Hillsborough Reformed Church at Millstone
April 30, 2006 Easter III
John 5:1-18
“Do You Want to Be Healed?”
When we talk about Christian healing, we start with a question – “Do you want to be well?”
That may seem like a “no-brainer.”
Of course, I want to be well! What do you think?
But it is the very question Jesus asked that day of the lame man at the pool of Bethesda.
The answer is not so obvious as you think.
What does it mean to be well? There was a TV commercial not long ago that made the seemingly wise claim, “When you’ve got your health, you’ve got everything?”
Oh really? Is that true?
Well it certainly is not biblical.
Physical health is NOT the highest good. Thank God!
Otherwise the vast majority of people would be left out. What about people born with deformities? What about people crippled in accidents? What about people suffering from chronic illness.? Are they inferior people? I have celiac disease – does this mean my life is sub-standard?
There is another part of health, in fact an overarching health. It is a health in which all is right.
It is a healthfulness that is at your core. The only place it can be had is from a right relationship with God.
This is the one absolute needful health.
If you don’t have a right relationship with God, it doesn’t matter if you can run 26 miles, swim the English Channel, or kick a soccer ball into the net every time. Our lives are defined by God, not by physical prowess. By the same token, your body may be filled with cancer tumors, your eyesight may be dim, you may be unable to hear what is being said from the pulpit, but if you are right with God, you are in better shape than gold-medal Olympians.
What does this say about physical illness? Well, we need only watch Jesus. He healed people with physical ailments and suffering wherever he went. He gave sight to blind people. He helped paralytics walk. He cured leprosy.
From watching Jesus, we learn that God wants us well. Disease is not part of God’s plan. And the Bible is very clear that when God’s kingdom has been fully established, never again will their be pain or the waste of disease. Never again will people die.
These things are temporary. “Momentary afflictions(II Cor. 4:17),” to use the Bible phrase.
The healing Jesus did was always a part of something larger – a part of the forgiveness of sins, a part of enabling a person to follow Jesus, a part of a person’s devotion to God. Throughout history, starting with the apostles, there have always been legions of people who will suffer for Jesus Christ, who would rather die as martyrs than give up their faith, who denied themselves all sorts of things to be devoted to Jesus Christ. So faith can actually lead to physical suffering!
There is a difference between healing and cure. So while not every prayer today for healing is answered with a cure, it is answered with a healing – the healing that comes from having Christ alive in us, the healing that comes from knowing Jesus Christ.
Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weak and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Mt. 11:28,30)” That verse resonates with just about everyone who recites it.
Did you hear what I just said? “That verse resonates with just about everyone who hears it.” Why? Because everyone needs healing. You may look around you on Sunday morning and say, what am I doing with this group of people. They all seem to have it so together in their lives. The truth is, everyone here is a “yearner.” Every one here has brokenness needing healing.
If we have it all together, we sure don’t need Jesus. He didn’t die broken on the cross because most people were just about all right. He died in agony on the cross bearing the sin which breaks us in half, and breaks the very heart of God. Jesus died for our wholeness – our healing.
In the twenty-third Psalm we read, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastors, he leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul.” Why is that the most quoted of all Psalms? It’s simple. Because people are hurting and need healing and help and health.
There is a word in Hebrew, which we normally translate “peace.” The word is SHALOM. But shalom is more than the kind of peace where the Iraqi militants and the American forces lay down there arms and stop the killing. Shalom is something greater – it is a wholeness, a wellness, almost the restored state for which we were created, envisioned in the garden of Eden and in the book of Revelation(Rev. 21) and spoken of by some of the prophets(Is. 11), where all is right with us and with our relationship to God and each other. That is health.
And you can have that health.
How?
Like the man at the Bethesda pool. Jesus asked him if he wanted to be well. It isn’t always so obvious. Do we really want to be well? To be well means to alive, responsible, active, selfless, up and about and moving.
Given the chance, the man answered “yes,” to Jesus.
We need to answer “yes” to Jesus too.
We need to let Jesus know we want to be healed. We want lives of purpose and power – lives useful to God.
We want fulfillment.
Where do you get fulfillment?
Our government lies to us. One of the most disgraceful things the government does is the lottery. And they sell it people with a promise. New York’s lottery motto is, “Hey, ya never know.” Yes you do. You know you’re going to lose. It is a sucker’s bet – put on by the government no less. What they promise is wholeness if you win a lot of money. Do you know what happens to the most of the winners of the lottery? They are made miserable by the endless requests for money. Many mismanage things. It destroys more lives than it helps. And this is say nothing of the legions of losers – families ruined, livelihoods lost, children adrift because of the compulsive gambling of parents.
Despite what the lottery commission says, the lottery cannot give you health.
Our culture promises fulfillment in success. But are successful people happy? If you are not happy before success, you will not be happy if you achieve it. Success never was and never will be the source of happiness and health.
Only God is.
This morning in the TIMES there was an ad for top end and high priced Mont Blanc pens. It said, “Soul-makers” for over a hundred years. Excuse me? Mont Blanc makes fountain pens – over-priced fountain pens - out of silver, gold and platinum – they do not and cannot make souls. God makes souls, and God has been making souls and saving them for longer than one hundred years!
Health, and true joy come not by high jumps, but by bended knees in prayer. Health and fulfillment do not come from getting lots and lots, but from giving of ourselves. Health and satisfaction do not come from serving my ego, but from serving my Lord.
There seem to be two human elements in the healing Jesus does. One is volition and the other is faith. Volition is willingness – desire, wanting to be healed. Thus in today’s healing of the man at the Bethesda pool, Jesus asked, “Do you want to be made well?”
The second element is faith. Healings happen when people have a basic belief. But be careful about this.
I know a true incident where some people who believed God would cure in response to prayer gathered at the bedside of the matriarch of the family who was dying of cancer. They prayed ardently, but the woman was not cured. The family explained that someone in the room did not have enough faith and hence the woman was not healed.
That is not how it works, that is not what we believe. Healing is always God’s grace. And when we approach Jesus for healing and we assess our faith, we might find we come up short! We might be afraid that we lack faith! But that doesn’t stand in the way. Because it is God who gives us faith anyway. Faith is a gift. God will give you what you need.
So when we approach Jesus for healing, we are right to ask him to help our volition and our faith. Jesus make me strong! And that strength and hope that comes in response to that prayer is healing also.
Jesus told the man at the Bethesda pool, “Rise, take up your mat and walk.” Jesus enabled the man to live a new way, the way he was intended to be – in this case physically whole and well, but that is sign that God wants us whole and well and healed within.
Jesus is the great healer. But the healing is in context.
Did you hear about the study done recently to see if prayer actually helps healing? Some studies have given evidence that when people of faith are prayed for, there is a corresponding increase in the speed of their healing. But recently a study was done where one group of patients was prayed for while another was not. Neither group of patients knew whether or not they were being prayed for. Not only was there no correlation between healing and prayer, there seemed to be some slight evidence in the opposite direction.
Well no wonder. Compare that to what the Bible says in James chapter 5, “Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of joy. 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.” Did you see the difference? This prayer (that James is talking about) is no cold, distant, blind study, where people don’t even know they are being prayed for. These prayers for healing are in community – they are in the church – and the healing prayers come from ordained elders, gifted to pray and bring the healing touch of Jesus Christ, and the prayers come with the anointing of oil. There is nothing magic in the oil – it is not some medication – the healing comes in the touch of the faithful healer who is moved by the Spirit of the living and all-powerful God. Your pharmacy cannot sell this anointing oil to you. Pfizer doesn’t sell, it, nor Merck, nor Bristol-Myers-Squibb. This oil comes from the touch of a human being – an elder – and Jesus Christ through the finger-tip of that elder.
This healing happens in community, where there is faith and mutual accountability and above all – love.
Love.
Are we surprised that some clinical trial using empirically verifiable methods doesn’t yield results? Hardly. Faith yields results – the touch of Jesus through human hands yields results.
So give yourself up to healing, and let yourself be a healer. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Fred D. Mueller
