“Healing - Now and Then”

Rev Gemmel Sherwood 11/07/2021

Readings - Psalm 130, Mark 5:21-43

How do the stories of Jesus’ healing in 1st century match with practices in healing among us today two thousand years later?

These seem like worlds apart. Where is God in it all?

There are some realities which I point to as a prelude:

-       Firstly, the human body has an amazing capacity to heal itself.

-       Secondly, there are stark limitations within all of life.

-       Thirdly, since ancient times, humans have used cultural practices to bring healing.

-       Fourthly, most peoples have had an expectation of a ‘god’ to be part of such healing.

Our gospel stories today point to three components of healing:

Touch and action; words; and the spirit of God.

A STORY –‘ HEALING – NOW AND THEN’

A man walked through the surgery recovery ward at Joondalup hospital. He paused and slowly poked his head around the door of a room. ‘May I come in?’ The man in the chair alongside the bed was Bob, who was looking forward to a visitor. The stranger asked, ‘Have some good things been happening for you?’

‘Yes,’ replied Bob enthusiastically, ‘Yesterday I had a knee replacement, and this morning the OT took me for my first walk. I was a bit wobbly, but it was good to be able to walk again and without pain’.

The stranger said, ‘I am not at all familiar with what you are telling me. Sorry if I appear a bit ignorant. Can you tell me more of what happened? I am amazed. ’

Bob reached into the draw beside the bed. ‘I have some x-ray pictures to show you. This one shows how my knee was before surgery. Swollen and bent. And this one shows it after. You can see the new metal joint the surgeon put in place. Amazing isn’t it!’

The visitor was wide-eyed and held his breath for a moment. Then he said to Bob, ‘A while ago I was with friends in a small crowded house. It was very busy. We were praying together when suddenly there was a crashing sound and we looked up as a stretcher with a man on it was let down from above. We gathered around and I said, “My friend, stand up. Pick up your bed and walk. And he did.’

Bob sat up straight and looking straight at the stranger, asked, ‘Who are you?’

1.     HEALING WITH CARING ACTION AND TOUCH

Many have been deeply moved by two recent stories of small girls and families neglected in WA hospitals. One was Aswariya, who died when her father’s pleas for help seem to have been ignored. The other sick girl Tharnicca, was flown across the sea, from Christmas Island with her mother, and recovered in the Children’s Hospital. Each story gave rise to large gatherings of people giving voice to the need for greater care. In many ways it can be likened to our gospel stories today.

After Jesus had crossed the sea in Galilee, Jairus brought his dying daughter to Jesus pleading for help, ‘Come lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live.’ There was a large crowd, some pleading with tears, others anxious about delay. Later, in privacy of the home, Jesus took the girl by the hand and said, ‘Talitha cum’, meaning, ‘little girl get up!’ She did so, and all were amazed.

The delay for Jairus was caused by Jesus responding to the woman with menstrual problems desperately reaching out to Jesus. ‘If only I can touch the hem of his garment I shall be healed.’ And it was so. ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your disease.’

In every age, people in desperation (like ourselves), keep seeking the best source of healing. ‘I have seen the best physicians. If only I can touch his garment.’  But sometimes there is a waiting, a delay.  Nevertheless, expectations are high. Trust and hope hold on. Often surprise follows. Yet there can be sad limits as well.

In all these stories (then and now), there is the element of human touch and engagement, of somehow belonging with others, being cared for, sometimes with deep empathy.  Such relationships involve deep trust by the person in need and the high integrity in the one who heals, who is endowed with special gifts, knowledge and wisdom. In his day, Paul wrote about ‘gifts of the Spirit’ shared for the betterment of all.

In our day doctors express a calling and offer a vast range of skills to bring healing. And among it all there is a personal connection and touch involved. Consider the touch and intimate care of surgeons, nurses in aged care, physiotherapist Think of Fred Hollows, ‘Every eye is an eye’, and the benefits of the cochlea implant.

My daughter Christine, is a doctor working in the intimacy of women’s health, sometimes with women who have troubling menstrual issues. She is wise, knowledgeable and compassionate among women, many of Vietnamese and Middle Eastern backgrounds.

So healing in any age involves touch, compassion, knowledge, wise engagement with another, a deep desire for being healed and deep trust. And these beautiful stories with Jesus are the epitome of all that. They are life-bringing stories.

2.     HEALING THROUGH WORD AND STORY

The psalmist wrote in desperation, ‘I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope. My soul waits for the Lord, more than those who watch for the morning.’ ‘In his word I hope.’

In our faith tradition, the power of the word of God is pictured in Genesis 1, with God saying ‘let there be light’. And it was so. ‘And God saw that it was good.’ Then, ‘Let us make humankind in our own image’. It is an ancient saga depicting God participating in the world from the beginning. Those beginning words depict the mystery of the spoken word.

We read in John’s Gospel of a new beginning, ‘In the beginning was the Word ........... and the Word became flesh and dwelled among us full of grace and truth’. This ‘Word’ in Greek, is ‘logos’, wisdom and truth and grace found in this ‘God-person’. And wisdom and truth are essential qualities, ever-expanding in our world including the world of healing and medical practices. But ‘word’ and words only have meaning when they are lived out, as with the life of Jesus. Jesus called this lived-out truth the ‘Kingdom of God’, the God-life that increasingly weaves its way among all things in ways that surprise us.

This also means that just as God ‘creates’, Jesus too creates, makes things new. And there is a creativity among us that makes for what is good – ‘made in the likeness of God’.  And that creativity is shown in all manner of medical science and action – antibiotics, a knee replacement, vaccines. So healing  through ‘word’ has many expressions.

So, if words have healing, is there such a thing as ‘speaking new life into being’? This includes what we call prayer. So often as Paul said, ‘we do not know how to pray, but the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.’ Such prayerful engagement is a very personal and spiritual act. So our prayers are like a deep engagement with others, where there is deep trust, empathy (feeling with) and somehow bearing others into the stream of God’s renewing grace.

Many times we use the word ‘blessing’ in our prayers. I like to think of ‘blessing’ as the outpouring of all that God is, God’s creativity and compassion, God’s re-creating love. God’s true belonging among all. Furthermore, somehow, as we pray for such an outpouring of blessing, we join all the best we are, in an outpouring of compassion towards someone being prayed for.

Words can be very practical.

 Let me tell again the story of two men sharing a ward in hospital. One was near the window and the other was lying flat on his bed in deep trouble. The window-man told stories each day about the beauty of life. The flat-man’s spirit rose up. Window-man died. Flat-man was surprised to hear that his mate was blind.

We must never underestimate the power of words to shape or change life.

Jesus spoke life to the girl, ‘Talitha cum’. And to the healed woman, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well.’ To the man let down through the roof, ‘Take up your bed and walk’.  Think about the words that you might speak to another in quiet conversation; or some careful reflective listening; or a story you share to enliven the heart and mind of a friend.

Words bring healing in this world with its strange blend of the secular and the spiritual -  from simple stories, to the ever-evolving creative wisdom and truth actioned by medicos, heart-felt prayers and the out-poured blessing of God and the God-life in the ever-growing ‘kingdom of God’.

3.     HEALING IN AND THROUGH GOD

We place God at the centre of all things. So where is God in all this?

The writings of Jurgen Moltmann and others present the Holy Spirit as being in and among all things. God is in the world and the world is in God. ‘In Him we live and move and have our being.’ And this Spirit of God’s essential GOOD flows through all things, connects all things in an endless community in the Spirit; and energises the best in all our healing community and their dedicated practices.

This can also be spoken of as the LOVE of God, where love is the enhancing all life. And that enhancing of life includes all the best of medical science, even with all its limitations.

Jesus Christ lived out that love of God to the ultimate. He stopped at nothing to enhance the love, goodness and grace of God poured out among all things.

We call it ‘sacrifice’, and sacrificial love is giving something away to bring new life. In one way both ‘suffering’ and ‘sacrifice’ are essential qualities of humanity. People in all sorts of ways of life, give away something treasured now, to ensure the best in the future. We see this in all the practises of healing.

In his humanity, Jesus immerses himself in all life. He accompanies us through life, suffers with us in love when we suffer (when life cannot be mended), dies in accordance with life’s limits, and is resurrected, showing us that there is ever hope for a new creation, and pointing us to that eternal company with God, where we find completion. The ever loving, saving and healing of God is ever with us, both NOW AND THEN. GOD IS GOOD.