Healings & boats & nor’westers
Yesterday we had a conversation around “Jesus as Healer” at Sol Café. It’s part of our continuing journey through the gospel of Matthew. It is a topic that is rather close to my heart, as some of you who know me are aware. Who is this Healer, how does he heal?
It has been said that we Christians have a great “theology” of healing. Pray, have faith, trust in this good Father God who wants only the best for his children. The Scriptures are full of the miracles of Jesus.
It has also been said that we have a lousy “theology” of not being healed.
When we first found out that our daughter SJ had a number of “issues”, “difficulties” (or whatever other euphemism you want to use), we prayed for healing. We asked others to pray for healing. It didn't’t come. There were any number of bits of “Christian advice” on the topic we received from different well meaning folks. Let me recount just a few, as a bit of a model of what not to do if you are trying to help:
1] “Just pray Jabez”. I’m not kidding – I actually had one person tell me that the whole thing would be fine if I would just pray the prayer of Jabez into the situation. Not sure exactly what that was about. I suppose it is about “Magic” – with the right formula of words we can cast a spell on God and force him to act the way we want.
2} “Have more faith”. Those who are dealing with sickness, disease and death do not need the added pressure of having the “quantity of their faith” measured and declared insufficient for the purposes at hand. It also removes grace from healing – making healing dependent upon the number of litres of faith I happen to have, and if I need more faith, somehow I can just top up my spiritual engine with a few quarts of high grade at a whim.
The threads weaving together in my mind are also tied up with yesterday’s reading about Jesus and Peter and the storm and walking on water. I spent a number of years on the East Coast of Canada; I’ve done a bit of sailing. I’ve been out there when the sea turns rough and the spray begins to blow and the visibility grows shorter by the minute. You wonder why the disciples cried out in terror when they saw Jesus walking on the sea? He was not walking on a calm little pond in someone’s backyard – he was walking on swells, in spray and mist in the dead of night. I’ve seen a storm or two on the water, and I’ve seen the sea on which He walked.
It is hard to recognize Jesus in the dead of night, in the midst of the storm, when the waves are chopping and the boat itself is barely a place of “safety”. The boat is a place of frantic activity – doing all you can to keep going, turning the bow into the waves at 90 degrees so you can cut through the chop; every shift of wind wants to turn you broadside – with the threat of capsizing.
It’s hard to recognize Jesus in the storm.
Recent Comments