God Stories – Attributes of God June 8, 2003
God the Healer
John 9:1-12
WHO SINNED HERE? – Story by Bob Lupton found in “Theirs is the Kingdom”
Who sinned?" the disciples asked him. A tragedy like this doesn’t just happen-it’s caused. The man was born blind. It couldn’t be his fault, could it? It must be something his parents did. Perhaps venereal disease. Or incest. That causes blindness sometimes. If we can get to the root cause of this, maybe we can find the key to its prevention. Or at least we can see it for what it is: God’s judgment upon sin.
A homeless family. Destitute. Wandering the city streets looking for shelter, any shelter, to brace against the night chill. "Who sinned here, Lord?" Why were they evicted? Was it the father’s drinking that made him lose his job? Are they just irresponsible, poor money managers? Perhaps we should check them out before we open our church to them for a place of shelter.
Hungry people starving in Ethiopia. Women with no milk left in their breasts, babies dying in their arms. Do tragedies like this just happen or are they caused? Is it drought? But why do they stream by the thousands into these desolate desert places? They flee civil war, you say. Their government sells grain to the Russians in exchange for guns. These people starve because their sinful leaders engage in bloody political power struggles. "Is this who sinned here, Lord?"
"No," Jesus answers. "His blindness has nothing to do with his sins or his parent’s sins. He is blind so that God’s power may be seen at work in him."
Blindness, homelessness, hunger. Although there may be discernible causes and people to blame for the painful events of human history, these events are also opportunities for the glory of God to break through. In the midst of human misery, healing and hospitality and sharing are visible manifestations of the kingdom that has come. And the essential method of that kingdom is personal touching.
Is Jesus uninterested in "the bigger picture?" Surely he is concerned about mass prevention and not just individual cures. Certainly there is a need to understand cause and effect relationships, how personal and corporate sins impact people.
Yet for some reason Jesus directs our attention to a Samaritan who binds up a victim of violence rather than to a founder of a neighborhood crime watch program. He chooses to show us his kingdom by personally feeding a hungry multitude rather than examining their motives or teaching them budgeting. He heals sick men and women and children without instructing them in preventive medicine.
Why is this? Perhaps he knows the tendency of his followers to use our knowledge, our cause and effect theories, to pronounce judgment upon the suffering ones instead of healing them. He may know that we would prefer to create a program of service or champion a cause for the needy instead of risking the contagion of personal involvement. But he does not allow us to withdraw to the theoretical or theological. He forces us to feed, to clothe, to give a cup of water-to touch the undesirable ones. His words and his life push us to the very place that will change us and fit us for kingdom use.
It’s not about root causes, he tells his followers. It’s about revealing the wonder of a God who wants a personal call-me-by-name relationship with every single one of his children. Then the Master makes a little mudpack and applies it to the man’s sightless eyes. And gives him unique instructions to find his way to the Pool of Siloam and wash there.
Oh, how everyone did marvel and praise God when the man came up seeing! Everyone that is, except the responsible religious people who immediately set about checking the validity of the man’s condition and the biblical soundness of Jesus’ method of healing.
Exodus 15
The Waters of Marah and Elim
22 Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water. 23 When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah. [5] ) 24 So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, "What are we to drink?"
25 Then Moses cried out to the LORD , and the LORD showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.
There the LORD made a decree and a law for them, and there he tested them. 26 He said, "If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD , who heals you."
I am the LORD , who heals you."
He heals our bodies – the scripture is full of stories of healing, from Abimelech, in Genesis the many times Jesus healed, to the healings of the new church.
In our time, there has been a dualistic thinking that has pervaded in the church that says that the physical world is broken and bad, but the spiritual world is good and what really counts. The physical world may have its importance, but it is the spiritual world that is the real important one. The Bible shows us that God created both the seen and the unseen world, and all through scripture, God is concerned with our physical well being as well as our spiritual well being – the two are actually inextricably connected. We do not grow spiritually by ignoring the physical, and we do not grow physically by ignoring the spiritual.
We can say strange things about people who are ill, or in need, we say “what good is it if their bodies get healed, but their soul is still damned?” We say “what good is it to feed them if they are going to end up in hell?”
I say that these are strange things, because we never say them about ourselves – if we are in deep pain and someone offers to heal us we do not say, oh no thanks it is enough that I know I’m on my way to heaven!”
When we ask God if we are to heal someone who is sick, feed someone who is hungry or tell them about the gospel, He says “YES”
He is like Winnie the Pooh who, when rabbit ask him if he would like honey or condensed milk on his toast, Pooh replies “Both… but don’t bother about the bread.”
What we would call spiritual blessings always have a physical side, and what we would call physical blessings always have a spiritual side. The Bible does not have this division – they are part of the whole integrated creation that God has made.
The Bible was not originally published in a red-letter edition where all the words of Jesus are highlighted making them seem all the more important that what he did. Jesus healed and he taught – he cared for the whole person.
When Jesus sends out the disciples to minister he says to them: “Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ’The kingdom of God is near you.’” Luke 10:9
The Kingdom of God is not just about heading to the right place after death – God heals us here and now.
Jesus demonstrates the present reality of the Kingdom of god by healing people. He calls us to do the same. God is the God who heals us.
God is the God who heals our bodies.
I had a missions professor back in seminary named Frank Burn who was talking about the great temptation that new Christians from traditional religions have to go back to the witch doctor when they are ill. Frank talked about how the shaman’s have it good. – 90% of the time when people get sick they get well! They have flu, or a cold, the shaman comes in burns incense, waves fetishes around, says some words and in a few days the people’s bodies have healed and they credit the witch doctor! Frank was saying that the dualistic thinking of the missionaries have done them in – they at least need to come in and say some prayers, wave a Bible around, or something, so that when the person gets better, they credit God, and not the witch doctor.
This is not fooling people – it is the truth, God is the God who heals us – he created our bodies to fight off disease, to heal wounds, he gave us the knowledge for modern medicine and traditional cures, and he steps in miraculously and heals us through prayer. Just as we say that God is our provider even though we get a check from some corporation. We need to know that no matter how we are healed, it is God who is behind the healing!
King Asa – lived his whole life for God, and in his latter times turned away – God did amazing miracles, but when he got old he started to trust in treaties and diplomacy instead of God. In his old age he had a disease in his feet and it says that even in this he didn’t seek God, but only went to the doctors.
This doesn’t say that we only pray – but that we do not only go to the doctor.
He heals our whole person
Nadine’s testimony last week – God healed her back, but he was shaping her through the pain that she had. God needed to do things in Nadine that he could only do through suffering.
When my children get a sliver, the extraction of the sliver can be very painful, and while I’m taking it out, they are not that concerned about the sliver – they are very concerned about the pain that I am causing them. They we’ll implore me, “Daddy stop!” and I’ll say, “just a minute, I’m not quite finished.” There are times in our lives when we want to quote that reality show “get me out of here, I’m a celebrity!” And we say “Lord, get me out of here, I’m a Christian!” “This hurts too much, and Christians are not supposed to hurt this much!” God responds, “just a minute, I’m not quite finished.”
Lance Armstrong celebrates October 2nd as his new birthday. Lance is a world class cyclist who was diagnosed with testicular cancer that had metastasized to his back, his lungs and his brain. Through surgery and chemotherapy he was brought back from the dead and is clear of cancer. Since his recovery he has one the Tour de France 4 times in a row is likely to win his 5th this year, and has a great chance to be the first to win 6 times. You would think that October 2nd was the day that the doctors proclaimed him clear of cancer. It is not. It is the day that he was diagnosed with cancer. Lance Armstrong has said “Cancer saved my life.” In Outside magazine this month Eric Hagerman writes:
“Before cancer, Armstrong was a talented cyclist with enormous natural ability, but he didn’t eat like he should have or train like he could have He was living large in
Austin, with girlfriends, a million-dollar home,
"The odd thing is that Lance was, by comparison [with his current incarnation], a slacker," Washington Post sportswriter Sally Jenkins told me. Having worked with him closely, ghostwriting his autobiography and Every Second Counts (his next book, due out this fall), Jenkins explained that, above all, cancer made him serious. " A lot of people have cancer and come away with a gauzy outlook, a determination to work less hard, enjoy their family more," she says. "He’s peculiar in this regard. He came out of it ready to work hard. He’s been given the capacity to be the best cyclist in the world, and he feels obligated to make the most of that."
There are times that God who heals us is using our physical illness to heal our soul.
Romans 5:2-5 And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
We have to be careful that we don’t jump to conclusions like the disciples here though –we might not say in judgment. “Who sinned here?” but we might say “I wonder what lesson they have to learn that God has allowed this sickness in their life.” It might not be the ill person who has the greater lesson to lean it may be us!
He heals the Body, the church.
It is strange that I have felt lead to speak on God the Healer today when Hannah Kirk is very ill, and the whole family is in quarantine, when the VanWettens have had a very difficult time dealing with Eric’s condition, and Donna is preparing to go on a walk for ALS research in memory of Bill who we lost to ALS.
It seems that the man in the story that John tells in his gospel was not born blind just to shape him, but to teach and shape the community. They needed to learn about how God works. “He was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” (NRSV)
When someone gets ill or in trouble in our community, the question doesn’t need to be “What is God teaching them?” But it must be, “What is God teaching us?”
When Bill was diagnosed with ALS we were praying for him as a leadership team and Chris received a word from God, and the word was a simple question: “How will he know that I love him?” God was in the midst of taking Bill home and he was giving us the responsibility of showing his tangible love to Bill in the midst of his suffering. We have the same challenge when it comes to others in our midst – God has given them to us to shape us into His community.
Will we show them God’s tangible love in the midst of their suffering?
Will we suffer with them?
Will we have the faith to pray for their healing?
All this said, God is the God who heals us – wholly. And we are going to spend some time right now asking that he would come and do that by his power.
I’m going to ask Don to come and lead us in worship as we pray. And teams of two are going to come to the front who will pray for you. If there is anything in your life that you want healing for, whether it be physical healing, emotional, spiritual healing, come forward, and we’ll anoint you with oil and pray for you. If God is brining some sin in your life that you need to confess, come and confess and we will pray with you. And God will forgive you.
Sometimes we need a little push from God to come and receive prayer. Sometimes that push comes from a word of knowledge – a message from God that he wants to heal a certain ailment or a certain person. If you think you have a word of knowledge to share, please come and share it with me first.
If you are not coming forward, please add your prayers to ours, pray for increased faith for the team, and worship God.
Lets begin with prayer.
