pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: healing


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At the Table

Today’s text is a little troubling.  As a fellow pastor said at the lectionary study yesterday, “It makes me uncomfortable.”  In today’s text Jesus calls the woman who has come to beg for her daughter’s healing a “dog”.  It was not likely a racial insult in Jesus’ day.  We are used to Jesus sparring with the Pharisees and calling them ‘hypocrites’ but this seems different.  The loving Jesus who seems to accept all who come to him is trying to rudely dismiss this woman.  This version of Jesus makes me uncomfortable too.

Perhaps it makes me uncomfortable because at times I have thought less of another as well.  This is often a means to justify not helping them or to rationalize not taking the time to be present with them.  In essence I too am calling them a ‘dog’ in my mind and in my analysis of their worth.

Yet in this story I also find hope.  In my sin I come before God seeking healing and forgiveness much like a dog.  Slinking up to Him, head bowed low, I approach knowing I am unworthy to be in His presence.  Like this woman, I do not and cannot argue with my position because in my sin I am lowly.  So like her I approach humbly.  In her the hope I find, though, is also in her boldness.

This woman is bold in asking for her daughter’s healing.  She just asks for a ‘crumb’.  She knows that just a little bit of Jesus’ power is enough to heal her daughter.  And it does.  I too approach boldly.  Although made low in my sin, I too can boldly ask to be healed, to be made new, to be washed by His blood.  And just like that I too find healing and restoration.  And in God’s great love and mercy, I am no longer under the table.  As a child of God I am restored back to the table.  For this, I say thanks be to God!

Scripture reference: Mark 7: 24-30


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Alignment

David is often called a “man after God’s own heart”.  Although he had his moments of poor choices and bad decisions, in the end David always humbly came back to God seeking His forgiveness.  No matter how mighty or great he would become, David honored God’s call on his life in the end.  David recognized that he was just a small part of God’s plan.

David so desired to return the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem because it symbolized God’s presence with the people of Israel.  To live as a people of faith it is very important to have a sense of God’s presence nearby.  Corporately we gather for worship to gain a sense of God present with us.  Individually we can experience His presence in times of prayer and study as well as at times throughout the day as we feel God through the presence of the Holy Spirit.

David offers extravagant worship to God for allowing the ark to return.  He knew that all is simply better when life is lived in relationship with God and in alignment with His plans.  In this David is a great role model for us.  And like David, we too have a role to play in God’s grand plan for our world.

To live in alignment with this plan we must submit our will, our desires, our plans, our priorities to God’s.  We must align our goals with God’s goals for a world known for justice, love, peace, and grace.  As we live out our lives in alignment with God we bring healing and restoration to our world.  Each and every day as we live as a follower of Jesus Christ, we make a heavenly difference in the world.

Scripture reference: 2 Samuel 6: 12b-15


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Full of Belief

When we get to the end of our rope, we often beg or plea for help.  When we feel there is nothing else that we can do, we turn for help.  When life deals us a hand that we cannot make sense of, we beg for a way to make sense of it all.

Jarius comes to Jesus.  He is a ruler in the synagogue.  For him to come to Jesus, he must be desperate.  He falls at Jesus’ feet and begs Jesus to come heal his sick daughter.  On their way to Jarius’ house a desperate, desperate woman turns to Jesus as her last resort and silently begs for healing.  She finds it in the hem of His cloak, in a faith strong enough to believe.

While still on the way, news come that the daughter is dead.  Jesus response to Jarius: “Do not be afraid.  Just believe.”  He is challenging Jarius to go beyond his desperate faith to a faith that is solid.  Jarius has seen the woman healed simply by touching Jesus’ cloak.  He heard Jesus credit the healing to her faith.  So maybe Jarius holds out a speck of hope.

The story ends in a house full of people crying and grieving when they arrive.  Jesus tells them she is only asleep and they laugh.  Upstairs, alone in the room with the parents and  the inner circle of disciples, Jesus calls the girl back from the dead.  She rises and walks around.  She is alive again.  “Just believe.”  Jarius and family must have.  The healed woman must have.  They turned to begging when they had no other choice.

Jesus will be present in our begging too.  When we come to Him with our pleas and supplications, we too will find His presence.  When we go to Jesus full of faith, we will find Him there.  We must be aware that healing may not come.  It is about being with and giving our full faith to Jesus Christ, in both the good and the bad.  It is about growing in our relationship with Jesus Christ.

Scripture reference: Mark 5: 21-43


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Powerful Words

Healing involves more than the physical.  It often includes the emotional and the spiritual as well.  Often getting “better” physically is easier than emotionally or spiritually because a prescription usually puts our bodies on the mend.  When we are broken emotionally or spiritually, the process of healing is usually more complex than a pill.

Yet when one is physically ill for a long period of time, it does affect your emotional and spiritual well-being also.  Try to imagine being the woman  in today’s scripture – afflicted with a bleeding problem for 12 years, unclean according to Jewish Law, broke because she has spent everything trying to get better.  Think what this has done to her mind and spirit.

Yet inside her still flickers a bit of hope.  She hears that Jesus is nearby.  She works her way through the crowd and sneaks up behind Him.  In faith she touches His cloak.  Talk about faith – “If I just touch His cloak…”  The bleeding stops.  She knows at once that she has been healed.  Imagine what that meant to her – able to be a part of society again, able to go into the temple, able to start to reassemble her life.  Jesus blesses her and sends her on her way.

“Your faith has healed you.  Go in peace.  Be freed from your suffering.”  Powerful words.  Powerful words spoken to you and me as well.  Words offered to us for our physical, emotional, and spiritual healing and wholeness.  Like the woman, we need to reach out to Jesus.  Like her, we need to go to Him in faith.  And like her, we too can feel His power released into our lives.  Go to Jesus.

Scripture reference: Mark 5: 25-34


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Turn to Him

Psalm 130 has a somber tone to it.  It is one of the Penitential psalms.  Many if us can relate to this psalm type because we have all had times of sadness or depression.  These psalms resonate with us.  Sometimes we question God or our faith in these seasons.  In these times it is important to remember that God is always fully present with us, no matter our state of mind or heart.

God knows what it is like to wrestle with these feelings of sadness, emotional emptiness, and anguish.  In he form of Jesus, God experienced these emotions.  Jesus wept tears for Lazarus.  He sought solitude at times when the feelings of being completely drained rested heavy upon Him.  He cried blood tears of anguish in the garden.  Jesus has been there too so He intercedes for us and He reaches out a hand towards us.

The psalmist reminds us of God’s role too: “with the Lord is steadfast love and with Him is great power to redeem.”  It is a love that comes to us out of Jesus’ experiences.  It is a love that wants the best for us all of the time.  It is a love that brings healing and wholeness.  It is a love to which we are always called and invited into.

In the midst of the hard day, in the middle of the struggle, we must turn to Him.  Spend time in the Word, time in prayer, and time with Jesus.

Scripture reference: Psalm 130


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Walking in Love

God loves all people.  He especially loves those who love Him.  God loves all that He created.  He calls the stars by name and counts the hairs on our head.  His love is do vast that it is hard to comprehend.

God calls the broken to himself.  He calls those suffering physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially to find healing and rest.  Sometimes the healing and rest come directly from God, sometimes He uses one of us.  God’s love is vast.

As we grow in faith and in relationship with God, we come to love and know Him more and more.  As our connection to God deepens, we come to trust Him more and more as well.  As our trust in Him grows, we become increasingly used as a vessel to bring God’s love, mercy, and healing to those in need.

In Jesus we see God’s deep, deep love for the poor, the sick, the downtrodden, the outcast.  In Christ we see how we are to love those in need.  As our trust in God grows, our love for Him begins to extend to all of our brothers and sisters.  May we walk in His love each day, seeking opportunities to be His hands and feet, bringing light and love to a world in need.

Scripture reference: Psalm 147: 1-6 & 20c


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Well Done

The shepherd is looking for a few good sheep.  He searches for us so that He can gather us up, take us to good pasture.  There He will tend to our needs.  If any wander off, He will seek them.  If any hurt, He will heal them.  Ezekiel lays out a kind, loving, caring shepherd role for Christ.

Isn’t it comforting to know that Christ the King is such a loving shepherd?  Yet Jesus is also the King of kings and Lord of lords – absolute, sovereign, and in total control.  Ultimately Christ came to sit as judge over all of creation.  For us this is a present and future reality.  For some this is a discomforting thought.

On a day to day basis Christ is a loving, caring, nurturing shepherd, kindly caring for all the sheep.  And what is our response?  To do the same for other sheep, even for those who are lost?  When we choose to live and love as Jesus did, then we have no fear of Christ as judge.  Because on the day when we stand before Him, seated on the throne, He will say, “Well done good and faithful servant.”  Can’t you just see Him smiling as He repeats, “Well done”?

Scripture reference: Ezekiel 34: 11-16 and 20-24


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Praying with Faith

Daily we come to God in prayer.  Often times we come with requests or pleas during our prayer time.  We all have items or situations we would love Jesus’ help with – some are personal and some are for other people.

In Matthew 15 the Canaanite woman comes to Jesus seeking healing for her daughter.  But she is an ‘outsider’, a person who most every Jew would not even speak to or would even shun or avoid.  And she knows this.  Jesus reinforces this when He tells her that He came to the ‘lost sheep of Israel’ and when he refers to her as a dog.  Yet she persists.  She persists because she knows that Jesus has something that she desperately desires – the power to heal her daughter.

Don’t we come with the same hope? When we come before Jesus to pray for this or that, don’t we hope for the healing or the solution or the need?

But do we know the same Jesus that the Canaanite woman knows?  Do we have the same absolute faith in Jesus’ power?  Jesus offers us the same thing He offered her – the power to do anything.  May we pray with her persistence as well!

Scripture reference: Matthew 15: 21-28


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Time to Walk

“And God saw that it was good”.  This phrase occurs in Genesis after He creates plants and trees and after He creates the stars, sun, and moon.  (It also occurs after He creates the birds, animals, and humans).  God created all for our pleasure, for our enjoyment.

At times my simpler side draws me to a time of camping or to a walk in the quiet of the early morning.  I find an undeniable presence of God when outside.  When I take in the song of the bird or the gentle rolls of the stream or the light breeze rustling the trees, God is definitely there.

Quiet time in God’s creation offers us much.  He created it for us!  Nature has a way of calming and renewing our spirits.  Plugging into creation rekindles our connection to God.

It can also be a place of sorting through this or that situation or of seeking guidance and discernment.  When we still ourselves we become more open to the Holy Spirit’s voice.

And lastly, nature is a place of peace.  Whether we find healing from a sorrow or relief from the constant buzz of technology, God’s creation calls us to Him and beckons us to find peace in His arms.

Isn’t it time for a walk?