This Sunday’s gospel reading from Mark 1 is about healing. As I studied it this week preparing for the sermon, I was reminded of the abundance of God’s grace in Jesus healing of Peter’s mother-in-law. Jesus once again demonstrates in this incident that He is “Our Healer of Body and Soul.”
How can you know when you have been healed? That’s seems like an odd question, doesn’t it? For many, the answer is obvious: when the pain is gone, the fever has come down, and the disease is no more, then I’m healed. That alone is sufficient enough for most of us. However, Frank Hegedus says, that “The Gospel gives a better answer. After it says that “The fever left her,” we are told of Peter’s mother-in-law, “and she began to serve them.” As she was healed, she immediately began to serve others. When we are ready to help others in their need and focus once again outside ourselves we will know that we too have been healed.”
Later in the verse 39 of that chapter it says “And He [Jesus] went through out all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.” We have allowed Hollywood to make us think of demons in a certain way. Some demons are emotional challenges in which we also need to experience a healing. So, we also know that we have been healed when we are no longer enslaved to the demons of our hurts and resentments. Those demons are often much more lethal to our well-being than anything Hollywood can conjure up. “Our Healer of Body and Soul” wants to make us whole physically, emotionally, mentally, relationally and spiritually. Praise God!
Now I, like most of you, wish my need for healing was always fulfilled as quickly as Jesus did for Peter’s mother-in-law; but we know from experience that’s just not the case. While I’ve been blessed to experience some wonderful healings in my own life, I also know the healing of others very dear did not happen on this side of eternity. I wish I knew why, but I don’t. And God never promised to operate on our timetable. However, the promise of scripture is “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up on wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.” Evidently, God’s lesson on healing comes with a lesson in patience and so the songwriter wrote, “Teach me Lord, to wait.”
Join us for worship this Sunday, the day before Marriage Equality finally makes it to Alabama. I will be preaching a sermon called “Our Healer of Body and Soul” based on Isaiah 40:28-31 and Mark 1:29-39.
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