As I have mentioned the past few weeks, today’s
message is an addendum to the series of four messages about prayer. Although today’s message is not
directly about prayer, it addresses one of the biggest theological questions we
have, not only about prayer, but about the workings of God in general, and that
is, what part does prayer play in healing? How does God decide when, how, and who to heal? And on and on we could go with
associated questions.
I read a very interesting article in the Washington Post recently by a doctor at
Harvard Medical School who also has a Master of Divinity degree from Princeton
Theological Seminary. He wrote
about a young girl by the name of Anna, who was miraculously healed from an
incurable illness after a near fatal fall. Her story was the basis of the recent move Miracles From Heaven. Among the very interesting comments in
his article were these –
I have
listened to more than 100 of these remarkably cured individuals, despite
the fact that in medical school, I was taught that reports of
spontaneous remission are rare, “anecdotes” and “flukes” from which nothing can
be learned.
That
assumption appears to be wrong. In my studies of more than 100
people with medical evidence for recovery from incurable illness, the
similarity in their paths suggests to me identifiable mental and spiritual
principles associated with their recoveries.
And here is the really interesting part of the
article –
I
believe that miracles only contradict what we know of nature at this point
in time. Modern physics is, for example, way ahead of traditional science, and
its implications have not been fully incorporated into its perspectives and
methods yet. So I believe that miracles actually are consistent with mental and
spiritual laws that we are only beginning to study. This is the only way I can
understand the similarities among all those with remarkable recoveries whom I
have been interviewing.
If you would like to read the entire article it
will be at the end of the text of my message once I post it online, which you
can find on Facebook, on my page and the church page; on the church web site;
and also on the web site where I post my messages.
For our Scripture text this morning, I am using
pieces of three different passages about healing – miraculous healing. This is not, I will emphasize again, a
message about he way that healing works, at least not in terms of why some
people are healed while others are not.
Obviously, no one in this world has the answers to questions such as
that one. I cannot offer a
scientific or medical answer to such questions, but I will offer a pastoral
perspective based upon my 35+ years of ministry.
Follow along, if you will, as I read those
passages of Scripture at this time.
Matthew
4:23-25
23 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues,
proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and
sickness among the people.
24 News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to
him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the
demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them.
25 Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea
and the region across the Jordan followed him.
Luke
9:1-2
1 When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power
and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases,
2 and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to
heal the sick.
John
5:1-9
1 Some time later, Jesus
went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals.
2 Now there is in
Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and
which is surrounded by five covered colonnades.
3 Here a great number of
disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed.
5 One who was there had
been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him
lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he
asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
7 “Sir,” the invalid
replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred.
While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”
9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
Some years ago, as I was sat with a family who
had just received an extremely difficult health diagnosis, and I was struggling
to find something to say. Which
can be a mistake, as when we try to find something to say we can say the wrong
thing; there are times when it’s all right to say nothing at all. But I could sense they were looking to
me to have some kind of encouraging word.
I told them this, and at the time I wondered if it was the right thing
to say, but over the years this is what I’ve come to believe very
strongly. I said there was good
news and bad news about their loved one’s diagnosis. First, I was convinced healing would come to their loved
one. That, I said, was the good
news. The bad news, I added, is that
healing doesn’t always come in this life.
One of the great Christian promises about eternity is that we are
granted healing. Whatever ailments
and struggles we have in this life, they disappear in the next. Healing connects the temporal – this
world –with the eternal. To get a
better understanding of healing I believe we need to reconnect the temporal and
eternal and remember that one of the great promises of eternity is healing. In fact, Revelation 21:4 reminds us
that in eternity there will be some things that will no longer exist – there shall no longer be any death; there
shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain. These are things associated with
illness and entrance into eternity does away with them all.
I absolutely believe in healing. I believe God heals people. I believe in the power of prayer to
heal people. I have seen people
who have experienced what can only be described as miraculous healings. I also believe, though, that we define
healing too narrowly if we think of it only in terms of illness and
disease. When we speak of healing
we speak almost exclusively of healing from a physical problem, but the Bible
presents healing as something far greater than just healing from a physical
ailment or illness.
I am always amazed at the number of people in
the hospital on any given day. If
you visit any hospital in Louisville or the surrounding area on any weekday you
will find them packed with people preparing for surgery, recovering from
surgery, or dealing with some kind of illness. It’s a lot of people.
But for all the people who are dealing with difficulties related to
physical health I believe there are even more people struggling with problems
of emotional and spiritual unhealthiness.
Though we have more doctors, more hospitals, and more medicines than
ever, we have more unhealthiness, because we live in a world full of emotional
and spiritual unhealthiness. Our
world is one full of dis-ease. There is more dis-ease, I believe, than disease. In spite of all our health care, we often
lack a wholistic view of healing.
There is so much in the Bible about healing,
especially in the gospels and in the book of Acts. Our Scripture readings this morning tell us about the scores
of people healed by Jesus, and the commission for his followers to go and heal
as well. Anyone who has read the
healing stories of the Bible has probably wondered why physical healing seems
to have been so much more prevalent in those days than in our own. I don’t really have an answer to that
question, and my emphasis today is not really on that question anyway. This morning, I want us to think about
the healing that God brings to our lives.
Yes, sometimes that healing is a physical healing, but let’s think also
of the emotional and spiritual healing God brings as well.
Here is a tragic truth – many people spend a
great deal of their lives healthy in a physical sense, but unhealthy when it
comes to their emotional and spiritual lives. I believe that if we want to experience the abundant life of
which Jesus speaks (John 10:10), we must find healing. There are many passages in Scripture
about healing even though we don’t generally associate them with healing. Think, for example, about the parable
of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).
That’s not just a parable about who we consider our neighbor; it’s a
parable about how the love of God can break down the barriers that divide
people and bring healing to relationships that previously seemed impossibly
broken. The fractious divisions
that exist between people serve as an example of a spiritual illness that needs
healing, and the occurrences of this kind of illness probably outnumber any
kind of physical illness. Think
about the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). That is a parable about love and grace
but it’s also a parable about the healing of the relationship between a father
and son. It tells us of a young
man who in callous disregard of his father goes his own way and God heals his
wayward mind and soul – God brings the young man to his senses as the story tells us (Luke 15:17). It’s a healing of how this young man
thought about himself, his family, and God. When Jesus told the parable about the rich man who planned to
tear down his barns to build bigger ones to hold his possessions (Luke
12:13-21) Jesus is telling about how to be healed of the tyranny of our
possessions and how we can be healed of the desire to possess more and more
things; it is a parable of healing a soul sick with materialism and greed. When Jesus healed Bartimaeus of
blindness (Mark 10:46-52) it wasn’t just a case of physical healing, it was an
opportunity for Jesus to point out that even people with sight can be blind
because the hardness of their hearts and minds prevent them from seeing truth,
and a hard heart is a heart that needs healing.
So after that lengthy introduction, allow me to
offer three brief thoughts about healing.
Do You Want to Get Well?
That is, actually, a very Biblical
question. In fact, that question
comes straight from Jesus. In the
fifth chapter of John’s gospel we read of Jesus’ encounter with a man who had
been ill for 38 years. He was at
the pool at Bethesda, in hopes that he would find healing there. Jesus saw the man, and knowing he had
been sick a long time, asked what sounds like a very strange question. Jesus asked the man, do you wish to get well? (John 5:5). Not only was it an odd question, but the man offers an
odd response. Note that he doesn’t
answer Jesus’ question. It would
seem that anyone in his position would immediately answer yes! But instead, he
tells Jesus why he is not able to be healed (the traditional belief was that
when the water in the pool was troubled an angel had entered, and the first
person in the pool would be healed.
Being an invalid, he was unable to be the first in the pool, and he had
no one to get him into the pool ahead of the others who were seeking
healing). I am not a good
patient. When I have even a small
injury I want to get well. If I
stub my toe, the world needs to some to a halt and tend to my injury. Ask me if I want to be healed and I
will shout yes! Absolutely!
Right now! Here was a
man who had been an invalid for 38 years; you would think he would be more than
ready to be made well. But here is
a strange truth about humanity – when it comes to illnesses that are emotional
and spiritual, we don’t always want to get well. I’m more and more convinced of this strange truth as I
observe people – including myself.
For various reasons, we not only resist healing, we even nurture our emotional
and spiritual illnesses. How many
times, for instance, do we call up a hurt and anger from something that may
have happened long ago? That hurt
and anger can poison our souls, but sometimes we insist on holding on to it and
even nurturing it.
There are signs that help us to see when we are
holding on to our hurts. Are you
angry and bitter? Anger and
bitterness very often are signs of a spiritual sickness that has not been
healed, but very badly needs to be healed. You may not be able to identify why you are angry or bitter
because the source has been pushed down and so deeply buried.
Are you self-absorbed? Well, if you are you probably wouldn’t
notice; that’s one of the problems of being self-absorbed. A symptom of spiritual sickness is
self-absorption. People who are
spiritually ill are self-absorbed, just as churches that are spiritually ill
are self-absorbed.
Can you see the goodness in your life? I’m often touched by people, even in
very difficult circumstances, are able to express thankfulness for the
blessings in their lives. That’s a
pretty healthy way of looking at life.
Some people – even when they have seemingly everything – can’t be
thankful for anything. Their
demeanor and their words and their attitude is negative and angry and bitter
and resentful. That will eat away
at our souls!
Embrace the Wholeness of Salvation.
I think it’s interesting to study words and
their root meanings, even though I was never successful at the study of
languages. I had a year of Spanish
in 9th grade and can count to ten and offer a greeting of hello, how are you. Greek and Hebrew were very difficult
for me, but still, I am very interested in the meaning of words. We learn a lot when we learn about the
roots of words. Take the word salvation, for instance. The root of the word salvation is a
Latin word, salvus, and it comes from
a word meaning – can you guess?
Healing. Isn’t that
fascinating?
Salvation is the act of God granting us eternal
life but it encompasses more. The
saving work of God is not only to grant us eternal life but also to put things
right in the world, to undo the damage done by sin and the fall – and to bring healing to his creation.
This is why Jesus was the very embodiment of
healing. Read through the gospels;
you hardly find a page where there isn’t some kind of healing that is taking
place. Being saved means allowing
God to bring healing to our hearts, our minds, and our souls. We need to pray for this. We see the physical ailments and pray
about those, as we should, but we must go beyond them. Keep a prayer list of people for whom
you pray, and don’t just pray for the physical ailments – pray for the
emotional and spiritual ones as well.
And keep praying. We can
track the progress of a fractured bone, but when does a fractured heart really
heal? It takes six weeks,
approximately, for a bone to heal; a fractured heart takes a lot longer.
Don’t give up on healing; keep praying for
healing. A lot of people, I’m
afraid, give up on healing. They
live day after day and year after year never believing that any change can come
to their life.
Don’t give up.
Be An Instrument of Healing.
We are almost finished with our Stephen
Ministry training. The
participants in that training will have amassed 50 hours of training by the
time we finish later this month.
Fifty hours! Laine Kephart
has done a tremendous work of leading us in that training and has devoted an
amazing amount of time and effort into preparing us for this important
ministry. The Stephen Ministry
shapes those who participate into instruments of healing. And we need as many instruments of
healing as we can find.
One reason for the need of instruments of
healing can be seen from the following story, with which I’ll close. A number of years ago I had been
visiting a young man with a terminal illness. He fought the illness bravely, but succumbed to it at the
age of 41. His father,
understandably, was heartbroken, and was angry at God for what he described as
the act of taking his son. He remarked to me one day Jesus said, “which of you, if your son asks
for bread, will give him a stone?” (Matthew 7:9). That’s a great verse, speaking to us about the goodness and
the love of God. But he was angry
at God for not healing his son, and then said, all God has given me is a sack of rocks.
Those words still haunt me, and I have thought of them a great deal
over the years. And so I come back
to the good news and the bad news of healing. The good news is that father’s son was healed; the bad news is
that the healing took place in eternity rather than this life. And I do not say that to minimize, in
any way, the pain of losing a loved one.
It hurts, and it hurts a great deal. But I believe that at the heart of the Christian faith is
hope, a hope that tells us that the final breath in this life becomes the first
breath in eternal life; the sunset in this life becomes the sunrise in the next
life; and that just as the book of Revelation tells us that one day, one day, He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There
will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of
things has passed away (Revelation 21:4).
And I can live with that.
Every person in this room has a need for some
type of healing in their life.
Perhaps it’s a tattered or fractured relationship that needs healing;
perhaps it’s forgiveness that needs to be offered or accepted; perhaps it’s
guilt that needs to be let go of; perhaps it’s grief that has stayed with you
for so long. There are as many
different needs for healing as there are people here. Come, come to Jesus, and experience The Power of Healing.
Below
is the entire text of the Washington Post
article –
When I went to see “Miracles from Heaven,”
I saw more laughter, crying and applause than I’ve ever seen in a movie
theater. Clearly, this new movie — the real-life story of a
young girl, suffering from an incurable illness, who was inexplicably healed
after a nearly fatal accident — touches a chord, at least in the theater in
Boston where I saw it.
To doctors, events like the story that this
girl’s mother (played in the film by Jennifer Garner) recounted in her memoir
are impossible to explain. Scientists call them “spontaneous remission” or
“placebo responses.”
Religious people generally use a different
word: “miracle.”
I’m trained in both medicine and theology. I’ve
been investigating the medical evidence in stories like these since
2003. And I can say unequivocally that much of physical reality,
remarkable as it may sound, is created in our minds.
I do not believe that we can think
ourselves into health. But I do believe that principles of mind and
spirit exist that we have not even begun to scientifically map in the West, and
that we should be doing so.
Think of it this way: Two people can sit on a
park bench together, and yet live in very different worlds. One person can be
living in hell, with a turbulent, frightened inner world, noticing and
experiencing an outer world full of violence and pain. The other person,
sitting right next to him, may be living in a completely different universe,
full of love, connection and beauty.
Those people might have totally different
medical outcomes, influenced solely by the way they see the world.
It’s amazing to me that in the history of
medicine we have never studied the people who beat the odds and find a
path to health after being told that their illness is incurable or that
they are going to die. You would think that these are the people that we
would most want to study, that perhaps they found golden keys to health and
vitality that we would want to understand. Certainly it’s true that if I wanted
to become a great athlete I would study Michael Jordan or Serena Williams. But
in medicine we have too long ignored or dismissed people with remarkable
recoveries.
I have listened to more than 100 of these
remarkably cured individuals, despite the fact that in medical school, I
was taught that reports of spontaneous remission are rare, “anecdotes” and
“flukes” from which nothing can be learned.
That assumption appears to be wrong. In
my studies of more than 100 people with medical evidence for recovery
from incurable illness, the similarity in their paths suggests to me
identifiable mental and spiritual principles associated with their recoveries.
Take Claire Haser, for example. She said she was diagnosed in 2008
by biopsy with adenocarcinoma of the pancreas, a brutal form of cancer. Without
surgery at an early stage, it is essentially a death sentence. Radiation
and chemotherapy can delay death, but only briefly.
Haser was told that she was going to die.
She values science highly and has a long history of pursuing the best that
traditional medicine can offer. After much consideration, however, she
said that she knew at a deep level that she needed to not chase a cure but
rather to change her relationship with fear.
Five years after deciding not to go through
cancer treatment, Haser had an abdominal CT for unrelated reasons.
It turned out, she said, that her cancer was gone.
Haser did the same thing that I see over
and over in these remarkable patients. She faced her fears and at a deep level
changed her relationship with herself.
To move through fear and self-criticism in a
way that genuinely changes how one relates to the world, to change
not just one’s thoughts, but one’s experience and perception — that is a major
feat, whether done as an adult or a child, and whether that process occurs in
10 minutes or 10 years.
As for Anna, the subject of “Miracles from
Heaven,” I have not reviewed the medical evidence for myself nor spoken
with her doctors, but the diagnosis does appear to have been made very
carefully, after multiple tests and evaluations. And the medical evidence,
and the psychological pattern that one typically finds after such remarkable
recoveries, appear to support her story as well.
I believe Anna. But I disagree with one common
viewpoint that the movie espouses. At the very beginning, it defines a
“miracle” as a contradiction of natural law.
I believe that miracles only contradict what we
know of nature at this point in time. Modern physics is, for example, way
ahead of traditional science, and its implications have not been fully
incorporated into its perspectives and methods yet. So I believe that miracles
actually are consistent with mental and spiritual laws that we are only
beginning to study. This is the only way I can understand the similarities
among all those with remarkable recoveries whom I have been interviewing.
From whatever perspective you look at it—from
the standpoint of Eastern philosophy or of modern physics, from my personal
training as a scientist or as a theologian—you see a deeper
relationship between the mind and physical reality.
As Scripture says, the Kingdom of Heaven is
within and at hand—as near as our souls are to our bodies. Life really is
a matter of perception. Perception changes experience, even perhaps to the
point of changing physical bodies.
Anna may have experienced a piece of heaven.
The astonishing medical evidence suggests her body changed to match her inner
experience.
Jeffrey D. Rediger is an instructor in psychiatry
at Harvard Medical School. A medical doctor, he also earned a master’s degree
in divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary.
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