The Ultimate Healing

[This was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, earlier today.]

Mark 5:21-44

Today’s message is a re-run, slightly modified. It addresses an important topic and got many comments when I shared it three years ago. A friend of mine once said, “If the Holy Spirit inspired you to preach something, there’s a good chance that it’s still worth preaching.” That seems especially true of this message.

Some people read or hear passages like our gospel lesson for today and ask why the God we know in Jesus doesn't heal people today? One guy asked me, “When did God stop performing miracles?” The answer, of course, is that He’s never stopped. God still does miracles. The God we know in Jesus Christ still heals.

And the empirical evidence for that seems to increase all the time. 

In an October 25, 1999 article of The Archives of Internal Medicine, seven physicians, a hospital chaplain, a social worker, and a scholar associated with leading hospitals from around the country, presented the findings of their research on the connection between intercessory prayer—prayer offered on behalf of others--and the recovery of coronary patients. (I have a particular interest in this, as you can imagine.) 

The researchers set up what’s known as a “double blind” experiment on those recovering from heart problems. There were 990 patients in the study. Prayers were said for some of them. Prayers were not offered for the others. The doctors treating the patients didn’t know who was chosen to be prayed for and the subjects of the prayers didn’t know either. 

But a list of first names was given to people in local churches who prayed for those on the list each day. Neither the people doing the praying, nor the people being prayed for, nor the researchers knew who had been chosen to be the target of prayer. 

And what happened? Those for whom prayers were offered recovered more quickly. As the researchers put it in the conclusion of their abstract, “This result suggests that prayer may be an effective adjunct to standard medical care.”

Now, if this were an isolated study, it wouldn’t mean much. But in recent decades, literally hundreds of objective scientific studies, conducted at major hospitals and universities, have been done looking into the connection between things like faith, prayer, and worship attendance on the one hand and healing and health on the other. The results are stunning.

A few examples: 

A 1972 study of 91,909 people in Washington County, Maryland “found that those who attended church once or more a week had significantly lower death rates from…coronary-artery disease (50 percent reduction), emphysema (56 percent reduction), cirrhosis of the liver (74 percent reduction), suicide (53 percent reduction).”

“A 1978 study of 355 men in Evans County, Georgia showed that those who attended church one or more times per week had significantly lower blood-pressure readings than individuals who attended church less often. The positive link between church attendance and lower blood pressure held up even if the church attenders were smokers!”

Many of you in this sanctuary this morning would affirm that the God we know in Jesus Christ is still in the healing business. I can’t possibly count how many times I’ve had people tell me, “I can feel the prayers people are offering for me.” 

Certainly, God uses doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals to bring His healing. And I thank God for them. But, as study after study has confirmed, their efforts are enhanced by prayer.

Many health care professionals know this. One surgeon I met years ago made a point of asking when I would be joining the patient he was operating on for prayer before surgery. “I want to be there when you pray,” he told me. “And would you please pray for me, too?” I was happy to do that.

It’s not uncommon for medical personnel to ask if they can join me when I pray with church members before their surgeries. One morning, as I visited for prayer with a Living Water member, the family and I were asked by both the surgeon and the anesthetist if we would pray with them. So, we had two prayers before the procedure!

After I'd had a heart attack eight years ago, it was determined that I had a 100% blockage in the left anterior descending artery. (Cardiologists have a nickname for that blockage. They call it "the widowmaker.") Two weeks after the attack, I was in the Cath Lab at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus. I was awake during the procedure, of course. As it unfolded, my cardiologist told me, "I found," referring to the blockage, "but I don't know if I can get through it." "Oh," I told him and those assisting him, "I pray you can." I had visions of otherwise having to undergo open heart surgery, which some of you have had. A few moments later, the doctor told me, "I got it, buddy." "Thank God!" I said, and addressing everyone in the room, "And thank all of you." "No," my doctor told me. "Just thank God."

The God we know in Jesus Christ would still be God, still loving, still powerful, even if "the widowmaker" had killed me eight years ago. But I'm convinced that he spared me death then so that I could be here this morning and to do whatever else He has in mind for me to do to spread the Gospel and give Him glory.

God is still in the healing business. In his book, The Faith Factor, Dr. Dale A. Matthews tells the true story of Barbara, who suffered from cancer. Barbara was in worship one Sunday at the Anglican church she attended when the priest read our gospel lesson for this morning, including the account of the woman who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years. Barbara considered how the woman had so much faith in Jesus that she thought to herself, “If only I touch the hem of His garment, I will be healed.” And her faith in Jesus was rewarded; she was healed. 

As Barbara prepared to go to the altar to receive Holy Communion, a thought crossed her mind: “I could be like her.” She looked at her priest who was, she thought, “standing in” for Jesus as He presided over the Eucharist. “She decided that she would touch the priest’s robe when he gave her the communion wafer.” 

As Barbara tells it: “I touched his robe, and [unlike Jesus] he couldn’t have known that I did, though he did know about my cancer. He did something in that moment that I had never seen him do before: he put down the paten with the communion wafers and came over to me; laying both hands on my head, he prayed for my healing.”

Barbara wasn’t healed instantly. But she knew that God was healing her. As she explains it, though at that point her healing wasn’t physical, her heart was healed. “I had complete trust in God and his love, something [God] knew I needed far more than any other kind of healing at the moment.”

Of course, you and I know that not everyone for whom we pray is healed. Other than Jesus, Who rose from the dead, the ratio of births to deaths in this world remains 1:1. 

Even more than that, Pastor Mark Dahle, a Lutheran pastor who has written and spoken about his California congregation’s healing ministry, reminds us, everybody for whom we pray will eventually die. We live in a fallen and imperfect world. Death comes, as does suffering of all kinds. Faith in Jesus is no insurance policy against the reality of living in a dying world.

So, why did Jesus raise Jairus’ daughter from the dead and the woman with the long-standing hemorrhaging in today’s Gospel lesson? Why does Jesus heal today?

We get at least one answer to that question from an interchange that happens between Simon Peter and Jesus before dawn, the day after Jesus healed Simon’s mother-in-law. The disciples had been frantic to find Jesus, Who had gone off for some quiet time with God the Father, so that He could go back into the town He’d preached, taught, and healed in the day before. But Jesus tells them, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” (Mark 1:38) [Emphasis mine]

For Jesus, healing was never an end. It was only a means. 

John’s Gospel constantly refers to Jesus’ healings and other miracles as signs. Signs point to something more significant, more meaningful than themselves. 

The miracles of Jesus point us to the simple, powerful fact that Jesus has power over life, death, suffering, disease, sin, the devil, our sinful selves, and every other one of our enemies.

What Jesus came to do during His time on earth was, through His words, life, death, and resurrection, share a plain message, one that will change our lives forever if we let it. Jesus puts it this way in Mark 1:15: “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” 

Jesus says, in effect, “Turn from sin—repent—and trust in Me to give you life forever—fuller life today and totally new, restored life in eternity with God.”

Jesus’ miracles assure us that it’s safe to do that, to turn from our favorite sins, our abiding fears, our need for control, and to simply, completely trust in Him. 

If Jesus has control over life and death, do you really think that He’s going to lose you? 

Or lose His Church? 

Or lose the eternity He won on the cross for you and guaranteed by His resurrection from the dead? 

Repent. Trust. That’s Jesus’ message in a nutshell. 

Its validity and power to change a life for eternity are underscored by HIs miracles, by His suffering death on our behalf, and by His resurrection.

Jesus once asked an important question. “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” [Matthew 16:26] Today’s lesson, I think, asks a similar question: “What good is it to have perfect health, but not have life with God?” "What good is it to have everything you want in this world, but not have life with God?"

Jesus Christ heals. And, by the power of His death and resurrection, the ultimate healing, the one that matters for all eternity, is the healing of our broken relationships with God, with others, and with ourselves. The healing that Christ brings to those who repent and believe in Him will be our joy for all eternity. 

The daily lifestyle of "repent and trust," what Luther called "daily repentance and renewal," can also, even now, be our comfort, our strength, our hope, our power, our reason for waking up in the morning with faith and peace instead of fear and apprehension. I hope that sounds as good to you as it does to me. Amen

[I am the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

The Blessed Life

Matthew 5:1-12
The beatitudes found in Matthew 5:1-12, our gospel lesson for today, are often misunderstood. They're often seen as a list of virtues we need to pursue. But that isn't really what they're about at all.

In them, Jesus isn’t saying, “Act this way and you’ll be saved.” Instead, He’s saying, “Because You have been saved by God’s grace through faith in Me, this is how You’ll be set free to live.”

The beatitudes show us what disciples set free from sin, death, and the darkness of this world, look like.

Disciples, Jesus will say repeatedly to us today, lead blessed lives. Scholars tell us that the word we translate as blessed, makarios, means to be favored by God. This blessed life is connected to having faith in the God we meet in Christ. To live in a faith relationship with Christ is to be blessed, now and in eternity. That doesn't mean that everything in this life will go well. Remember that Jesus has told us: "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).

But in Revelation 14:13, part of John’s vision of heaven, we’re also told: “‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ‘Yes,’ says the Spirit, ‘they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.’”

According to Jesus, the blessed life depends entirely on faith in Him. So, let’s look at Jesus’ portrait of how He blesses the lives of disciples.

Matthew writes: “Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him and he began to teach them. He said: ’Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’”

When people spoke of being poor in first century Judea, just like today, it meant to be without, to be impoverished or beggarly. But Jesus here (unlike in Luke’s gospel, where Jesus' sermon on the plain is recorded) says that those who are "poor in spirit” are the blessed ones. What does it mean to be “poor in spirit”?

It means to be utterly dependent on God’s grace. It means to have no pretense of personal perfection.

In a parable in Luke 18, Jesus shows what unpretentious dependence on God's grace this looks like. Two men go to the temple. One is a Pharisee, who tells God: “I thank You I’m not like other people,” then goes on to catalog all the rotten things other people do and lists the good things he does. But Jesus says that in the temple is a tax collector, a member of a class of people known for their shifty ways and their vast wealth. The tax collector, Jesus says, is so humble before God that he can’t lift his eyes toward heaven and prays simply, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Jesus says in Luke 18:14: “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Despite his wealth, the tax collector was “poor in spirit.” We are poor in spirit when we recognize that we’re nothing without God, that we desperately need the crucified and risen Jesus to justify our existences.

Arrogance leads to hell; humble faith in Christ yields everlasting life with God.

Verse 4: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

The word translated as comforted is, in the original Greek in which Matthew wrote, paraklethesontai. It means to come close beside or to call, encourage, or exhort from nearby. To me, it brings to mind the image of a coach like John Wooden, his hand on the shoulder of a player, either exhorting him to do better or encouraging him to buck up under the weight of it all.

This word translated as comforted is related to one of the words that Jesus uses for the Holy Spirit, Paraclesis, the Comforter.

When disciples grieve over loved ones lost (or over any loss), the Holy Spirit comforts them with the promises of God, promises authenticated by Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Promises like: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you." [Deuteronomy 31:6]

Or, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” [John 11:25-26]

Christians grieve their losses, of course. But we “do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.” [1 Thessalonians 4:13] Even in our mourning, we are blessed, favored, by the reality that the Savior in Whom we trust has secured everlasting life for all who turn from sin and follow Him. That’s true comfort!

Verse 5: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”

The word translated as meek doesn’t mean weak. To be meek is to be gentle, reserved, to exhibit God’s strength under God's control. Picture a jet engine that possesses enormous power. But that power is harnessed for the the purpose of carrying people or goods from one place to another. Jet engines are, except in tragic situations, subject to the will and the dictates of the pilots who fly them and the engineers who design them.

Meekness is like that. Jesus' disciples--you and I who believe in Jesus Christ--are filled with the power of God. But God calls us to only use that power for His purposes, according to God's will.

When the meek brag, it's only to brag about how good God is. Paul exhibits meekness in 2 Corinthians 11:30 when he writes: “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.” Paul knew that God shines through, not our arrogance, but our weaknesses.

The meek don’t bully or gossip. They don’t need to play those games: The meek are confident of their place in God’s kingdom because they know what Christ has done for them and they place their total trust in Christ.

The meek look out for others because they know that God is already looking out for them.

Our world, our country, and our churches would be better off if there were more people who lived out the meekness of Christian discipleship.

Verse 6: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

There is nothing a disciple of Jesus Christ more craves than being in a right relationship with the God revealed in Jesus. It's to give us and to keep giving to us that relationship that Jesus tells us to “repent and believe in the good news” of new life through Him. [Mark 1:15]

It’s why daily repentance and renewal--daily midcourse correction--is to be part of the Christian’s life.

Those who hunger and thirst for rightness with God pray with the psalmist: “Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.” [Psalm 25:4-5]

This is the disciple's prayer because disciples want nothing to stand between them and God. In Psalm 73:25, Asaph confesses to God: “earth has nothing I desire besides you.”

This is why a daily quiet time with God, in which we repent for our sins, read and reflect on God’s Word as it applies to us each day, and ask for God’s help has become like breathing for many Christians. It helps to satisfy the disciple’s longing for God!

Verse 7: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”

To be merciful is to be compassionate, living in the light of what God has done for us in Christ. The disciple says, “Because God is eternally merciful to me through Jesus Christ, I will be merciful to my neighbor.”

Verse 8: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”

Disciples pray with King David: “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” [Psalm 51:10] To be pure in heart is to be a sinner covered in the forgiveness God makes available to us only through Jesus.

Disciples know the truth of Acts 4:12, which says of Jesus: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”

Verse 9: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

From the perspective of heaven, a peacemaker isn’t someone who negotiates the ends of wars, important though that is. A peacemaker isn't someone who refuses to argue because, truly, there are some things worth arguing about.

To understand what Jesus means when He talks about being a peacemaker, we have to understand the Bible's understanding of peace.

Peace, or shalom in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, eirene in the Greek of the New Testament, is peace with God.

To have peace is to be in sync with God and His will.

We lay down our rebellion against God’s will.

We accept the Lordship of Jesus over our lives.

We accept that, as our Maker and Redeemer, the God we know in Jesus has every right to tell us what do in our relationships, our work, our leisure, our money, even our sex lives.

Peacemakers are ambassadors for Christ. One scholar says that a peacemaker “bravely declares God’s terms [for peace] which makes a person whole.”

Those terms are simple: Repent and believe in Christ.

Paul says that God “has committed to us the message of reconciliation [or peace with God]. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.” [2 Corinthians 5:19-20] Peacemakers are evangelists, witnesses for Christ. That’s what peacemakers do.

Verses 10 to 12 tell us: “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

It seems a strange thing for Jesus to say that we are blessed or enjoy God’s favor when we’re persecuted. We think that we’re blessed when everything goes our ways. But sometimes the things we want, the things that we’re sure are what’s best for us, aren’t the things that God says are best for us. “‘...My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD” in Isaiah 55:8.

Our ways are often easy, selfish, self-destructive.

But God’s ways always lead us life, to becoming our better selves. Jesus calls disciples to take an eternal view of things.

“What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” Jesus asks [Matthew 16:26]

The world may applaud or even reward people for being self-promoting egotists. But all the money and security this world may give to those looking out for number one will vanish the moment we draw our last breaths.

And eternity is a terrible place to go without God!

Sometimes, those who follow Jesus are persecuted or put down for their faith. They may lose their lives. They may have to make sacrifices of their time, money, or status with others. They may run into opposition when they tell others about Christ, read God’s Word, pray in public places, stand against injustice, fight on behalf of those who can’t fight for themselves, feed or house the homeless, or welcome those hated by others. But Peter, one of the first to hear Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, writes: “...if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God.” [1 Peter 2:20]

Disciples know that the God Who has saved us from sin and death through Jesus Christ will have the final say in our lives. We are blessed!

Let’s pray each day that God will help us to display God’s grace and goodness through lives devoted to loving God, loving neighbor, sharing Christ, and making disciples. Around here, we call all of that reaching up, reaching in, and reaching out. That’s the blessed life for which Christ has saved us.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. This was the message during worship this morning.]

The Joy and Resolve We Get in This Life From the Life to Come

Please read today's installment of Our Daily Bread. It's built around nine verses of the New Testament book of Hebrews' eleventh chapter, sometimes referred to as the "faith hall of fame."

It reminds us that Christians are citizens of a better country. Knowing this helps us see what happens in this life in a realistic way: The world and its "rewards" are of less interest to believers, yet we can care about this world and stand with Christ and for what is right without fear, knowing that we belong to God for eternity!

Death, whether the death of our old ambitions that clash with the will of God or our physical death, is not the worst thing that can happen to a Christian!

Far worse a fate for a Christian than death would be for us to cling to the favor, success, ease, or even physical life that this world offers and lose out on eternity with God because of our failure to faithfully follow Jesus wherever He leads!

This is what Jesus is talking about when He asks, "For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?" (Matthew 16:26)

It's what Paul was talking about when he looked back on the prestige, honor, and ease he had given up to follow Christ and looked ahead to the virtual certainty of martyrdom for believing in Jesus and said:

...whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:7-11)

Of course, this kind of joyful faith cannot come to those for whom the Bible is nothing but fairy tales or the invention of human beings.

A colleague recently reminded a group of us about this key issue recently. "The crisis in the Church today," she told us, "is that people need to decide where they are on the historicity of the Gospel."

By that, she meant that we have to decide if we truly believe the New Testament's proclamation of Jesus or not.

A willingness to believe that Jesus is Who Scripture claims He is--God and human born of a virgin, the Savior of the world, the only means of reconciliation between God and humanity, crucified, risen, ascended, and alive today--is the only way that a saving faith, a faith that rolls with the punches, and a faith that looks with confidence to eternity, can come to us.

Christians who believe, in the words of an old hymn, "I am but a stranger here, heaven is my home," have an enduring faith that cannot be stopped or overcome by a disbelieving world!