I was fascinated by what I was seeing.
A video had been sent to us showing a psychic healer performing surgery on people, using just her hands, pulling suspect parts from the bodies of the sick who had come to her for healing. I was the associate minister of a large culturally diverse congregation in downtown Oakland, CA, and our building was being used by members of a orean congregation to host this healer from the Philippines. I was intrigued. How does she do it? I looked hard at the video and determined I would be present on the night of the healing to see how she did it.
It was a packed house. I sat with friends in the radio booth above the sanctuary floor, where we could see it all. But I was disappointed to learn that because CA has rules about who can perform surgery, there would be no healing requiring surgery, psychic or otherwise, that night. Instead, the procedure that followed for all kinds of ailments, was for the person who wished a healing to turn their backs to the congregation and drop their drawers. Then you could hear a loud clap as the psychic healer would smack their exposed buttocks, followed by shouts of hallelujah! For hours, the flow of people from the pews to the chancel never stopped. I came away from this experience knowing two things: I didn’t need to see another bare bum for awhile and no one was healed that night in our church building.
Healing is one of those bugaboos in ministry that many of us struggle with. There are people who use scripture to soften the consequences of illness or injury. That is good, but you have to be careful which scriptures you rely on: the bible says, I am healed by his stripes, I remember one patient proclaiming just hours before he died. The bible says so. Or another popular one from today’s text: your faith has made you well….quantifying and qualifying what is a gift from God and not your own creation.
Or the fatalist who believes the illness is God’s will. Its all a part of the plan.
Or the many folks who declare their condition is simply my cross to bear, everyone has a cross to bear.
Or others claim their diagnosis is a test of their faith.
I’ve been to Fatima in Portugal. I’ve seen the faithful and felt the hope they carry with them. I would never challenge the strength people in need of healing find in scriptures. Maybe that is why healing stories are hard for me. troublesome
So, I am thankful to Mark for helping us with this subject.
To remind you of what you already know: Mark is short, he is in a hurry, he wrote in the first century, and his audience was Jews living in that time. He wanted them to know that even if Jesus had not ousted the Romans and put Israel back in the hands of the chosen ones, he was still the Christ, the messiah, the savior they had been waiting for. From the first chapter of Mark, when he quotes Isaiah about the man we call John the Baptist, then to the calming of the storm, and the feeding of the four thousand, and Jesus’ question to Peter, who do you say that I am? Mark is all about Jesus’ identity. Healing people just stacks the evidence in Jesus’ favor, this is the one. So we conclude the healings continued Mark’s mission and are signs that point to who Jesus truly is.
The one the prophets had told was coming. That’s it.Mark says healings happen to the glory of God and to validate what Mark believed, that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, the One whose coming was foretold by the prophets. That helps a bit. With the healing stories. Understanding their purpose
So what do we say? The healing stories of the Bible are arrows that point to Jesus as the Christ. If we try to extract a roadmap to healing from these stories, we are concentrating on the arrow and not the one it points to.
The story you know of the lepers who were healed. They who had been cast out of community, family, denied the opportunity to work, to worship, were healed and their lives restored. That says what about Jesus? In the least it says Jesus is the one who recognizes our need for others and makes that possible. Knows that healing can make it possible for one to go home. The healing of the paraplegic man. He was lowered through the roof and Jesus said, your sins are forgiven. What does that say about Jesus? I have the authority to forgive sins, the great high priest.
And this story.
So what can we learn about the one identified as the Christ one from this story? What does it tell us about Jesus? Jesus hears the man calling to him and stops and asks him what do you want? Over the din of the streets and the crowd telling the blind man to be quiet, Jesus hears the one in need of healing.
So do we say, in all the noise of life, Jesus hears our pleas and has mercy. And who doesn’t need to be heard? When we are hurting, doesn’t it mean something to us to know however simple our words, however broken our spirit, however painful our nights, to be able to speak and to be heard?
Listening is healing. You may not have a miraculous and the lame walk story, but I am willing to bet you have a healing because I was heard story. I hope you do. At Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church, a long time ago, I’ve come to think I was wrong. Some healing did happen. After the noise and commotion of all that theater in the church, people gathered in small groups outside on the lawn and talked quietly with each other. The kids jumped on the steps, and the people who had come in wheelchairs, returned to their wheelchairs, and the shouts of hallelujah drifted away into the night. And they were like neighbors, friends talking together, supporting each other, exchanging phone numbers, offering rides. Laughing. Listening. What do you want? Hearing the calls have mercy. And responding with mercy.
And as Jesus healed, so may we live in his likeness. Amen.
- Nell Lindorff