Sermon by Rev. Laurel Bobb
Our gospel lesson for today tells
of a healing miracle. It is the miraculous
healing of Peter's mother-in-law. Jesus took her by the hand and lifted her
up, and the fever left her. Jesus is still in the business of healing today.
He lifts us by
the hand and brings about our healing.
There are many different kinds of healing. The one we think of most often is
physical healing in which a person who has been ailing is cured of a medical
condition. There are other kinds of healing as well, namely spiritual and
emotional healing. These conditions are every bit as devastating as physical
illness, and often just as hard to cure. Today I'd like us to look at some
present day healing miracles and think about what healing needs to happen in
our lives for us to be totally well. I'd also like for us to think about what
we can do to obtain this healing.
Dr. Reginald Cherry suggests that there are 6 biblical foundations for
healing. They are:
1. Have faith--actively believe--that God wants you to be healed and whole.
2. Realize the price that God has already paid for your healing through
Jesus' sacrifice.
3. Be persistent in seeking your healing.
4. Have a "feisty" attitude--a never give-up fighting spirit to posses
[sic]
[sic] what God has done for you.
5. Seek to discover and then follow your own personal pathway to healing.
Keep in mind the blind man in John 9:7--as he went his way, he was healed.
This is the foundational Scripture for praying specifically for your unique
pathway to healing.
6. Recognize the role of both the natural and the supernatural in your
journey to recovery. Healing anointing can flow through natural substances,
or happen miraculously and instantaneously through spiritual intervention, or
occur through a combination of natural substances and the supernatural.
[Cherry, Reginald. Healing Prayer. Thomas Nelson Pub., 1999, pp. 127-8]
One point that many often forget is that your physical healing takes second
place to your spiritual healing in God's eyes. If there is a purpose for your
suffering, God will not end that suffering until it has achieved its purpose
for your spiritual well-being. Another often missed point in regard to
healing is that death itself can be a healing, for death ushers us into the
presence of the Lord in a way that we are not when we are alive in the
physical sense.
Let us remember that it is usually God's plan to restore people to physical
health so that they can be about his work here on earth serving, and bringing
more people into the Kingdom of God. We need only look at our Gospel lesson
to see this. Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law and she began to serve them.
She was doing her part in the Kingdom--to see to the needs of the master and
his followers. So if we want to be healed, we must be about our Kingdom work.
Physical ailments may not be all that is wrong with us. There may be a deeper
cause. Though some talk about psychosomatic illnesses, thinking that these
people are mentally ill rather than physically, the truth of the matter is
that there is a great interplay between the mind, the body, and the spirit.
Any one of these areas can be out of balance, and it can affect the other two
areas. Many times we can literally worry ourselves sick, or the guilt that
unforgiveness brings can make us have physical symptoms. Often our physical
ailments are but indications of deeper problems that can only be helped by
confession and forgiveness or reconciliation with another.
Our minds can also influence our physical well-being. Have you noticed that
most often people get sick right after some event that has just taken a great
deal of their time and effort has just been completed? There is that sense of
relaxation, but also a letdown. Of course there is also the trouble of
wearing ourselves out driving ourselves too hard that can make us sick as
well. The opposite is also true, when we feel we have purpose or when we are
feeling good about ourselves emotionally, we tend to feel better physically
too. That is why such things as art, music or pet therapies are used in
hospitals and nursing homes.
God often chooses to use accepted scientific methods along with prayer to
bring about our healing, but sometimes we need to rely on the supernatural
alone. We rely on these especially when there is no known treatment, as in
the case of Kelly, a woman whose story I read on the internet.
Kelly tells of having twins, a boy and a girl. The girl, Anna, lagged behind
her brother developmentally. Though she had been to the doctor there seemed
to be no explanation for this. One day she took her to the front of the
church to be prayed for. The next day Kelly noticed that Anna was lively and
spry when she had previously been lethargic and unable to accomplish simple
movement. The doctor had no explanation for this remarkable recovery either.
Kelly thanks God for her miracle.
E. W. is someone for whom emotional healing was needed. His story was also on
the internet. He wrote, "Forgiveness changed my life! I had always had
a very
very bad relationship with my Father, the truth is we both would have been
happy to get rid of each other forever. We always fought and were very unkind
to each other for years. As a teenager and a young adult it was easy to keep
these grievances and hate but as I got older, mid 20s I began to look within
and see I did not want to be a person hating anymore. I began to pray to God
or a something that knew what was true, to help me find myself and my love
and to find a way to truly forgive everything. I began having experiences
here and there and suddenly one day it was as if a veil was just lifted from
me, and I saw that I simply did not have to hate anymore, and that it did not
benefit me in any way, that simple. All the fear, pain, and injustices
disappeared into oblivion.
I called my Father up crying and said that I loved him I was sorry for
everything that ever happened and that I wanted to start over, and also I
wanted his forgiveness of me. I was scared he would not accept me. He started
crying too and said lately that he had been feeling the same way, he didn't
want to hate anymore. He told me he really loved me and you have no idea how
desperately I needed to hear those words. He suggested that we start off by
being friends.
Well, it worked, we somehow nothing short of a miracle, patched things up,
left the past behind, and have had a perfect relationship for the last 10
years now. Actually, we really have become great friends and have load [sic]
of fun together. I don't really know how the forgiveness happened, somehow my
mind was just changed and the pain was gone. All that I know is that I asked
for help to forgive truly. What is most incredible, is that everything
changed. All my old unforgiving issues changed too. I believe in miracles now
and tell everyone to always expect a miracle. I see now that everyone really
wants the same thing, to be happy and to love each other. Now I know that it
is really possible.
Healing occurs because of Jesus Christ. Through his life, death, and
resurrection he defeated every power of evil in the world including death.
Since he has the power over death, we can have confidence that he has the
power over our lives as well. We know that he desires health and wholeness
for people because when he was on earth he went about preaching and healing.
This task of healing was given to the Church.
There are several means Christians use to avail ourselves of God's healing
power. The most often used is prayer. We ask God to intervene in situations
that are beyond human control. Along with prayer we often anoint the sick
with oil, as was the custom in the New Testament Church.
Meditation is another way we can be healed in our spirits, or receive
messages from God about what we need to do or have done to accomplish our
healing. Mediation opens us to listen to what it is that God might be telling
us. Of course we always need to check out anything that comes to us in this
way in the light of Scripture. God never contradicts himself, so whatever is
of God is in harmony with Scripture.
We also still retain the use of individual and corporate confession of sin.
For most of us the general time of confession is enough to help us leave
behind our burdens and go on to turn and lead renewed lives. But sometimes
there are those sins that plague us, which we must confess and for which we
must have someone speak God's individual and specific forgiveness to us. Many
do not realize that we Lutherans have such a rite. It is found in the Book of
Occasional Services. In it a person would go to a pastor in a private place,
confess the sin, and receive absolution on Christ's behalf.
When we do all these things we will have used every available means to be
healed. It is true that not everyone is healed in the way they would like to
be healed. Some need surgery, others suffer long, some even depart this
mortal life, but we can say with confidence that God is acting in our best
interests to bring about his will in our lives. When we are able to confess
this with assurance, then we will be healed, because true health is found
only in following God's perfect plan. Knowing this we can say along with
Paul, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.
Copyright 2002 by Rev. Laurel Bobb