Sermon: “Does Jesus Still Heal?”

Text: Mark 5:21-43

13^th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

June 28, 2009

Scripture Introduction.  The author of Mark’s gospel wrote for listeners, rather than readers.  In ancient times many church members could not read, and they depended on having texts read to them.  This may seem like a burden for a writer, but it also presents opportunities.  We remember words better when we hear them physically in our ears.  Another thing about word memory—when we repeatedly hear words in a specific context, we begin to associate the word with that context.  For example, what do you think of when I say together the words “take” and “eat”?  The Lord’s Supper, right?

 In today’s text, we see a skillful writer using this technique.  The stories of the healing of the bleeding woman and of the raising of the daughter of Jairus share a number of important words.  The common vocabulary causes these stories to reinforce one another.  Indeed, the two stories are similar in more than vocabulary; when you get home today, you might enjoy seeing how many similarities you can find.  Even more importantly, Mark used the words shared by these two stories later in his Gospel when he wrote of Jesus’ death and resurrection.  Thus, Early Church listeners would have been thinking of Jesus’ own resurrection when they heard these two stories. 

Just one example may suffice.[1]    The word that describes the raising of the little girl is the same word Mark uses to describe Jesus’ own resurrection.  Thus, if we are attentive listeners, we should hear in these stories of healing not only the obvious message—that Jesus cured the woman’s disease and restored the girl’s life—but also the promise that for all of us, as Jesus himself was resurrected, life continues beyond death.

Sermon.  I guess most of us have some modern conception of how Jesus still heals today.  We live in an age of amazing medical technology and highly skilled physicians, which themselves can and should be thought of as agents of God’s healing grace.  But we all know there are times when medical science can do no more.  And that is when we yearn to affirm the miraculous healing power of God in Jesus Christ.  This is when we pray for miracles.  The question is, do they still happen?  Does Jesus still heal? 

Some claim that in God’s plan for the world, the time for healing miracles is over.  This certainly would amuse Presbyterians in Korea and Africa, where faith healings are quite common.  Last week, I told you of the charismatic congregation in our own presbytery; I’ll bet they could tell you some amazing stories.  Some of you have told me that you have been healed, or have witnessed healings, that came directly from God and against all medical expectation.  However rare miraculous cures may be for us, and however mysterious their mechanics, I think most of us believe that sometimes they do happen. 

I want to tell you a true story about a friend of mine.  His name is Billy.  We met in the summer of 2000, when I was a student chaplain at the University of Louisville Hospital.  Billy’s teenage son had been involved in a terrible accident and was being treated in the hospital’s intensive care unit for a severe head injury.  The doctors had done all they could to reduce the swelling of the young man’s brain, but already the pressure inside his skull had risen dramatically.  Persistent coma and brain death were the likely outcomes. 

Neither Billy nor I possessed any extraordinary faith or gift for prayer.  At the time he was not even attending a church.  Our prayers were not really prayers of great faith; I would say our prayers for Billy’s son arose more out of need and desire and fear than out of faith.  But we did pray together that his son would survive and would recover enough to have a normal life.  Then, like so many patients and family, we waited.  Over the weeks of waiting, I got to know Billy better.

Billy had not lived with the mother of his son for many years.  When they married and had their children together, Billy was the pastor of a General Baptist church in Kentucky.  Later, however, they were divorced and the children went with her.  Because of church rules prohibiting divorced pastors, Billy was forced to give up his church and his ordination.  Disheartened, disappointed, and depressed, he left Kentucky and moved to Alabama.  He began to work construction jobs, but the work was never steady.  He quit attending church, and began to live hard.

There came a time when Billy severely injured his ankle and foot as a result of falling into a deep pit on a construction site.  He had no medical insurance.  The broken bones simply remained unset, and Billy used a crutch to get around.  Because he could no longer do construction work, he quickly ran out of money and often went hungry.  From disease and poor diet, Billy’s kidneys began to fail, and doctors put him in the government’s dialysis program.  They told him that only a kidney transplant would save him from death.  Even so, when Billy found out that his son was in danger, he left his dialysis appointments in Alabama and hitchhiked, penniless, to the hospital in Louisville.  I did not know it at the time, but for several weeks he was living in the hospital waiting room and was subsisting—dangerously for one with failing kidneys—on nothing more than the complimentary coffee and sugar. 

In time, and to the general amazement of the hospital staff, Billy’s son made a remarkable recovery, and by the end of the summer, when he was transferred to a rehabilitation hospital, it was clear that he would survive.  Billy and I remembered our prayers and praised God for what seemed miraculous to us. 

But that wasn’t the only healing, and it wasn’t the only miracle.  Billy began to make some changes in his life.  There were some bad setbacks at first, but finally it seemed like the healing that we had prayed upon his son had somehow spilled over onto Billy.  When he arrived back in Alabama his kidney problem was completely gone.  No need for dialysis—nothing.  Resolving to continue construction work despite the pain in his foot, he moved to another state, where he had been promised work by a relative.  When the job failed to materialize, Billy’s health began to decline again.  The pain from his untreated ankle and foot injuries became worse.  Then his blood pressure rose to shockingly high levels that were unresponsive to medication.  Emergency hospitalization was required.  High blood pressure impaired his eyesight, and doctors said that—if he did not die of a stroke first—within a year he would be totally blind. 

Over the telephone Billy and I continued to pray.  And this time, Billy also sought the help of the church.  A Presbyterian congregation in a larger city provided some emergency help with utilities and other expenses.  Billy began regularly to attend a local community church, whose members supported him lovingly with prayer, advice, friendship, and some limited financial assistance.

His blood pressure finally began to respond to medication, and it no longer presents a problem for him.  His eyesight has stabilized; and with glasses he now has good vision; in fact, recently it has been improving.  Medicaid-funded surgery greatly reduced the pain in his foot, but he could no longer carry the heavy loads required by construction jobs.  So he purchased a riding lawn mower with his disability money and began to look for yard work.  He had no car or truck, so he rode the mower to his jobs.  He started by cutting grass without charge for the public library and post office.  Impressed with his good work, they referred other business to him.  Eventually, the sheriff found him a part-time job working for the emergency management agency, and later at the jail.  Now he works part of the year for the jail and part of the year managing a large recreational camp.

Just before Amanda and I moved from Louisville to Terre Haute, Billy met a wonderful woman, and they invited me to come perform their marriage.  It was the first wedding I had ever done, and they never complained about my shortcomings.  There have been many ups and downs for Billy, even after his happy marriage.  They have been hit by natural disasters, illnesses of family members and occasional serious financial problems.  Right now, however, things are going reasonably well.  During the last year Billy was invited by his church to do some preaching, and he now assists the regular preacher in the congregation.  His wife says he is so filled by the Spirit that he is not the same person when he gets into the pulpit.  For my part, I believe God has shown him the way back to the preaching vocation for which God created him.

Does Jesus still heal?  For both Billy and me the events of his life answer this question.  If Billy were here, he would say better than I, how much he has felt the healing touch of Jesus.  When I called to ask his permission to use his story in prior versions of this sermon, I offered to change his name in the telling.  He objected:  “Tell them my name.  Give them my phone number.  I want them to know how much God has blessed me.” 

Billy has experienced healing in a number of ways.  He has benefited from modern medicine, but he also has been healed in ways that science cannot explain.  Even so, I think Billy would be quick to tell you that his healing goes deeper than cure from disease.  Proud of the new start he made in life, he now has more contact with his children than he ever did before.  He has a sense of purpose now and has shown remarkable initiative in finding jobs and doing them well.  He is developing a circle of supportive friends.  He is himself a good and loyal friend to others.  He now has a good hope for the future and is beginning to plan for it.  Most of all, Billy has a deepening faith in God and in God’s love for him and all other persons.  He trusts God to take care of him, no matter what happens.  The way I see it, Billy’s life has been healed.  He and his wife still have many challenges, but now he is able to see his difficulties in the strong light of God’s love and purpose for his life. 

* * *

As I said earlier, when Mark tells the stories we read this morning, he uses words that would have reminded his listeners of the events of Holy Week—the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  When associated in this way, the healing miracles become a sign, a symbol, and a foreshadowing of the entire redemptive work of God in Jesus Christ.  In the gospel narrative, these stories function by pointing to something greater that is about to happen.  Associations, though, work in two directions.  If we read the association backwards, we may find that the broader saving work of Jesus helps us better understand the context of the miraculous cures.

The experience of my friend Billy suggests to me that it might be possible to experience healing even in the absence of a physical cure.  There is no way to know for sure, but I suspect the healing Billy has experienced in his life and in his spirit would outlast and even overcome a re-occurrence of his physical ailments.  He would still be a good friend and a loving husband and father.  He would still be just as industrious as his body allowed.  He would remain grateful for God’s blessings and would continue to trust God’s love no matter what.

Does Jesus still heal?  I would say “yes,” sometimes physically, but more often and more importantly, in ways that are more a part of our humanity than bodily life itself.  We all know people in the peak of health who have no joy in their lives.  In contrast, we also know those whose godly perspective allows them to feel joy and to count their blessings even in the face of danger, disease, or death.  Jesus heals disease, but he also heals despair, loneliness, broken relationships, and lack of purpose.  There is indeed a Balm in Gilead, and it heals the soul. 

Mark reminds us that the Jesus who cures, is, more importantly, the Jesus who heals and saves.  All of us will die eventually, despite any miraculous cure we might enjoy.  By using the word for resurrection when he describes the way Jesus raised the little girl, Mark reminds us that when we die the risen Jesus will be there to take us by the hand, saying to us, “My dear child, arise, and walk about in your heavenly home.”