Healing Service
Sermon by Rev Timothy A Leitzke
A
And going
again into
And they
come, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four (people). And, after not
being able to bring him to him on account of the crowd, they unroofed the roof
that was above him, and after digging it out they lowered the stretcher where
the paralytic was lying.
And Jesus,
beholding their faith, says to the paralytic, “Child, your sins are sent away.”
But some of
the scribes were sitting there and talking it through in their hearts, “Why
does this man speak in this manner? He blasphemes! Who is able to send away
sins but God alone?”
And
straightaway, after perceiving by his spirit that they talked it through in
this manner in themselves, Jesus says to them, “Which is easier, to say to the
paralytic, ‘Your sins are sent away’, or to say, ‘Rise, and take up your
stretcher and go’? And in order that you might have knowledge that the Son of
Humanity has authority upon the earth to send away sins”—he said to the
paralytic—“I say to you, rise, take up your stretcher and go into your house!”
And he was
raised and straightaway after taking up the stretcher he went out before all,
so that all were beside themselves and glorified God saying, “We never saw
something of this manner!”
The Word of the Lord
The world
was crawling with healers. There were reputable doctors, there were people with
herbal cures that worked or were at least helpful. Then, there were the
traveling medicine men, the faith healers. This Jesus fellow was one of them.
He had the hottest cure around. People were flocking to him, crushing him with
requests that he do great things for them. They even tore open the roof of the
house he was in to get a paralytic to him. Today, in theory at least, we do not
seek out the traveling medicine men…in theory. So we have on our hands a Jesus
Crisis, if you will. We feel pressured to choose between the Jesus who
intercedes for us and gives us forgiveness and the Jesus who miraculously heals
us from grave illness.
Do any of
you ever think that it’s silly to pray for physical healing, and then when
you’re sick you cry, “O God, please, deliver me from this” and then, when you
get better, you feel really, really weird for having asked God to fix the
illness? Or, do you ever wonder about why in the Bible Jesus can heal all sorts
of people, and other miracle workers abound, and yet God does not seem to be
dishing out miraculous healings in your life? The two Jesuses are warring. St
Mark takes equal parts of each Jesus, sprinkles in some characters necessary to
advance the plot, stirs, and voila: today’s gospel reading. Remember, in Mark’s
gospel Jesus knows no bounds. At his baptism he stands with his feet in the
chaotic waters of the
The first
thing that Jesus does is he sees the faith of those who brought the paralytic.
Jesus sees faith. It does not matter how much. There is no critical mass for
faith, no minimum level for it to be effective. God just gives it to us, and
God, at work in Jesus, sees that faith. Jesus talks to the paralytic through
the paralytic’s faith. The faith that God already planted there receives Jesus’
words: “Child, your sins are sent away.” I love that image. Your sins are sent
away. They are gone. They are not attached to you any more.
It is so
with each of us. God has planted faith in each of us, that ability to trust,
that ability to listen to God, that ability to speak to God and have God
listen. Faith is our lifeline to God. When we are troubled, when we are
stressed, when we are sick, when we are tired, when our bodies or relationships
need healing God touches us through that lifeline of faith, and our faith
receives God’s words: “Child, your sins are sent away.” Your shortcomings are
sent away. Your limits are gone. The bad things you have done are not attached
to you any more. Your sickness hurts you now, but you are always mine and I
will always be true to you and on the last day I will raise you up
imperishable.
The second
thing Jesus does is physically heal the paralytic. He restores the person to
health. Jesus delivers on what was advertised. The traveling medicine man is
the real deal, but notice that within our story the physical healing comes after forgiveness. Jesus sends away the
paralytic’s sins, and then he heals
his paralysis. In the same manner God is at work in healing us, working through
human agents—doctors, nurses, therapists, caregivers—to bring real physical
healing, but first and foremost God is sending away our sins. God is sending
away our brokenness and raising us up imperishable every day.
Furthermore,
forgiveness is physically beneficial to us. How often are we haunted by our
sins? How often are our relationships damaged by our wrongdoing and we just
can’t face one another? How often do we feel stress and frustration over our
limits? These things are physically harmful to us. Our minds affect our bodies
and our bodies affect our minds. The agony of Sin makes us sick. How great and
joyful then is our forgiveness! For being forgiven, having these sins sent
away, restores us not just to spiritual health, but physical health as well.
Mark has
stirred our warring Jesuses together, and we see that this Jesus Crisis is a
false dilemma. God is most certainly at work in healing our lives through human
agents, and yes sometimes acts in ways that are utterly mysterious and beyond
our comprehension. First and foremost, God is at work forgiving our sins,
sending our sins away, banishing our brokenness and raising us up as God’s
people. Jesus is not some traveling medicine man; he is, in our faith story,
the total package. In Jesus the Christ we touch and taste and hear and see God
at work healing and forgiving us in the same act. In Jesus the Christ we see
God poured out to send our Sin away forever. In Jesus the Christ we hear those
words that never grow old: “Child, your sins are sent away.” Amen