This Reflection is taken from the Sunday Devotion written by this blogger for Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton, SD on February 07, 2021.
Isaiah 40:21-24, 28-31
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to live in;
23 who brings princes to naught,
and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless.
30 Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted;
31 but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.
Mark 1:29-39
After Jesus and his disciples left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.
REFLECTION
Eternal Savior, come to us.
AMEN
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In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus begins his ministry by being a healer of mind, body, and spirit. Within the first two chapters there are no less than four distinct healing stories and a reference to his healing many others. Somebody who could help heal people of their illnesses, much less cure them, was a rare commodity in Jesus’ day. So many things we take for granted to heal illnesses related to our mental and physical health today were simply unknown to people of Jesus’ day and for almost two thousand years thereafter. They didn’t have hospitals, same day surgery, 24/7 urgent care facilities, or medical clinics and psychiatric services. The physicians that existed were few and largely took care of the rich and powerful. The common person was left to fend for herself and had only access to whatever common sense or home remedies she knew of to treat what ailed her.
When Jesus began healing people, word spread very quickly. A panicked sense of urgency must have been what it was like for those who heard about his healing abilities, then trying to locate where he was, and then crowding-in to have a once in a lifetime opportunity to be cured from something that was incurable. The people-press on Jesus must have been tremendous. It is no wonder then that when the sun went down and people went away for the night, Jesus snuck out in the early morning to find a deserted place to pray in solitude. It is also no wonder that when the sun was up and people were gathering that Peter and the rest of the disciples went out searching for Jesus and when they found him said, “ Everyone is searching for you.”
During this pandemic we have been faced with something that is elusive and, as yet, beyond our control. While there are vaccines available that will hopefully result in a dramatic decrease in the number of cases and put an end to this pandemic, we find ourselves waiting and experiencing a sense of urgency in being able to access something that can save us from this dreaded virus.
Throughout this pandemic our thoughts have been turned to what medicine and governments can do. We wonder if there will be a return to the normal we had or if we will be faced with a new normal. Patience is wearing thin. In all of this wondering and wandering about in the wilderness of “what if’s,” Jesus seems to have gone missing.
We don’t hear much about the need for Jesus in what we’re dealing with. We pray for the sick, the doctors, and those on the front-line of this pandemic. We pray the scientists and those developing vaccines, as we should, but we seem to come short of asking Jesus to come and lend a healing hand in all that ails us. There are times when it would appear that we have called off the search for Jesus.
In these reflections, I have made a point of saying that God goes where we go whether we are aware of it or whether we give credence to God’s presence our lives. While that is true, there remains a spiritual need of ours, a soulful (whole person) need to consciously and intentionally seek God; to search for the healing that Jesus offers because the healing Jesus offers is not a mere physical, mental, or spiritual healing but rather a healing of the whole soul, the whole person.
We don’t have a cure for what ails the whole soul. We don’t have a vaccine against the spiritual malaise that can arise when there is a sense of urgency and our patience wears thin. At times like these, we tend to get lost in our “go-it-alone”mindsets that can delude us into thinking seeking God is a waste of time or the more dangerous mindset that leads people to believe that taking matters into their own hands, including violence against others, is doing what God wants them to do. We followers of Jesus know better.
This morning’s first lesson asks a set of questions that both awakens and invites us to look at the truths we know but frequently choose to ignore and side-step. Isaiah asks, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told to you from the beginning?” Isaiah tells us that God has the power to strengthen us if we but relinquish our desire to go it alone, that “those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles.”
I used to teach a course on the human rights of the mentally ill in which I defined reality as a consensus of perceptions; that what generally identifies someone as dealing with a mental illness is when that person consistently presents a perception or acts in a way that does not coincide with the commonly held consensus of what reality is. Our grasp of reality is not as certain as one might think. We can create a multitude of realities as individuals or as groups of individuals. In fact, history gives recent examples of nations that have created a reality of their own making. Isaiah tells us that there is a reality that pre-existed and prevails over any consensus of reality that we may have. It is no wonder then that many of the prophets and Jesus himself were accused of being insane as he and they frequently upended the consensus of what seemed to be the reality of the time.
One of my favorite healing stories of Jesus is found in the second chapter of the Gospel of Mark. It is the story of Jesus healing a paralyzed man, whose family and friends are so desperate to have him healed that they literally dismantle the roof of the house where Jesus is to lower the man to Jesus because they couldn’t get in through the door because there were so many people trying to see Jesus. When Jesus saw the faith they put into his ability to heal this person, Jesus says, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” That probably wasn’t what this man’s family and friends were thinking Jesus would do or what they wanted him to do.
In the room where Jesus was healing and teaching there were teachers of the Judaic law. The consensus of the time was that an illness such as this man had was the direct result of sin, either his own or a member of his family. When Jesus told this man his sin was forgiven, they thought Jesus was not only mad but also that he was a blasphemer because only God could forgive sins. Jesus questions them, “Is it easier to say to this man your sins are forgiven or to say get up, take your mat, and walk.” With that Jesus heals the man of his paralysis. Jesus healed the whole person, the whole soul.
There is a greater reality than the realities of our making. It is a reality that is interwoven in the narrative of our scriptures. It is a reality that frequently takes to task our sense of the way we think things are or should be. It is the reality grounded in the realm of God, that creating and recreating love of God which is accessible to those who seek it. So let us renew our search for Jesus and for the healing of the whole person and the whole of creation that he offers. After all, we do know because we have heard the Good News. We know there is a healing of what the well-known Gospel hymn calls the sin-sick soul.
Amen.
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Until the next, stay faithful.
Norm
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