Grace, peace and well-being to you—from God our Father and creator, from Christ our savior and healer, and from our advocate and guide, God’s Spirit. Amen.
Healing. As Lutherans we’re not used to seeing it here—live, in person, in the church, at worship. We’ve come into contact with this ministry of the church more through our television screens. So, just to line up with your expectations…
[Use a fake remote to turn on projected image. Video opens with a screen that says, “Pastor Tom’s Real Deal Heal” (next screen) “-ing” cheesy music plays. Then show begins…]
TVTom: Good morning brothers and sisters, praise Gawd-d that you could be here and worship me—ahem!—I mean worship with me today. You know today is a special day! A special day because we have a healing gospel this morning. And that makes it an especially good occasion to do some real deal healing. So brothers and sisters, get up out of your easy chairs, grab your crutches and go over the other side of the room and touch the screen. Just touch the screen, praise Gawd-d. The power of God! The power of God! The pow--
TT: Wait a minute, wait a minute!
TV: Why, what is it brother? What could be the matter? Do you wish a real deal heal-ing?
TT: I think a good majority of us out here do—but we don’t think we can because of guys like you.
TV: Why I am shocked! Just shocked! You must explain yourself, sir!
TT: I mean all the theatrics, the altar calls, the fainting and whatnot.
TV: So I give the crowd a little entertainment as well—who can fault me for that? It’s a multi-media society now, my friend—you gotta reach out in whatever ways you can to get the message across.
TT: and that message is?
TV: God’s healing power is available. Etc (LOST SECTION)
Well. That portrayal was over-exaggerated just a little bit—for effect. But I believe it illustrates the way we mainline Christians look at healing—our view is obscured by the activities of such practioners as the real deal healer. This, in turn, leads us to throw the baby out with the bath water, I think. To swerve too far to the other side of the road. To ignore the healing ministry rather than give any credence to faith healing..
But, as my altar ego told us, healing is biblical. Jesus commanded we do it, Paul recognized it as a gift of the Holy Spirit, and the pastoral epistles recommend that the sick be taken to the elders, and that they be prayed over and be anointed with oil. So, we can’t just ignore healing—we have to come to terms with it. Otherwise we’re not too far off from the synagogue leader in today’s gospel, who just couldn’t fit Jesus’ healing of the crippled woman into his frame of reference and world view. Jesus straightened him out. Perhaps he can straighten us out, too. Let’s look at the gospel…
The key, I believe, lies in one little Greek word in this text—it’s one of the first Greek words you learn in seminary. Luo—it means “to loose,” or “set free.” Jesus is teaching in the synagogue and a woman bent over with an infirmity that has lasted 18 long years, enters. And without her even asking for help, and ignoring the fact that waiting a scant few hours till Sabbath’s end would avoid any controversy, Jesus sees her and says, “You are set free from you’re ailment.” Now that’s an unusual term to use, don’t you think? You are set free from your ailment?
Well, it’s not. At least not if you are chronically ill, or suffer from a permanent disability, or perhaps a mental illness. From the outside, healthy and fit, we look in upon these infirmities and can truthfully feel at best only a sense of sympathy. But from the inside, the ones afflicted can definitely resonate with Jesus’ characterization of these kinds of illnesses. A long term illness or disability can make you feel trapped, bound up in a life that is not the life you envisioned, chained to a body that appears to be betraying you, ensnared by symptoms, pain, or by the very treatments and drugs that seek to ease your suffering.
Then you can understand luo. Then you know what Jesus means by “You are set free from your ailment!” Then you realize that freedom isn’t “just another word for nothing left to lose.” Freedom is the end product of faith in God—a lasting result that comes from a potent mixture of God’s grace and our helplessness. Freedom is healing.
Freedom is healing. You are set free from your ailment. Looking at healing in this way both honors the scriptural directive to “heal the sick” and opens up a much wider and truer understanding of healing.
If we are to understand healing to mean freedom, then healing could be experienced in many, many forms. First and most controversial is freedom from disease—a miraculous cure. Now, off the top of your heads you might think they are extremely rare. But each and every child now living who would have statistically been dead from a childhood disease like whooping cough, and every heart attack victim who is shocked back to life, and every person saved from what would have been certain death due to disease by modern medicine, a gift of God, all these offer ample evidence that miracles do happen everyday—if you but view the everyday through the lens of faith.
Healing can also be experienced as freedom from symptoms. Though not cured per se, the sick or disabled can lead adapted lives thanks to therapies, prosthetics, and medications that are, again, from God.
Freedom from guilt can play an important role in the healing of those who feel their infirmity was somehow their own fault. Jesus lays blame for the woman’s condition right at the feet of Satan—who personifies evil and the misdirection of God’s intended purposes for the creation. Decay and illness and death were not part of God’s plan—they were introduced along with sin. And Christ died to free us from the wages of sin. So even if a condition is caused by behavioral factors, such as improper diet or addiction, we are freed from the guilt through the cross of Christ. Grace = freedom = healing.
All that without any physical symptoms alleviated. Sounds strange doesn’t it? But since freedom is healing, a cure or relief from symptoms don’t have to really have any part in that healing. It sounds contradictory, but healing can be experienced even when the illness is irreversible—and even when there is no physical ailment at all! How?
The answer is faith. Not that you have to have a critical mass of faith in order to be healed. Not that a failure to be healed spotlights a lack of faith. But rather that you have faith in the promises of God—forgiveness, reconciliation, new life, and, one day—maybe not today, but one day—the removal of all suffering in the world.
“Successfully” living with infirmity or illness in this world reveals a strong faith in God. Not a lack thereof because there is no cure. And being cheerful and hopeful when cure is not an option is a freedom available only through faith. How does one get “enough” faith to do these things? From the Holy Spirit. And from fellow disciples who will believe for you when you feel too weak to do it on your own. Like Jesus, they won’t be stopped by social conventions, by the letter of the law, by petty jealousies, or by hopelessness.
Most of us here are in need of healing of one sort or another—mental, emotional, physical, or spiritual. There’s always something sick or broken in our lives it seems. Be it a broken relationship, deeply hidden sin, doubt, the burden of debt, or the shame of not being the person you hoped you would be, I hope you come forward for an individual prayer later on in the service. One thing old Real Deal Healing Pastor Tom was right about was that there is power there. Not in me, and not in Pastor Erica who will assist me. But in the promises of God. The healing power of God – you are mine, and you are free!
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