The Power to Heal--October 19, 2016
"Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, 'Son, your sins are forgiven.' Now some of the scribes were sitting them, questioning in their hearts, 'Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?' At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussion these questions among themselves; and he said to them, 'Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, Your sins are forgiven, or to say, Stand up and take your mat and walk? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins'--he said to the paralytic--'I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.' And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, 'We have never seen anything like this!'" [Mark 2:3-12]
There are two things you need to know in this day:
(1) You have the power to heal the hurt in someone else that Jesus thinks is the most pressing to deal with.
(2) The Queen does not need your ax-head anymore.
Confused yet?
Ok, let's start with the second one: it turns out that the city of London, yes, in England, pays an annual rent to the Queen of England for several old (and now long-lost) pieces of property with rental arrangements that go back to the 13th century. Nobody knows for sure any more which pieces of land they were, or what is there now. Nevertheless, the tradition persists that every year, representatives of the city of London conduct a "Ceremony of Quit Rents" with the Royal rent-keeper, titled "the Queen's Remembrancer," and the original terms of the rent are paid. For one particular piece of property in the County of Shropshire, the terms are one knife (called a billhook) and one ax. Yep--for eight hundred years, the city of London has been paying, as rent, to the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom, one knife, and one ax, to settle the year's debt in rent for a property that no one can identify any longer. This is true, all true. Silly, but true. And, perhaps just out of appreciation of the sheer tradition of it, the same old debt is collected every year, even though the Queen surely isn't out chopping firewood with her annual ax, and even though nobody in London even knows which piece of moorland in the County of Shropshire they are renting.
It is an old debt that everybody is just so used to having that it is never put away once and for all. Now, all it would take to make this odd little inconvenience of a ceremony go away would be the word of the Crown to say, "We are cancelling this debt," and it would all go away. Alas, the debt persists... and every year another ax is presented to a regent who might well just toss it into a pile with the previous eight hundred.
And there, dear friends, is the rub: for eight hundred years, and for perhaps no other reason that that "we have always done it that way for as long as anyone can remember," a tiny, petty debt is being held onto, rather than being let go of once and for all. Maybe the power of the sheer tradition itself is so strong that the Queen herself doesn't even feel she could stop it all and forgive the debt if she wanted to.
By contrast, as I hinted above, you have the power to heal the hurt in someone else's life that Jesus things is the most glaringly in need of attention. You have the power to speak forgiveness into other people's lives.
That's the detail that jumps out at me from this story early in Mark's Gospel: when the paralyzed man's friends go to all that trouble to lower their friend to Jesus, through a hole in the roof, the first thing Jesus does for the man is to speak forgiveness to him. Forgiveness! As though that were really what needed to be addressed first, and the physical sickness was just a side issue or afterthought!
The connection between forgiveness and healing keeps coming back in the Bible--not that you have to get some official religious pronouncement of forgiveness in order to get God to heal your ailment, but rather that healing the relationships between us (and between us and God, too) is of one piece with the healing of the bodies that are us. These are all part of the same great act of redemption that God is doing: forgiveness and healing, healing and forgiveness.
And while you and I may feel like we don't have the supernatural ability to heal people miraculously like Jesus did, we do have the power to speak God's forgiveness--and our own--to one another. Jesus has given his disciples the authority to announce God's forgiveness far and wide. We do have the power to bring mercy into people's lives, and Jesus himself seems to think that is the most urgent issue of all. We can be the ones who break with all the old silly grudges, whose origins have been long forgotten like the property in the moorland of the County of Shropshire. We can be the ones who tell people trapped in the familiarity of their old debts, "You are free." We can announce to people waiting to hear it that God's forgiveness is for them, too. That power is yours, and the authority of Jesus is behind it.
Sometimes I think we 21st century Christians are afraid to talk much about the power to heal, because we have seen too many tv preachers and religious hucksters before, and we can see how many pretenders out there have solicited donations and taken advantage of people's goodwill by making the false claim that they could supernaturally heal people when in fact they were just snake-oil salesmen. But to take this story seriously is to say that the power of speaking forgiveness into someone's life is a kind of healing, and in fact, it just might be the kind Jesus thinks is most needed. The authority to announce forgiveness is the power to say, "You are free from this debt. You can stop carrying it, like the weight of an ax-head, around with you wherever you go. The Queen is no longer holding this against you. You really are free."
Now, if you knew that you had the God-given power to bring healing to everybody you came across, and you kept it to yourself, that would be a pretty rotten thing to do. If you had the Spirit-given ability to relieve people of the burdens they are carrying, and then chose not to help anyone, that would be a terrible shame and a waste of a holy power. So... what will you do on this day with the divine authority you really have been given? How will you be the voice today that speaks of God's mercy to people who are carrying old burdens and still think they have to pay off old debts that God has already cancelled at the cross? How will you be the one someone else is waiting for who says, "Your sins are already forgiven--you are free to stand up straight now, and walk!" and who says it on the authority of Jesus?
The Queen of England might be too afraid to break with tradition and cancel the old, long-forgotten debts owed to the crown, but you do not have to be too afraid on this day to announce that the Ruler of all creation has already declared a universal pardon. Speak the healing of forgiveness to someone today who needs to hear it.
Lord God, let us be a part of how your grace heals the world--let us be voices of your mercy to someone else today.
By contrast, as I hinted above, you have the power to heal the hurt in someone else's life that Jesus things is the most glaringly in need of attention. You have the power to speak forgiveness into other people's lives.
That's the detail that jumps out at me from this story early in Mark's Gospel: when the paralyzed man's friends go to all that trouble to lower their friend to Jesus, through a hole in the roof, the first thing Jesus does for the man is to speak forgiveness to him. Forgiveness! As though that were really what needed to be addressed first, and the physical sickness was just a side issue or afterthought!
The connection between forgiveness and healing keeps coming back in the Bible--not that you have to get some official religious pronouncement of forgiveness in order to get God to heal your ailment, but rather that healing the relationships between us (and between us and God, too) is of one piece with the healing of the bodies that are us. These are all part of the same great act of redemption that God is doing: forgiveness and healing, healing and forgiveness.
And while you and I may feel like we don't have the supernatural ability to heal people miraculously like Jesus did, we do have the power to speak God's forgiveness--and our own--to one another. Jesus has given his disciples the authority to announce God's forgiveness far and wide. We do have the power to bring mercy into people's lives, and Jesus himself seems to think that is the most urgent issue of all. We can be the ones who break with all the old silly grudges, whose origins have been long forgotten like the property in the moorland of the County of Shropshire. We can be the ones who tell people trapped in the familiarity of their old debts, "You are free." We can announce to people waiting to hear it that God's forgiveness is for them, too. That power is yours, and the authority of Jesus is behind it.
Sometimes I think we 21st century Christians are afraid to talk much about the power to heal, because we have seen too many tv preachers and religious hucksters before, and we can see how many pretenders out there have solicited donations and taken advantage of people's goodwill by making the false claim that they could supernaturally heal people when in fact they were just snake-oil salesmen. But to take this story seriously is to say that the power of speaking forgiveness into someone's life is a kind of healing, and in fact, it just might be the kind Jesus thinks is most needed. The authority to announce forgiveness is the power to say, "You are free from this debt. You can stop carrying it, like the weight of an ax-head, around with you wherever you go. The Queen is no longer holding this against you. You really are free."
Now, if you knew that you had the God-given power to bring healing to everybody you came across, and you kept it to yourself, that would be a pretty rotten thing to do. If you had the Spirit-given ability to relieve people of the burdens they are carrying, and then chose not to help anyone, that would be a terrible shame and a waste of a holy power. So... what will you do on this day with the divine authority you really have been given? How will you be the voice today that speaks of God's mercy to people who are carrying old burdens and still think they have to pay off old debts that God has already cancelled at the cross? How will you be the one someone else is waiting for who says, "Your sins are already forgiven--you are free to stand up straight now, and walk!" and who says it on the authority of Jesus?
The Queen of England might be too afraid to break with tradition and cancel the old, long-forgotten debts owed to the crown, but you do not have to be too afraid on this day to announce that the Ruler of all creation has already declared a universal pardon. Speak the healing of forgiveness to someone today who needs to hear it.
Lord God, let us be a part of how your grace heals the world--let us be voices of your mercy to someone else today.
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