“Healing Stories”
2 Kings 5:1-14
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Mark 1:40-45
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
So, our scripture passages for today offer us two different healing stories. First is the story from 2 Kings about Naaman and his healing from a skin disease.
And then there is our Gospel lesson from Mark in which Jesus heals a leper.
So, while these healing stories may seem pretty straightforward on the surface, there really are any number of sermons that could be preached just on our Gospel lesson alone, because there are many themes in these verses.
For example, there is the fact that as a leper, the man in our Mark passage would have been considered ritually unclean and an outcast – and thus in touching him, Jesus himself, by law, would have been considered unclean.
There is the theme of compassion – the scripture tells us that Jesus was “moved by pity” at the leper’s request for healing and thus Jesus chooses to offer the man his healing touch.
There is the underlying theme of faith as the leper, when approaching Jesus expresses with certainty, “If you choose, you can make me clean.”
And finally, there is possibly the most baffling part of this story – why, after healing the leper does Jesus sternly warn the man to “tell no one.” The meaning of those words has been the subject of theological debate for centuries and continues to be debated.
For this moment, however, I want to take a closer look at the notion of healing itself because I believe healing is a very multilayered concept. What exactly does it mean to be healed?
Physical healing, in particular, has been on my mind in recent weeks as I continue to recover from the hip replacement surgery I had on January 8. I have learned from my experience that healing from surgery is not as swift in your 60s as it was in your 30s or 40s or even 50s.
However, I continue to be amazed at the skill of surgeons and other medical workers, at the astounding things that modern medicine can accomplish, and at the ability of the human body to rebound and to heal. It is all quite amazing to me.
What about, however, when we don’t get the physical healing we want, despite our earnest prayers? I certainly know that feeling all too well, after the death of my husband following a traumatic injury 5 years ago.
And what of the over 400,000 people in the US who have now lost their lives to Covid? Why is it that some people are able to survive the virus with few or no symptoms, and others succumb, unable to overcome the ravaging effects of the disease?
These are really difficult questions and I’m not going to pretend I have all the answers. I can only share what I believe.
First, I believe that the fact that some people are healed from illness and some are not has nothing to do with the amount of faith one has or the number of prayers said. Bad things happen to good people all the time. They just do.
I have seen any number of deeply faithful people succumb to illness while others have been able to overcome and thrive.
So, for me the issue really has more to do with how one defines healing. There is of course, physical healing – but there is also emotional and spiritual healing as well.
Again, using my own life experience as an example, while my husband did not get the physical healing we all prayed for after his accident, my children and I have been on a journey of spiritual and emotional healing ever since his loss – a journey that continues and a journey that has been strengthened by the prayers and care of so many.
And my prayer for the hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been impacted by the virus is that healing may indeed come to all of them in meaningful and life-giving ways, whatever form that may take.
I have fund that the way that I pray, what I hope for, and how I view the concept of healing has changed and evolved drastically throughout my life. That’s part of what I mean when I refer to faith as a journey.
However, none of that changes or diminishes the comfort and strength I draw from passages like our Gospel lesson from Mark.
Jesus comes to the man who has literally nothing – a man who is ostracized from society because of his physical illness – and offers him new life.
The same is true for all of us. Whether physical, emotional, or spiritual, Jesus offers each of us healing. It may not come in the way we expected or in the timeframe we had hoped, but the assurance of new life is there for us.
And so, we continue the journey.
AMEN