Healing Faith
Mark 5:21-43
“The elderly woman
thought she had a severe cold and was shocked to learn that what she really had
was a significant case of congestive heart failure. Her physician, Dr. Dale Matthews, an
associate professor of medicine at the Georgetown University, was concerned
about her progress and yet a week later, was “pleased and astounded” to see her
greatly improved having lost twenty-five pounds of fluid around her heart.
He
said, “There was more to her recovery than a superb response to the medicine,
there was also prayer.” From the time
she came to him with her illness, Dr. Matthews prayed with her and for her, as
did her family and her church. Prayer is
part of his standard medical practice, having been influenced by his physician
father and a grandfather who served as a medical missionary. With each patient he asks if they are
comfortable with prayer. If they are
not, he lets it be, but if they are he asks them if he would like him to pray
at the end of the visit. Sometimes, he
says, “They weep.”[1]
This
professor of medicine recognized what we all know by experience – body and soul
are one. A body is broken or bent by
disease impacts our spirits and can lead to depression, and when spiritual
resources are depleted, health can suffer as well.
This
morning’s message is about healing in the name of Christ, all kinds of healing
in the name of Christ. You can hardly
read four consecutive pages in the New Testament without bumping into a story
about someone needing Christ to touch them, because both Jesus and those who
follow him recognized that connection between body and soul. Before we turn to the next page, let us pray:
Lord,
you have been called the “Great Physician” able to heal body and soul, so we
come to you now seeking wholeness and health.
Speak to us through your word so that we might learn to pray as we
ought, and grant us patience and the willingness to receive your healing
touch. In the name of Jesus Christ of
Nazareth we pray. Amen.
What would you do, how far would you be willing to go to
help your child if he or she were sick or in distress of any kind. Is there any price that would be too high,
any effort that would seem too much? Chances
are you would be willing to do anything to help.
That’s the way a man named Jarius looked at it. He was
one of the leaders of the synagogue and so by nature suspicious of Jesus’ and
his new-fangled ideas about God. But,
when it came to the health and welfare of his little girl he was a father
first. So, when he heard that Jesus had
healed people before he asked him, “can you heal my little girl”? In fact, the Bible says he begged Jesus and
begged him repeatedly because that’s what you do for you do for your daughter.
So, Jesus went with him to see the little girl. On the way people, in fact a lot of people,
gathered around Jesus because they had heard the same stories Jarius had. In the anonymity of the crowd, a woman who
had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve year snuck in close. She had to sneak in because her condition
rendered her unclean under Jewish Law.
This had nothing to do with dirty laundry and sanitation. It had nothing
to do with fear of catching a communicable disease. It had everything to do
with ritual and symbol.
Symbols matter. We’ve seen that these past days
surrounding the debate over the Confederate Flag flying over the South Carolina
capitol building. The heinous and sinful
shooting that took the lives of the pastor and eight members of the Emmanuel
AME church in Charleston has focused attention on a flag which is a symbol for
many of the oppression of African-Americans and the institution of slavery.
Now the flag was not responsible for the deaths of those
9 brothers and sisters in Christ. The
ignorance and racism and the forty-five caliber handgun of twenty-one year old Dylan
Roof was. He was the one who pulled the
trigger after being graciously welcomed for over an hour in a Bible study by
the good people of this congregation. He is the one who is responsible and he
will be the one held accountable by the judicial system of South Carolina and
more importantly by the judgement of a holy and righteous God.
But, the picture
he posted of himself holding the gun he used to kill and the confederate flag
which was for him an important symbol of his anger prompts many to conclude it
is time to pull that flag down and off of public institutions and into museums
designed to help us remember our history.
And I agree.
The Bible puts it this way. “All things are lawful,” but not all things
are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. Do not seek your own advantage, but that of
the other.[2]
That’s the way Jesus looks at things. When he through the crowd this woman who was symbolically
unclean wanted only to quietly touch his robe in hopes that she might be healed.
She wanted to do this quietly. She didn’t want anyone to know she was
there. She didn’t even want Jesus to
know she was there.
One of the
reasons people tend to see faith as a religion about God instead of a relationship with God is the sense that they are not worthy of the attention
of an Almighty God. "My problems
are too small for God to care about." or "With all the pain and suffering in this world, why would God care
about me?" are a couple of ways people give expression to this
sense of insignificance. Their question is, "How can one so great care for one so small."
Have you
ever felt that sense of insignificance? There have been times when I've gazed
into the incredible expanse of a starlit sky and felt ever so small and
insignificant. Even our planet is hardly a speck of dust in the vast cosmos.
A mother overheard her little girl’s prayer, “Our Father,
who art in heaven, how did you know my name?” We ask the same question.
And yet, the
heart of the lesson for today says that God is attentive to the heartache and
suffering of all persons, no matter how insignificant they may seem to the
world around them.
The woman in
the story almost counts on the fact that she is insignificant in the eyes of
her townsfolk. "I'll simply steal
my way through the crowd and reach out and touch his clothes -- no one will
ever know and perhaps I will be healed."
We can only
imagine what it must have been like for the poor woman to have the whole
attention of God and the town turn directly to her with, "Who touched
my clothes?"
The
encounter turned out to be more than she could ever have dreamed of. She was
not only healed, she was able to with God's peace and a relationship with the
God who cared for her when the world had turned its back.
There is no
such thing as an insignificant person with God! ² What a wonderful thought that
one so great should care for one so small.
Meanwhile Jarius the ruler of the
synagogue was tapping his toe and taking deep sighs and looking at his watch
while waiting for Jesus. Remember they
were supposed to be going to his house to heal his daughter. This interruption proved to be fatal because
no sooner had Jesus healed this woman and called her to the attention of the
crowd so that they would know she was now O.K., than a servant came and said
the little girl had died.
Although the Bible doesn’t say, you
can imagine what the father was feeling.
“Jesus, if you had not stopped to help this woman you may have arrived
in time to help my daughter. But, now it’s too late.”
That’s the way many of us look at
the world. There is only so much time
and so many resources. It is a zero-sum
game in which we are all in competition with each other to get ours even if it
means someone else doesn’t get theirs.
That’s how we see things. It is
not how a great and eternal and almighty God looks at the world.
So, Jesus assures Jarius, “Do not fear,
only believe.”[3]
Now, why is belief so
important? Well, without it we never
begin. If you don’t believe you can do
something you will never try.
Let me give you an example. Last week Charlotte and I went up to Vermont
to a place called the New Life Hiking Spa.
Each day began with a hike and you could choose the beginner which they
kindly called the nature hike, or the intermediate or the advanced.
On the first day I was confident
that I could do better than the beginner so I joined the intermediate hike that
went up a hill somewhat higher than Rocky Ridge overlooking a quaint village
called Woodstock. I did great; never
even broke a sweat. So, the next day I joined the advanced hike which followed
the Appalachian Trail to the top of a mountain called White Rocks. This was harder, but I was still doing
O.K. I reached the top right behind the
guide.
On the last day we tackled Mount
Killington which is the second highest mountain in Vermont. There I met my match. Before we were a third of the way up I was
huffing and puffing and thinking it would be a lot easier to go down than up,
to give up instead of going on. But, my
guide was with me every step of the way and kept encouraging, “You can do
it. You just have to believe you can do
it.” He also told me a lot of lies like,
“we’re almost there” and “it’s not far now.”
Still, I believed I could do it
because he believed I could do it and I made it the top and almost saw Jesus.
This is why faith matters. We need
to focus not on Christ and not the crisis.
And we need the help and encouragement of others. That’s why Peter and
James and John were there. While Jesus
attended to the little girl the apostles comforted the father.
That is the other great truth we’ve
drawn from the Emmanuel congregation.
Within hours of this great tragedy, the people drew together in a tight
circle. Within days the people of South Carolina and the nation drew together
and often comfort in whatever manner they could find.
Felicia Sanders, whose 26-year-old son,
Tywanza Sanders, was the youngest person to die in Wednesday's rampage said to
Dylan Roof, “We welcomed you Wednesday night in our Bible study with welcome
arms”, but "You have killed some of the most beautiful people that I
know. Every fiber in my body hurts." “Tywanza Sanders was my son. But
Tywanza Sanders was my hero.” Still she prayed and said directly to
this assassin, "May God have mercy on your soul."
This heinous crime was committed against
people of faith in a house of God and perhaps that explains why their response
is so different from what we saw in Ferguson Missouri or in Baltimore. Their
response demonstrates the importance of faith.
They have focused on the crisis, but on Christ because:
Jesus, their Lord and
Savior said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy”, and so
they are merciful.[4]
Jesus, their Lord and
Savior said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the
children of God”, and so they are the children of God.[5]
Jesus, their Lord and Savior said, “Blessed are those who mourn
for they shall be comforted”, and so they are comforted by God and by a nation.[6]
Jesus, their Lord and Savior said, “Blessed are those who are
persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” and so
it is.”[7]
Jesus, their Lord and Savior said, “You are the light of the
world…Let your light shine”, and so they do.[8]
The shooter said he did this to start a
race war, but in fact the opposite is happening. We’ve seen people of every race and color
come together to offer comfort and support.
The city in which the civil war began with the shots fired on Fort
Sumter is now becoming a beacon of hope for racial healing and reconciliation
and it is being led by a Christian church and by people of faith.
To Dylan Roof, I would quote this
passage for Genesis chapter 50 verse 20.
“You meant this for evil, but God is using it for something good.”
That is the nature of the God we worship
and follow. Pray that we become part of
God’s way of transforming what others intend for evil into something good.
Let us pray:
Loving God, in your majesty you number the stars in the
heavens; and in your mercy, you heal the broken hearts of earth. In Jesus you
entered our human estate as a helpless infant. You have borne our mortal flesh
and are acquainted with our grief. You are ever present with us to comfort and
uphold. Sensitize us to the hurt of individuals all around us. Use us as
instruments of your mercy in a world full of loneliness and misery. Help us to
bear one another's burdens and so fulfill your long love through Jesus Christ
our Lord. Amen.
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