Well, it ain’t much really, but here is my meditation on healing for today.  Hopefully my words will be buttressed by the liturgy of healing that will follow my message, and which is the heart of the worship service for today anyway.

The texts for the sermon can be found in this post.

Today I want to focus upon healing.
Now I know the idea of healing gives many people reason to pause,
and it’s easy to understand why.
You only have to turn on your TV or radio to find any number of preachers who claim to have the gift of healing.
Some of them may even ask you to touch the TV or radio as they pray and to expect a miracle.
Just believe, they say, and you will be healed.
Others might ask you to send for a special prayer cloth guaranteed to bring healing for whatever ails you.
I once heard one radio preacher ask his listeners to send for their very own special anointing oil key chain,
filled to the brim with olive oil straight from the Holy Land.
To be honest, there are way too many hucksters out there,
trying to make a buck and a name for themselves,
while taking advantage of people too gullible for their own good.

And because of the nature of healing,
this is easy for some people to pull off.
After all, look at story of Paul and Barnabas we read in Acts.
Here two legitimate disciples and healers are considered gods by the good people of Lystra,
who would have offered sacrifices to them if Paul and Barnabas hadn’t stopped them from doing so.

People with less ethical standards can and do take advantage of those who sincerely desire healing in their lives or in the lives of those they love.
My list of these modern day hucksters would include Pat Robertson,
who loves to tell his TV viewers that there is someone out there in TV land with this or that specific illness or problem,’
and that even as he squints his eyes in prayer,
God is in the process of healing them.
And then there’s Benny Hinn.
As you can see from the photos,
if there is anyone out there with a worse haircut than mine,
that person would be Benny Hinn.
Hinn has a penchant for waving his hands over people or swiping his coat in front of a crowd,
and lo and behold, they are slain in the Spirit and supposedly healed of their diseases all in one fell swoop, so to speak.
Of course, an HBO documentary on Hinn a few years ago,
was unable to verify even one of the Benny’s many “healings,”
but that has not stopped him from becoming one of the wealthiest ministers in the world, with his own private jet, several multi-million dollar homes,
and a yacht, if I am not mistaken.

And then there’s Kenneth Hagin, who died in 2003.
Hagin was an influential American Pentecostal preacher,
and he is often referred to as the “father” of the “Word of Faith” movement,
which basically teaches that if Christians have enough faith,
they can be healed of any disease.
In my research on faith healing this week I found the following on a website.
In response to some who had written him, saying things like,
“Brother Hagin, when you laid hands on me, I felt the power go through me just like electricity. It went all over me. For days I was perfectly all right, but now every symptom has come back on me, and I’m worse than I ever was. Can you help me?”

“Thank God, I can. Thank God, I can,” Hagin tells them. “You see, you were healed on somebody else’s faith, or by a manifestation of the Spirit of God. You didn’t have any foundation of the Word of God in you to help you keep your healing.”

Hagin goes on to say,
The minute the first symptoms show up, [these people] say, “I thought the Lord healed me. I guess He didn’t.” And when they say that, they open the door to the devil. Instead of rising up and meeting the devils with the Word of God and commanding his power to be broken, they yield. Why? Because they have no foundation of God’s Word in their lives. They are depending on other to carry them on their prayers and faith.”
“That might work temporarily, but a permanent healing will be based on their own faith. No one can maintain a healing which has come as a result of another’s faith.”

So in other words, if your healing at the hands of Brother Hagin didn’t take,
it’s all your fault for not believing hard enough.
You just didn’t have enough faith.

I wish he had been there to tell my Aunt Marie something like that when my Uncle Walter was dying of cancer.
Aunt Marie was and is a woman of deep faith and conviction,
and though she prayed for Walter’s healing constantly for months,
he was never cured of his disease and he died a slow and painful death.
If Brother Hagin had said that all she or Walter needed for him to be healed was more faith,
I believe that Aunt Marie would’ve have been tempted to smite that man up side his head with her big, heavy, leather bound King James Version Bible.
Then Hagin would have been the one in need of healing instead of Walter.

So Why bother?
Why not just forget about healing.
Why not leave it alone and say that it was just something that happened in Bible times, but that it doesn’t have anything to do with our lives or world today?
Well, we don’t do this because the ministry of healing was an essential part of Jesus’ ministry, life and teaching,
and further, he gave that same ministry to his disciples.

For instance, if you spend just a few moments reading your Bible,
you’ll be overwhelmed by the amount of healing that takes place within it.
Almost one quarter of the gospels are devoted to stories about healing.
And it’s not just Jesus either.
When Jesus sends the 12 disciples out to do ministry in Matthew 10
he says to them:
Go and proclaim, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’
Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.”
And later in Luke, when the 70 are sent out,
Jesus tells them,
“ Heal the sick in it and say to them,
‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’”
Further, on three separate occasions in his letter to the church at Corinth,
Paul lists healing as one of the gifts of Holy Spirit to Christians.

And there is no reason for us to believe that this biblical emphasis on healing no longer applies to Jesus’ disciples today,
We too, need to be concerned about healing.
And while this doesn’t mean we have to imitate those on the TV or radio,
it does mean that we need to open ourselves up to the possibilities of healing and of being healed.

Part of our problem is that we don’t understand what healing is really about.
We tend to see it as a nothing more than “cure” for some disease or illness,
when in fact the word used for healing by Jesus and throughout the New Testament means so much more.
For instance, in our gospel lesson today Jesus doesn’t ask the man if he wants to be healed.
Instead he uses the word hugies (hoog-ee-ac

e) which literally means whole.
For Jesus then, healing has much more to do with wholeness of one’s body, mind, and soul than it does with curing sickness.
And we should understand healing in the same way.

One preacher has said,
When I think about it,
I’ve known people who were deeply healed even when they were very sick. There was a man who taught me how to pray while he was dying of AIDS; his devotion to God was so deep and powerful that it changed my life.
There was a friend of mine battling brain tumors for 30 years who spread the joyful power of the gospel every day of her life.
[And then] there is Archbishop Desmond Tutu,
battling prostate cancer as we speak,
who nonetheless still manages to climb a pulpit on Sunday mornings and proclaim a gospel that will rattle your bones.

On the other hand, a person can be cured of a disease and still not be healed, not be whole.
We see this in today’s gospel.
The man at the pool of Bethsaida was cured of his disease,
but he wasn’t made whole.
In fact, he refused Jesus offer of wholeness.
You remember what happened.
When he is found carrying his mat,
the man is interrogated by the religious leaders,
who want to know who it was that healed him.
A little later on when he runs into Jesus,
these are the words that Jesus says to him,
“See, you have been made well!
[But] do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.”

But what does the man do?
He promptly turns around and rats Jesus out to the authorities,
which in turn leads to the religious leaders’ intensified persecution of Jesus.
The man in John 5 was cured of his disease,
but he not made whole in the biblical sense at all.
Getting over the flu or being cured of some disease might make us feel better,
but these cures won’t necessarily make us better people;
in fact they might free us to become even bigger pains in the rear end of others than we were when we were sick.
For you see, healing is first and foremost about wholeness,
physical and spiritual wholeness.

And when we understand healing in this way,
we come to understand every person here,
indeed, everyone we know,
is in need of some healing,
There is not one person who is completely whole.
Everyone we know needs to feel the true healing touch of Jesus in his or her life.
Of course, the lie we often tell ourselves is that everyone is well and whole except for us, but in reality we are all dis-eased,
whether physically or spiritually.
And if this is true,
the question for today is simply this:
Is there healing here for us?

Now there are things I don’t know, things I cannot know.
Like why are some cured while others are not.
But there are a couple of things that I can say with confidence.
First, I know that God’s desire for us is for wholeness, not brokenness.
In fact, the Bible tells us that this is God’s desire for all of creation –
That’s part of what John sees in his vision in Revelation:
As John says:
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city.
On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month;
and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
Nothing accursed will be found there any more.
But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it,
and his servants will worship him;
they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.
And there will be no more night;
they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light,
and they will reign forever and ever.

Second, I believe that we, as the church, can be an instrument of God’s healing power to bring about wholeness.
We can be a tool in the hands of the Great Physician –
not by selling cures or claiming to be mysterious faith healers.
But by creating a church that offers hope and belonging,
by being a people of prayer,
a haven that helps connect people to the God of love.
This church can be a place where we are strengthened in our relationship to God, where we are restored in our connection to our neighbor,
and where we are renewed in community.
We can be the waters of God’s love into which those in need of healing can immerse themselves;
we can offer the touch that brings hope and healing to broken lives.
Is there healing here for us?
Yes, yes, there is.
And so I invite you this morning to consider whether there is some area of your life or another’s life that is in need of healing.
Perhaps there is anger that has damaged your spirit,
maybe a sense of guilt and a need for forgiveness;
perhaps you are struggling with a physical health issue,
or maybe you are feeling isolated, separated from any sense of community.
Some of you may have broken relationships or feel overwhelmed by stress.
But whatever is that is keeping you from being whole,
I want you to bring it to God this morning.
I cannot promise you a cure,
but I do believe that God will offer you healing and wholeness.

My friends, that is the gospel for us this morning.
That in Christ we can find forgiveness for our sins,
life for a death-filled world,
and healing and wholeness for ourselves and others.
It is our mission and our ministry to share this good news to all we meet,
even to ourselves -
to our own hearts and minds.