Pastor’s Corner – February 2014

Today, we learned that Marsha’s mother has bone cancer.  It is probably  a cancer that spread from her fight with breast cancer some years ago.  Less than a year ago, my father’s battle with dementia ended.  Just a few weeks ago we said goodbye to a very unique woman who was born in 1910.  Yet, our faith tells us that disease and death are not the end.  God gives us life, forever.

We read in the Bible stories of Jesus and the disciples healing the sick, restoring abilities, and reviving the dead.  We carry that hope that something like that could occur today.  We want to see our loved ones cured, whole, and alive.  But is that the point of those stories in the Bible?  Could they be pointing at something deeper?

None of the people in the healing stories in the Bible lived forever.  They all died.  But they were healed!  To be healed is not the same thing as being cured.  When we read the Bible and expect a cure, we miss the glory of being healed.

Disease and death are a part of our existence.  We spend millions fighting these diseases and striving to forestall the advance of aging.  We use dyes and procedures to make us appear younger.  People invest in hours of exercise and training to attempt to keep the body they had in their youth.  We work harder and harder to reverse the march of time which, for you and I, only runs one direction.  We, often without meaning to do so, see people with a disease or a handicap or with a terminal condition as less than.  Yet, these people can be healed even if they cannot be cured.

To be healed is to be at peace within each moment of life.  I read the book The Robe when I was in high school.  I have also seen the movie and find the scene when Richard Burton is speaking to the crippled woman whom Jesus healed.  He couldn’t see her as healed because she couldn’t walk.  She perceived herself as fully healed because she was released from the bitterness of thinking herself less than everyone else due to her injuries.  She was released from anger and bitterness, jealousy of those who could walk, and feelings of being inadequate because she could not stand.  She was made whole, whether or not that wholeness was reflected in her physical condition.

To be healed, we ask God for the grace to accept this day’s gifts, to release the worries about “what if”, and to discover the peace in the confidence that God is ALWAYS WITH US!!!!

Will we be freed from aging, illness, loss?  No, but we will be freed from the weight of attempting to change the inevitable.  Don’t give up.  Treasure the days, weeks, months, and years that God gives.  But also celebrate the knowledge that there is no power or authority in the world that can take us away from God and that we ALL belong to God.  Be healed!

Shalom, Darrell