That’s another problem. As we proceed to examine these great stories
in the Bible, I can’t promise that you or I will find the exact healing we
might be looking for. That’s a third
problem. As we discuss healing, I have
to say, God has not told me that at HillSong, we will no longer need crutches
or wheel chairs or doctors or treatment plans or medicine. I cannot stand before you and promise medical
miracles.
I do have something to offer
though. It’s the most important part of
the healing stories. It goes deeper than
the physical body. And it is far more
important to Jesus than physical healing.
At the center of this passage, when the disciples come to Jesus because
mobs of sick and demon possessed people want to be healed, Jesus responds,
“Let’s get out of here. Let’s go to
other villages.” Does he want to depart
so he can heal in other places? No, he’s
going to preach. He says, “That’s what I
came to do.” Jesus’ mission was to tell
people how they could know God. Along
the way, he did perform many miracles.
But his purpose was to preach about the kingdom of God and how people
could surrender their hearts to the will of God and be adopted as children of
God.
Furthermore, at the heart this
reading from Mark, when the crowds want the miracle worker to end all disease,
discomfort, and disturbance in Galilee, Jesus retreats to the wilderness. He doesn’t make it easy. He gets away from it all so he can pray. He needs spiritual strength because the
crucial work that lies ahead, the eternal task, is spiritual, not
physical. Physical hurts are real and
problematic and for some people utterly disabling; but spiritual disease is far
worse in Jesus’ mind.
So what I offer, actually what
the Holy Spirit offers in the face of needed healing, is what Jesus tried to
give when people wanted miracles. Jesus
tried to give hope. Jesus tried to build
faith. Jesus tried to mend broken souls
by offering forgiveness. Jesus tried to
change lives by freely giving the love of God to all who would receive it. He’s still doing that and it’s still needed.
While he was pastor of FBC Macon,
GA, Chuck Poole wrote the book Don’t Cry
Past Tuesday. He opens talking about
a walk he took one day to visit his friend, a priest at the Catholic Church
across the street. As he entered, he
noticed a sign that said “Cry Room.” It was
just off the sanctuary, a room where parents could hear the service while their
babies cried. The worship service came
through on a speaker but the walls of the room prevent the babies’ cries from
disturbing other worshippers.
As Poole walked away, a thought
hit him. That sign, “Cry Room,” should
hang outside of every sanctuary and worship room in every church. The sign should be in the main room for the
adults because this should be a safe place for people who need to cry. Poole writes adults need a place to “confess
their deepest guilt, ask their toughest questions, and tell their darkest
stories; adults need a place where they can find help with all the heavy
luggage of their unhealed diseases, unrealized ambitions, unresolved mysteries,
and unfulfilled hopes. … [This place,
the gathering of the church, must be a place where] the shoulder stooping,
sleep-robbing, heart-breaking fears, shames, and hurts of life are voice, not
silenced; acknowledged, not denied.” Our
gathering is “where the protest of hope is lodged against the evidence for
despair. … [We – followers of Jesus the healer – are] bearers of grace to the
troubled and keepers of hope for the weary.”
Moreover, the church is where we come, when we what need more than
anything is to have the arms of God wrapped around us in an embrace.
Yes, Jesus healed the body some
times. His purpose though, in the first
century and today, was to heal the soul.
Often those with Him, even the beneficiaries of miracles missed the
biggest blessing!
When the man stricken with leprosy
came to Jesus, he didn’t say “Heal me.”
He asked to be made clean because leprosy was viewed as a disease of the
soul. One with this condition was not
allowed to enter the temple. The leper
wasn’t permitted to touch others. He was
isolated socially and cut off from God.
This leper that came to Jesus broke the rules. He was supposed to stay away, but in
desperation, he crossed the lines to beg for redemption. Jesus too broke the rules. Those who were clean were to avoid the sick
and diseased. It was forbidden to touch
an untouchable, but Jesus stepped outside the box religion had worked so hard
to build. He grasped the man and with
love said, “I am willing to help you. Be
clean!” The leprosy left the man and
Jesus instructed him to go to the priest and worship God thereby being declared
clean in the proper way. Jesus did not
simply heal him. He restored him. For the healing to be complete and the man to
be accepted back into the society, he had to go to the priest.
At this point, the man forgot why
he came to Jesus. He came asking to be
cleansed. When he got what he asked for,
he then disobeyed the healer. Jesus
said, “Don’t tell anyone about this. Go
to the priest.” The man never went to
the priest. Instead he ran through
streets shouting through a bullhorn the wonders of the miracle worker. It makes for good copy, but this healed leper
did receive Jesus’ most important offering.
He didn’t re-enter a relationship with God and with the worshipping
community. Instead he settled for The National Inquirer, Geraldo, and his
own reality TV show. Jesus wanted to
mend a soul, but the man became a spectacle.
Simon’s mother-in-law reacted
differently. When Jesus came to her, she
did not have leprosy. She had a fever
that could have been fatal. People
around her would search for spiritual failures on her part as a reason for this
affliction. When Jesus saw the
semiconscious sweating woman, he didn’t say a word. He took her by the hand, raised her from the
bed, and helped her to her feet. In the
whisper of a moment, the healer took one from the deathbed to vibrant
life. Mark doesn’t record a single word
she said; only that at once she began serving Jesus and the disciples. In that way, she became a humble, obedient,
servant of the healer and gave what was needed.
Jesus was an itinerant who needed people to host him and his men and to
feed them. Simon’s mother-in-law
responded to healing by giving what she could offer, something needed, and thus
joining Jesus in his work. As we go
through the healing stories, we see that the response to the healing was more
important than the initial miracle.
Those who responded by embracing relationship with God received the
greater gift.
Dr. Paul Brand, a Christian and a
specialist who worked with lepers in India, reported one encounter. He examined a bright young man and as he went
to tell his diagnosis, he set his hand on the man’s shoulder and began
talking. As the translator interpreted
Dr. Brand’s words, the young Indian began to shake and weep. This surprised Dr. Brand and asked the
translator about it. The young Indian
explained to her through his tears, that before Dr. Brand put an arm around, no
one had touched him for years. Spurned
by society because of his disease, he had become isolated in the worst
way. Whatever medical help Dr. Brand
could offer was just gravy. The meat of
the healing was the embrace.
It is this way with Jesus. Sometimes the body is healed. On more than one occasion, he brought the
dead back to life. But, the bodies he
healed broke down again. Lazarus and the
others he resuscitated died again.
However, the souls that come to God through faith in Jesus are forever
changed, forever healed. It is the
embrace of Heaven we need the most.
The NIV translation states that
when the leper came to Jesus, he was filled with compassion. Jesus ached for this hurting man and with
him. In our church family there are
parents who come to God trembling because they worry about their children. There are teary eyed adult children who now
have to care for ailing, aging parents.
There are hearts crumbled, trying to pick up the pieces in the after
math of a damaging relationship. There
are singles, beautiful people, who struggle with the gnawing ache of desiring
marriage and family life, unsure if it will ever come. There are people who used to dream, but
stopped dreaming after the dreams were shattered one time too many. The Holy Spirit knows the pain you bear and
the scars I carry. The Holy Spirit is
here and when one of us is driven to our knees in desperation, the Holy Spirit
responds as Jesus did. Filled with
compassion, the Holy Spirit begins the work of repairing our lives.
In November 2003, Lisa Shearin,
from Dunn, NC, a mother of 3 kids all in their 20’s, had a stomach problem and
ended up in a coma. This was just before
Thanksgiving. She awoke on New Year’s
Day. Miraculously, one doctor said, her
brain was in tact and in time, she regained all of her capabilities, movement,
and senses – save one. She was blind and
is to this day. The headline of the
story about her in the Biblical Record
is “Loss of sight doesn’t steal woman’s joy.”
Her journey through blindness has had twists and turns, and ultimately
it increased her faith. The first year,
as she bumped into things learning to navigate in unending darkness, she
suffered a broken nose 4 times and a separate shoulder. It was hard, but she felt the tug of the lord
on her heart. The eyes of her soul
opened wide. Today, she is still
blind. But, she sees God at work in her
life and at least once a month testifies in churches about how God is using
her. She teaches life skills at a school
for the blind. She is an advocate for
sight impaired persons. Here’s what she
says in this article. “I think a lot
about learning to see people with my heart.”
Then she says it is worth it to be blind because she has learned to see
people in this way.
This woman has received the deep
healing of Jesus. His compassion for her
didn’t lead to repaired eyes, but to a transformed soul. Will all of our prayers be answered exactly
as we hope? I can’t guarantee that. But, I promise the one who hears our prayers
loves us more than we can know and heals in ways we might not even realize that
we need.
Are carrying a heavy burden, be
it emotional, physical or spiritual?
Jesus wants to help. Do you know
someone who needs, more than anything, the soul healing only He gives? Bring your friend here as we spend the
upcoming weeks with the great physician.
Jesus, the compassionate healer, has great love for you, is ready to
heal your heart, fill your life, and draw you into the father’s arms.
Let us pray
Amen
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