On Healing

A couple of words that might set with these stories of healing. in context. The gospel begins in the synagogue on a sabbath. From there Jesus and his companions go immediately to the house of Simon and Andrew. And immediately (there it is again, one of Mark's favorite words) they tell Jesus about Simon's mother in law who is crook in bed with a fever. Later that evening when the sun had set we get multiple healings including the driving out of some demons. The phrase ‘when the sun had set’ is significant because it shows that the people were keeping the sabbath. To help or carry an ailing buddy to get healed would have been considered work. So let's have a look at the healing of Simon's mother in law first. Notice please that unlike the exorcisms later on, Jesus doesn’t say anything in this healing;. He heals not with a word, but with a physical action. He simply “came and took her by the hand and lifted her up.

”Sometimes healing is like that. It is not only in the physical action that the most effective healing often occurs. Often silence does its own healing. When there is a child we often touch and hold and hug them, but then somehow as the years flick by we often lose that intimacy. Why? One  of the most painful but understandable reactions to the whole sorry Church child abuse sadness, is that clergy have to be so very careful of showing any physical demonstration of care. I am old enough to remember a time when it was not so. The mistakes of our past have cost us more than just dollars.

The silence of Jesus is also I think symbolic. I strongly suspect that some of our most effective healing is done in silence where it is just a matter of sitting with and being with another. Words sometimes just muck it up. And sometimes it is just OK to say “I am sorry. I don’t know what to say so if you would like I will just sit with you awhile and not say anything”. Simon's mother in law shows her gratitude for her healing by waiting on them. Usually when someone recovers from a fever the process is long, arduous and tedious. What Mark is showing us is that she went from wretched to fit and healthy in a matter of moments. This is no ordinary healing folks. And the word gets out. Is it any wonder then, that as soon as it is spiritually proper, a grab bag of people come crowding around the door, bringing their sick, maimed, halt, blind and possessed to be healed.

There is a curious line where Jesus does not allow the naughty spirits to speak because they know who He is. The identity of Jesus must not be publicly proclaimed … yet. Presumably Jesus speaks to the evil spirits and gives them this directive. So sometimes an authoritative word brings about healing. Sometimes we heal by words that we did not even know we had within us. But dig deeper we understand that only when we know who Christ is, can our demons be expelled. Not just what Jesus does, not just what He can do, but who He is as the Messiah, the Saviour, our companion and Our God.

We should draw great comfort from these miracles for we all need a bit of healing. Hopefully not too much physical healing, but the healing that goes on deep inside. In that place where there are chips and blemishes and things that are not quite right. The bits and pieces of refuse of life that we draw to ourselves. We are not quite perfect, we are not quite as we should be. Clergy are just as good if not better than most, in trying to convince themselves that they are otherwise. The most effective and pastoral healer is the one who knows their flaws and reaches out with a mucky hand to my grubby hands. The grazed knuckles and the bits of skin that have been knocked off are what we have in common. And here's another lovely thing that I know to be true yet have no idea how it all works. We are most healed ourselves when we reach out and offer healing to others.

This process takes us out of ourselves. We may not feel as though we did very much, or we might think that we were a spectacular failure, but in simply being there, being accessible, being amiable, being approachable, we become more like the wounded healer Himself. If we stretched out our pierced hand to others who are wounded, would we not be imitating the Wounded healer himself? The most effective healing is when we bring healing to others. In this story we are the ones who bring others into the Living healing presence of the Master. We help our ailing buddies limp and falter and stumble along, all the time knowing that they are in fact helping us to come into His nearer presence where all are perfected and one in Him.