Healing for Deeper Hurts

June 26, 2012

Dear St. Paul’s Family,
 

At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee. – Mark 1:28

It did not take long after the start of Jesus’ public ministry for word of his healing powers to spread quickly throughout the region.  In Mark’s gospel, no sooner had Jesus called his first disciples than he was summoned to heal a demon-possessed man, cure Simon’s mother-in-law, and cleanse a leper.  All within the first chapter of Mark.

Concerns for physical healing seize our attention, fill our prayer lists, and occupy the forefront of our minds whenever we pray.  Ask a group of people, even a group of pastors, for their prayer concerns, and the stories inevitably become a veritable MASH unit of hospitalizations and diagnoses.  Admittedly, whenever I share prayer concerns with you prior to my Sunday morning pastoral prayer, they are almost always of people who are dealing with illness or death.  No wonder Jesus’ fame spread throughout the land so swiftly.  We take prayers for physical healing very seriously, as we should.

But every once in a while, we get a story like the one for this Sunday, about the woman with the blood hemorrhage.  Though the story is recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, only Mark ends the story with a peculiar addendum from Jesus, an addition that opens up a whole new dimension to his healing ministry.

You may already know the story well.  A woman suffering from blood hemorrhaging all her life approached a crowd pressing in on Jesus.  She reached out her hand, hoping merely to touch his outer cloak and be healed.  Upon experiencing a surge of power leave him, Jesus publicly praised her, declaring that her “faith has made her well.”  But then, Mark’s version adds this closing statement:

“Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’

It’s a fascinating addition, given that Jesus said this after the woman was already healed of her hemorrhage.  Matthew and Luke take Mark’s version and edit out this redundancy, finding it unnecessary for Jesus to restate the obvious.

But consider the possibility that Mark was instead introducing a broader aspect to Jesus’ healing power.  Maybe Jesus was not just interested in healing her body, which he had done passively, almost inadvertently.  Maybe he was just as interested in the deeper, more hidden, and more evasive diseases that were plaguing her life.  The kinds of things that don’t get shared among group prayer requests.  The kinds of things that are tougher to name, because they are tougher to acknowledge.

Like the woman’s shame.  Or her isolation from community.  Or her feelings of despair.  Or even her doubts about God.  Maybe those kinds of requests took a special dose of healing, which Jesus was just as eager to grant, whether the woman could name them or not.

This wouldn’t be the only time Jesus healed people of conditions they didn’t even know they had.  In Luke 17, Jesus healed ten men who were born blind. But by the end of the story, we discover that their deeper disease was not blindness, but a broken faith bruised by ingratitude.  Which is why, when only one of the men came back to thank him, Jesus said to him:  “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”  Yes, ten men were cleansed of their physical disease.  But only one was made truly well.

And then in Mark 2, after friends of a paralytic man lowered him through the roof of a crowded house in order to access Jesus, Jesus began the conversation with some surprising words:  “Son, your sins are forgiven.” After some lengthy theological sparring with the Pharisees about who could forgive sins, Jesus got around to healing the man of his paralysis.  The point, again, is that Jesus was just as interested in the illnesses within the man’s soul as he was with those that afflicted his body.

Yes, our prayers can, and should, include prayers for physical illnesses.  But we should remember that biblical healing is much more comprehensive and holistic than those concerns.  United Methodist minister and psychotherapist Tilda Norberg broadens the definition of Christian healing in her book Stretch Out Your Hand:  Exploring Healing Prayer:

Christian healing is a process that involves the totality of our being – body, mind, emotion, spirit, and our social context – and that directs us toward becoming the person God is calling us to be at every stage of our living and our dying…Because the Holy Spirit is continually at work in each of us, pushing us toward wholeness, the process of healing is like removing sticks and leaves from a stream until the water runs clear. If we simply get out of the way of the Lord’s work in us, we can trust that we are being led to the particular kind of wholeness God wills for us.  Very often the results of our healing are increased faith in God and a new empowerment to love and serve others.  Frequently we find that the very thing that caused our greatest brokenness becomes transformed into our own unique giftedness.

As you pray for yourself and others, remember to include prayers of healing for the problems that all of us carry, just below the surface.  For relationships broken by betrayal and resentment.  For wounds borne of isolation and rejection.  For scars of regret concealing years of sin and shame.  For hearts hardened by ingratitude and selfishness.  For a faith that has been bruised by doubt and disappointment, both in God and the church.  For the daunting and inescapable reality of our own mortality.  Remember that Jesus came to heal all of our pains, and is eager to say to each of us, “Child, your sins are forgiven.”

Join us this Sunday, as we dig more deeply into the amazing story of a woman whose faith brought healing to her body, mind, and spirit.  Let’s come to experience the restorative power of God, who can transform our deepest brokenness into fullest giftedness for the world.

Grace and Peace,

Magrey

The Rev. Magrey R. deVega
St. Paul's United Methodist Church
531 W. Main St.
Cherokee, IA  51012
Ph:  712-225-3955
Email:  mdevega@sp-umc.org


Mark 5:25-34
25 Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years.
26  She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse.
27  She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak,
28  for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.’
29  Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.
30  Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’
31  And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?” ’
32  He looked all round to see who had done it.
33  But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth.
34  He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’



FIRE RECOVERY UPDATE
Sanctuary:  Pew cushion fabric and carpeting have been decided and ordered by the Building Committee. The Shulmerich Carillon company came in last week to survey the damage to our carillon, and it will likely require a full replacement and upgrade to a new digitally based system.
Kitchen and Fellowship Hall:  The architects met with the Building Committee and made good progress toward final plans regarding the kitchen and dining hall.

WOW!
What a week at Vacation Bible School!  76 children had a wonderful time at Sky! VBS, thanks to an amazing team of volunteers led by Karen Long. Thanks to all of you who supported VBS with your donations, your prayers, and your assistance.  Last Sunday, you successfully matched the fundraising efforts of our kids to support the “Home for Street Children” United Methodist program in India.  Your gifts will provide care for homeless and needy orphans in one of the most populated areas in the world.

WE’VE GOT COMPANY COMIN’!
The “Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa” (RAGBRAI) will be making an overnight stop here in Cherokee on Sunday, July 22.  About 10,000 cyclists will descend on our town, and St. Paul’s UMC will be heavily involved in providing wonderful hospitality for them.  In addition to 75 cyclists staying in our education wing, St. Paul’s will be offering the following:

Community Dinner at the Cherokee Community Center:  On the upper level, from 4 – 8pm, we will be serving a meal of baked chicken, pasta with alfredo or marinara sauce, salad, and homemade pies.

“Cowboy Oasis” on the church lawn:  Our location on the west end of town puts us on the frontline of greeting arriving cyclists.  So from 9am to 3pm, we will be serving grilled ribeye steak sandwiches, fresh sweet corn on the ear, whole fruit, homemade bars, brownies, and cookies, and ice cold powerade and bottled water.  Folks will sit on alfalfa hay bales under the shade of our maple tree on the church lawn.

Care to help?  Contact the church office.  Let’s put God’s love into action for thousands of people!



To view past editions of the Mid-Week Message, visit http://mdevega.blogspot.com
To unsubscribe from this e-mail distribution list, please reply to this e-mail and write "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the subject line.
Visit us on Facebook at facebook.com/cherokeespumc.