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Resurrection As Healing
Mark 5: 25-34
Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. 26 She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.”
29 Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30 Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” 31 And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’”
32 He looked all around to see who had done it. 33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
Acts 3: 1-10
One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon. 2 And a man lame from birth was being carried in. People would lay him daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple. 3 When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. 4 Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” 5 And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them.
6 But Peter said, “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,[a] stand up and walk.” 7 And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. 8 Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. 9 All the people saw him walking and praising God, 10 and they recognized him as the one who used to sit and ask for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
When I was studying to be minister, I did an 11 week intensive course called CPE, clinical pastoral education. It was all about learning pastoral care, how to minister to people in times of illness, loss, crisis. It was held in a hospital in Montreal, with classes in the morning and going on the wards to visit patients in the afternoon.
I'll never forget sitting with a woman who had terminal cancer, there was no chance of recovery. She was very depressed, understandably so. She was francophone and when I asked if could pray with her, she became passionate, and asked me to pray for her “guerison.”
Well, I was stumped, because we had been taught that we could pray for healing, but not for a cure. There's a big difference between the two. A cure is for the body only, healing is for the whole person. But in French, “guerison” is the same word for the two.
So I did my best, praying for healing in her body and soul, for healing in her family and in her life in general. I wasn't sure she was satisfied, but when I talked about it with my supervisor, she was satisfied. She said praying for physical healing only wouldn't have honored our role or the woman's deeper needs. Hopefully I had opened her mind to the possibility that healing was more than physical.
There are many stories of healing in the Bible, and like I learned in my course, it's always more than physical. In the Bible there's a strong connection between healing and salvation, in fact, the word for salvation in Greek, sozo, also means healing, just as the word for saviour also means healer.
We see that greater meaning of healing in both stories for today. In the gospel story, the woman has been bleeding for years. This condition makes her unclean, unacceptable in Jewish society, completely excluded and marginalized.
She is so desperate to be healed that she takes things into her own hands and sneaks up to Jesus in the crowd, thinking that if she can just touch the edge of his robe, she'll be healed. And sure enough, it works! Physically she is healed.
Then comes the reaction, Jesus is aware that something has happened. He asks, who touched me? Terrified, the woman comes forward. To her great surprise, instead of chastising her, Jesus praises her, saying that her faith has made her well.
She has been healed physically because the bleeding has stopped. The end of the bleeding means she is no longer unclean, so this heals her socially, she can now rejoin her society. And by praising her in front of the crowd, Jesus gives her life new possibility, she is no longer an unclean woman, but a woman whom Jesus praised for her faith.
That's a form of resurrection, isn't it. New life for a woman who previously had no hope, who was doomed to live in darkness and isolation on the fringes of her society.
We see multiple layers of healing in the story from Acts as well. It's hard to believe that Peter and John are the same men who hid away during the crucifixion and after the resurrection, uncertain of what was happening, terrified of being seen and known as followers of Jesus.
Healing was what Jesus was known for probably more than anything else, it was a sign of the Spirit being present in him, a sign that people could see and appreciate. For Peter and John to be able to heal is a powerful sign that God's spirit was very present in them as well, that they have taken on the ministry of Jesus. This story shows they are healing from their grief, being reborn as followers of Jesus in ways they never would have dreamed of while Jesus was still with them in bodily form.
For the lame man, healing brings him new life. As a cripple he had no way of supporting himself except through begging. He was seen as being sinful, disability was considered a sign of sin in those days, either his own or his parents or both. Like the woman with her bleeding, this meant he was excluded from society, even from the Temple where he lay begging at the gate, as disabled people were not allowed in the temple. Once he is healed, the story tells us that he entered the temple with Peter and John – for the first time in his life.
Resurrection as healing helps us overcome the barriers in our lives to full living, which far more often are emotional or societal barriers than physical ones.
I was thinking about all of this, resurrection and healing, as I walked along the beach the other day. It's my favorite place for meditation and prayer. For some reason, I started thinking about sea glass, which we don't see much of on the beaches around here. I thought about how beautiful it is, how I miss seeing it.
Then I realized, sea glass begins life as a bottle, a whole bottle, complete, with a particular role in life as a bottle. And then something happens, it could be anything, and it is broken, shattered, into pieces so small there is no way it can be repaired or ever continue life as a bottle.
If this broken glass were on land, we would just throw it in the garbage, but at sea something amazing happens. The pieces of glass are tossed and turned in the waves, ground into the sand and rock, and over time, years often, they are changed from useless, broken glass into smooth, beautiful sea glass.
Sometimes we feel broken, don't we? We feel shattered, useless, unable to continue as we are. I felt broken last week after the shooting in Nova Scotia. I lived in Nova Scotia for years, I have friends and family there. I had no words to even talk about that terrible event.
But as I thought about sea glass the other day, I started to feel a small flicker of comfort. I realized the people of Nova Scotia are like sea glass. They are used to being tossed and turned by life and know how to keep going and trust that God is with them and that healing and new life will come around in time.
They're like this cross, made from Nova Scotia sea glass. They come together, with their brokenness and their scars, and they work and they pray and together they are whole, together they are the body of Christ, they are a source of healing and resurrection for one another.
There is no way to make sense of that shooting, just like there is no way to make sense of this covid crisis. But that doesn't mean there can't be healing, that there can't be new life through and after these incredibly difficult events.
Spiritual writer LaVera Crawley puts it this way: “To heal from our suffering—not merely to ease or palliate it, but to transform it into the source and substance of our growth and wisdom—requires a journey through it. There are no short cuts.”
This is not an easy process by any means. The problem with transformation is that we can't see it happening. Sea glass has no idea what's going on as it's being tossed around by waves and keeps hitting rocks. In the same way, transformation often just feels painful and uncomfortable and we really wish it would end.
And that's okay, we don't all have to be models of patience and faith in order to be transformed. I would say that for most of us healing and transformation is an experience where we spend most of our time kicking and screaming, with occasional moments of clarity where we realize something greater is going on within us.
That is particularly the case right now. People are tired, cranky, depressed.
You may find you forget things, lose track of what day it is, overreact to things that usually wouldn't be a problem, just get very sad. All of this is normal and it is so important to be gentle with ourselves and with one another. Remember Dr. Bonnie Henry, be calm, be kind, be safe.
Resurrection as healing is very needed right now, but it will take time, there is no quick fix. We need to allow ourselves to feel sad, to feel grief, to name things that we miss. There's a difference though between naming things & praying about them, and dwelling on them to the point that it becomes unhealthy.
Are there any fans of Game of Thrones out there? Remember how Arya used to name all the people she had grudge against before going to sleep and vow to kill them all? That would be an example of an unhealthy approach to processing grief and loss.
A healthy approach is naming your losses and pain in conversation with people you trust and feel safe with, naming them in prayer, and asking God to help you process them, recognizing how they have affected you and hurt you, and looking for ways to heal. It's a tough balancing act between naming and dwelling.
But it's amazing how asking God to help you deal with these things, consciously handing them over to God – however you understand God - can bring relief and hope, which is what resurrection as healing is all about.
I find myself doing that regularly these days. I start to get that panicky feeling in my chest, my stomach clenches, and I think I can't deal with all of this! Work is completely different, I can't plan for future, the whole world in pain and suffering.
And then I think, wait a minute, I don't have to carry all this on my own, I breathe in deep, and say okay God, please help me-- and I can physically feel the burden being lifted, my chest loosening, my stomach calming.
Want to leave you with the image of the sea glass cross.
We are going through sea glass time, a time of being broken and tossed and turned, battered by sand and rocks – but this image reminds us that we are also going through a time of transformation and that healing is happening even if we can't see or feel it right now.
Most of all this image reminds us that we are not alone, that we are together on this journey of searching for resurrection through transformation and healing. Together we form the body of Christ and that means we have the ability to offer healing to one another and that if we reach out, we can experience God's guidance and compassion and powerful presence through one another.
May this Easter season be a time of resurrection, of healing and transformation for us all. Amen.