Miracles 21 The Woman Bent Double

Luke 13:10-17 The Woman Bent Double

This was the text for Amy's message last night at the Georgetown Service of Wholeness and Healing [click here to listen to one held in 2011].   While Amy was reading the text (which is different from the NIV used in study guide) she read: 

 The synagogue leader, incensed that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, responded, “There are six days during which work is permitted. Come and be cured on those days, not on the Sabbath day.”

What I heard her read is that Jesus healed on the Sabbath, but the synagogue leader could only cure on the other six days.  I always find it interesting that it was not doubted that someone could be healed, only the rightfulness of doing it on the Sabbath.  

Last night as part of Communion, we offered each person the chance to be anointed with oil, a station next to where the wine was offered.  Generally anointing is offered in a back room, or in the foyer, and maybe one person will show up.  But last night, everyone who came for communion asked to be anointed, and to be healed from some sort of brokenness.  

I wonder if anointing has become our "healing on the Sabbath," something that is only done in the back room, away from other people to protect their privacy.  And we wonder why it does not always happen?  When Jesus healed, it was for the glory of God, not for the person receiving it.  

Who Sinned?

This text from John 9 is one of the classic text I have preached on several times, usually in times of national disaster, when people will ask "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" 

It is a classic text in that this is the question people deeply want to ask in times of national disaster, who sinned, that this terrible very bad thing happened?  When Jesus was asked, they could have been asking about generational sin, what this the sin of the father manifest in the son?  Or was the blindness due to his own sin?  Four chapters later, in a different gospel, Jesus will be asked a nearby question twice, but this time he answers so differently: 

Luke 13 Some who were present on that occasion told Jesus about the Galileans whom Pilate had killed while they were offering sacrifices. ² He replied, “Do you think the suffering of these Galileans proves that they were more sinful than all the other Galileans? ³  No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did. ⁴  What about those twelve people who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them? Do you think that they were more guilty of wrongdoing than everyone else who lives in Jerusalem?⁵  No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did.”

"Unless you change your ways, you will die just as they did," Jesus says, twice, but in this week's passage he replies  "This happened so that God’s mighty works might be displayed in him."  

Both times people are asking about the relationship between sin and suffering, if suffering is the punishment for our sin.  In the week of the Boston Marathon bombing, and a fertilizer plant in West, Texas exploding it is a question a lot of people are asking.  "Why did this happen?"  "Who sinned?" 

The both answers seem harsh:
"so that God’s mighty works might be displayed" in the rescue efforts?
"if you don't change your ways, you end up just as dead?"

Back to the story, there is an investigation launched by the Temple authorities and after the man gets thrown out the Jesus finds him and asks him if he believes, "Tell me," he says not using the language of  the sighted, "so that I may believe in him."   Jesus replies him, "You have now seen him" 

Always Ask

In the healing story about the blind man at Bethsaida, Jesus does something that is a good reminder for me.

1. Ask do you want to be made well (not in this story, but others)
2. Pray for healing
3. Ask is anything different, (what do you see, instead of can you see).
4. If less than desired, goto #2 and repeat.

I was observing a prayer for healing back in 2003, when I was an apprentice in an existing healing ministry.   These two men had been God's healers for 20 years, and had reunited after a 5 year break.  A friend of mine was dying of ovarian cancer.  We had gone to seminary together, were in the same ordination class, and together drove to Glen Lake about every six weeks for years.  During nine months of those drives, the cancer was in remission, and we talked about ministry, and her dreams for the future.  But then it came back, and our drives were more about making the most of those minutes.  After she was ordained early, and it was clear she would be making one final trip, I asked if I could invite my teachers to come pray with her.

We all fasted before going to her house, and thought we would be there with her, but it turned out there was a large presence non-believing friend how would not leave her side. She sat in the room while we prayed for her, glaring.  Our prayers were empty ones, they felt powerless at the time, and I wondered at the time if it was the friend who belligerent in her no belief  (at the time it felt like it was more important for her to be right, than my friend to be healed).  

So these two men of God, who did not know my friend, but had  a vast knowledge, experience and track record of healing prayer, fasted and prayed for my friend in her sitting room.  After the prayers were finished, one asked "What did you feel?"

He didn't ask it of my friend, but of the other man praying, who said  "No." I felt nothing.  I had to agree.  And then he turned to my friend, "maybe a little bit of tingling," she said, not wanting us to be disappointed. 

So we prayed again, and to no difference.  What I remember about this time of prayer was his courage to ask, "What did you feel?"  Like Jesus in this story asking "Do you see anything?"   

I hope I can always to remember to ask, "What do you feel, or see..." and if the healing has not occurred  to maybe ask how the prayer could be more on target, and then pray again.  

Ultimately my friend was healed, but not in the way we were praying for that day. Her healing came May 11, 2004.  

Godspeed Susan. 

Healing Stories 15 & 16

Daughter of the Canaanite Woman #15 

At first read, this story seems to be about persistence, about a Gentile woman who came and knelt before Jesus saying “Lord, help me!”  Her daughter was possessed by and evil spirit.   Initially, Jesus refused to help saying he was “sent only to the lost sheep of Israel,” but I suspect he could have been saying this for the sake of the disciples, who often wanted to restrict the kingdom of the Gospel to only Jews.  Maybe Jesus knew she had the fortitude to argue with him and make his point for the disciples, that God’s healing was for everyone.  

Interesting that the daughter (who is possessed) plays no part in the healing, it is all about the faith and courage of the mother, who comes on behalf of her daughter, and asks.  A good reminder for those of us who’s children are far from the LORD, that we can still –in faith—ask for God’s healing in their lives. 

Finally, the healing, as in other stories is done from a distance.  “She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.”  A reminder that God’s healing power knows no distance. 

Deaf man with speech impediment #16

We’ve seen this before, where Jesus heals the blind man and then says “See that you tell no one.”  In this story he touches the man’s ears and tongue, which opens the man’s ears and loosens his tongue, and then he says to “not to tell anyone,” which would not have been a problem five minutes ago.   

Again we read about the faith of friends fueling the healing power of Jesus, who ask on behalf of their friend.   When Jesus healed this man he healed his hearing, and loosened his tongue, but I suspect that had to do more with healing the speech centers of his mind.  This story contains a big and little miracle.  The little miracle is the healing of the ears, the much larger one how Jesus healed his mind and he could “speak plainly”. 

Two Blind Men - Matthew 9:27-31

Two Blind Men - Matthew 9:27-31

“According to your faith will it be done to you” – is this the same as “forgive us our trespasses and we forgive those who trespass against us”? That in some respect we must participate with Jesus in our healing; we bear some responsibility.  When Jesus asks “Do you believe I am able to do this?” Those with just a little faith, will receive just a little healing; When we pray to be forgiven as we have forgiven others, and if our forgiveness of others is small, so will God’s forgiveness of us?

When Jesus says “See that no one knows about this,” he has just said it to two formerly blind men, who until just a few moments ago would not been able to see anything, let alone that no one else knows about this.

Interesting that the story starts outside, and they follow him in.  There must be more to this story, some details as to why this part was omitted.  Yet in reading this, I understand that sometimes we don’t have to leave the room right away, but linger, and see what God does in that room or our lives when there is nothing pressing that is next. 

Woman with Hemorrhage & Jairus Dauther

There is a group of 7 of us that have begun a journey together to examine the healing miracles of Jesus that appear in scripture.  This class has a significant writing component, in that each of us will have a blog where we answer the questions "What lesson(s) have you learned about healing from this account? 

Here I examine Matthew 9:20-22, Mark 5:24b-34 and Luke 8:42-48, the account of the woman with hemorrhage

Last week in class we talked about the difference between healing and cure, how they were not the same, though in our society the two are used interchangeably. 

Being healed - is a process leading toward wholeness

Being cured – is the elimination of all evidence of disease or injury to the body.  

One can be cured without being healed, just as one can be healed without being cured. I suspect that much of the medical profession’s focus these days is on cure, but a cure without addressing the underlying spiritual unrest (or dis-ease) is just a band-aid . 

Maybe that is what was going on with the woman in this story, that she had “suffered under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.”  The doctors were attempting a physical cure when what was needed was a spiritual healing. 

“If I just touch his cloths, I will be healed” the story goes, she did and she was, and Jesus felt that the “power had gone out from him”.  This story is a reminder that we can be agents of God’s healing without even being aware that we are playing a small part in the great thing that God is doing.  This story is also a reminder to be aware of our own spiritual tank, and when we feel the power leave us to step away, and not be tempted to rely on our own power. 

For this woman being healed lead toward also being cured; and she was made whole.   

Man with Shriveled Hand AND Centurion’s Servant

In the account of the Man with the Shriveled Hand (Matthew 12:9-14; Mark 3:1-6; Luke 6:6-11), I wonder if the Pharisees had not been the protagonists of this story if the gospels writers would have remembered this particular healing.  The Pharisees make the story compelling because clearly Jesus is choosing to value people over livestock and The Sabbath, and that does not sit well with the Pharisees, they were “furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus.”

In my ministry I’ve observed that some 80% of the problems I see are not really problems, (or what I like to call self-correcting problems).  Meaning that they will go away on their own if I don’t intervene.  What I have learned through the years is that if I treat any of the 80% like it is an actual problem, then it becomes a problem, and I will be forced to intervene.  I think the art of ministry is knowing exactly where the line is between real problems and the 80%.  The Pharisees, I think, didn’t have that line well calibrated with Jesus, and by their reactions turned, what would have been a rather unremarkable Sabbath healing story, into the story we are reading today. 

I wonder where the line is with people who ask to be healed.  Is there an 80% that will naturally just get better, like a doctor friend said about having a cold:  “You should be better in about a week, but sometimes it can take as long as seven days.”   Contained in that 80% is, I think, a smaller subset that are afflicted with a real problems, but unwilling to participate in being healed.    Now clearly the man with the shriveled hand was not in that 80%, Jesus intervened, and by asking him to stretch out his hand, he too participated in being healed. 

In the healing of the Centurion’s Servant (Matthew 8:5-13; Luke 7-1-10), something very different is happening among those who observe Jesus saying “Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.”  In Luke’s account, he adds “I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.”   To those hearing Jesus say this, they would have understood Jesus to say that the faith of this Gentile was greater than all of Israel, and for a people whose self-identity claimed that God’s blessing was for them only, the thought of Jesus first listening to this non-Jew, and then performing the healing he asked for, would have disturbed them.

Several things about this  Centurion’s Servant story speak to us today:

1. That the healee need not be present, or even aware that healing is being asked for them.
2. That the circle of who Jesus listens to is much larger than the ones hearing him at the time expected.  I think the same could be said for the American Church today.