Sermon for July 19th

When you read through the gospels, especially the gospel of Mark, have you ever noticed how busy Jesus is? Why was Jesus so popular? Have you ever wondered that? He certainly wasn’t popular among the religious leaders of his time, but whenever he went out into the countryside or entered into a village, it seems like all kinds of people were after him. Why?

The end of today’s gospel reading tells us why, “Wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged Jesus that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.” That’s why. Jesus healed. He cured their sick. He cured their diseases. He brought salvation, not just with words, but with deeds. You all know people who are sick. You all have some physical, spiritual or emotional issue that you want healed. If you knew that Jesus could heal you, wouldn’t you go after him too? Know this: God not only hears your prayers for healing, but he loves you enough to actually heal you.

Jesus did many things during his ministry besides simply healing. He fed five thousand people. He calmed a storm. He turned water into wine. He even cast out demons. But, most notoriously, he forgave sins.

Remember the scene where Jesus was teaching and a crippled man lying on a mat was lowered down from a rooftop by some friends? When Jesus saw their faith he said to the crippled man, “Your sins are forgiven.” But the scribes and the Pharisees questioned him saying, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Jesus replied, “Which is easier, to say, your sins are forgiven or Stand up and walk? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins—he said to the one who was paralyzed—I say to you, stand up and take your bed and go to your home. And immediately the man stood up before them, took what he had been lying on, and went to his home, glorifying God.”

Now, when someone is healed of a sickness in the Bible, we need to be aware that, eventually, they become sick again. When a demon is cast out of a person it is quite possible, Jesus says, that seven more demons might come to take its place. Even when Lazarus was raised from the dead we can be assured that, heartbreakingly enough, he had to die again. True glory and complete healing for us, only come after death.

God’s true glory is found in the last place we want to look, in a crucified Jesus. Nobody wants to look at the cross, not now and not then. Jesus was very popular when he was healing, but when he forgave sins dying on the cross, everyone abandoned him. We want glory! We want to see Jesus come down! We want him to be healed! We want to be healed! But God’s glory in healing us on Earth will always be secondary to what God has done for us on the cross.

In other words, I would encourage you all to trust in the cross of Jesus Christ rather than in seeing God’s glory in some other place, I would encourage you all to trust in the forgiveness of sins rather than in the temporary healing of even your greatest suffering. Knowing that you will live eternally in God’s sight, that you are pleasing in the eyes of the Lord of heaven in earth, is a greater comfort than anything else.

But—thankfully!—God does not demand that you choose one or the other. Believe this: God not only hears your prayers for healing, but he loves you enough to actually do it. Healing and forgiveness do not negate one another, they complement each other, “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins—Jesus said to the one who was paralyzed—I say to you, stand up and take your bed and go to your home. And immediately the man stood up before them, took what he had been lying on, and went to his home, glorifying God.”

If Jesus had wanted to, he could have come to Earth to forgive sins and stopped there. When the sick came to him asking for healing he could have compassionately told them, “Though you suffer now, one day, you will suffer no more” and left it at that. When the demoniac came to Jesus beating upon himself and clanking his chains, Jesus could have said, “God loves you.” When people came to touch Jesus’ cloak believing that they would be healed, Jesus could have simply turned and said, “My fringe is not magical! Your leprosy, your cancer, your epilepsy, even your death cannot separate you from God. Go in peace.”

Jesus could have said these things, since the forgiveness of sins is obviously of more lasting importance than temporal physical healing or exorcism, but Jesus preached salvation and healing by actually healing and freeing people from evil, “When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion or them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” So Jesus taught them, proclaimed the good news of the kingdom, AND cured every sickness and disease. That’s what a loving God does. That’s what your loving God STILL does. Believe this: God not only hears your prayers for healing, but he loves you enough to actually heal you.

If Jesus had wanted to, he could have come to Earth to forgive sins and heal and cast out demons and then, stopped the healing ministry at his death. But he did not do this, “He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent (and they didn’t stop there). They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.”

If Jesus had wanted to, he could have let the healing ministry go no farther than these apostles, but he did not stop there. Instead, “the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said, cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.”

And, if God had wanted to, he could have let the healing ministry, these acts of glory, go no farther than the twelve apostles and then these seventy, but God did not stop there. Instead, as the book of James points out, “Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.” You see, the forgiveness of sins is, indeed, the most important gift God could give you, but, because God loves you and cares for you in this life as well as the next, he has promised to hear your prayers for healing.

But a final word of caution. The forgiveness of sins leads you to look at the cross. Prayers for healing lead you to look for glory. I tell you this because there will be times when you feel like your prayers for healing aren’t doing any good. That your prayers are pointless. You will be tempted to blame your lack of faith or blame God’s cruelty because you are seeing no healing, no glory. This is where you must trust the heal-ER more than the healing.

Jesus’ love for you is shown primarily through HIS suffering and the cross. The healing you experience in this life is temporal, it’s temporary, and, therefore, when all is said and done, it will last only as long as you do. But Jesus’ love for you has no bounds. He died to give you freedom from sickness and injuries and disease on this earth—YES!—but, more importantly, freedom from sin, death and the devil forever.

God gives you food and water. He gives you medicines invented by great research scientists as well as the gifts of doctors, nurses, psychologists and physical therapists. These are all good gifts of God to be used and appreciated by all of you as Christians. You wouldn’t feel guilty or “unspiritual” by going to a doctor to heal your health problems so don’t forsake the wonderful gifts of prayer and healing that God has ALSO blessed you with. You wouldn’t stop seeing a psychologist just because you didn’t feel “cured” after the first treatment, so don’t stop coming for prayer even if the healing you want doesn’t take place immediately.

Each week, here at Saint Peters, we pray for the sick. Maybe you will even come up for prayer after this service. But sometimes I think we pray without expecting anything to really, truly happen. But the next time you pray, or you are prayed for, believe this: God not only hears your prayers for healing, but he loves you enough to actually heal you. Amen.