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| "Healing hands" by Päivi Vesala on Flickr |
Isaiah 35:5-8
The Lord will heal the blind and deaf
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then the lame shall leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert;
the burning sand shall become a pool,
and the thirsty ground springs of water;
the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp,
the grass shall become reeds and rushes.
A highway shall be there,
and it shall be called the Holy Way;
the unclean shall not travel on it,
but it shall be for God’s people;
no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.
Luke 4:14-21
Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
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This weekend in worship we are taking a little break from ordinary-time-as-usual, and we are instead celebrating the commemoration of St. Luke, whose feast day is this upcoming Wednesday.
Tradition tells us that Luke was an evangelist, the one to whom we ascribe authorship of the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. Tradition tells us that Luke was a historian, who was concerned in his writings to provide an orderly and, to the best of his ability, accurate account of the life of Jesus and the beginnings of the church. Tradition also tells us that Luke was a physician, according to a reference in Paul’s letter to the Colossians, and there are some scholars who have noted that when you compare Luke’s gospel to other medical documents of the same time, Luke uses decidedly more medical terminology to describe Jesus’s acts of healing than any other gospel writer.
The other thing that we need to remember about Luke is that, unlike other gospel writers, Luke was a Gentile writing for a Gentile audience, which means that for Luke, it is incredibly important that Jesus be known as a savior for all people. Luke is very concerned with painting a picture of a Jesus who is concerned with outsiders and those outside the usual boundaries of society. Both Luke and Acts are concerned with talking about God’s action on behalf of the outcast, the poor, the suffering, and the powerless, and in Luke and Acts, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are always going out of their way open up God’s grace wider and wider.
This is reflected so clearly in the first chapters of Luke’s gospel, where we first see God working through two unlikely women - Elizabeth and Mary - to bring to birth the savior of the world and the voice who would proclaim him. Mary sings of a world turned upside-down, where God will give voice to the powerless and food to the hungry and dignity to those who have been denied it. Mary sings of a world that will be healed and made whole.
So then, when Jesus begins his public ministry in Luke, he does so in the temple, where he is reading from the scroll of Isaiah. He uses the words of the prophets to publicly declare that his mission and ministry will be to bring good news to the poor, to bring release to the captives, to bring recovery of sight to the blind, to bring freedom to the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Jesus, upon whom the Spirit of the Lord has been poured out in abundance, declares himself to be the very one who will heal the world and make it whole.
Sometimes I think that when Christians talk about faith and healing, the wider world is predisposed to think of us as a bunch of weirdos. They get a picture of television faith-healers or of snake-handlers or of naive and mystical people who eschew modern medicine in favor of prayer and laying on of hands. This is some of the damaging stuff that comes out of a narrow understanding of healing as miraculous curing of the body. And I can’t and won’t say that miraculous healing of the body doesn’t happen. But I want to take a cue from Jesus and expand our understanding.
Jesus makes it clear that he offers an expansive definition of healing. Healing is about more than curing bodies. Jesus promises to bring healing to relationships and to society and to politics and to the spiritual and physical wounds caused by injustice and oppression and fear. Jesus promises that healing is not just for those who can afford it or for those who have enough spunk. Jesus invokes Isaiah’s picture of a world renewed, where healing springs up like waters in the desert to the vulnerable, the powerless, the thirsty, and the forlorn.
For Jesus, healing is about the journey as much as it is about the end result. Jesus offers wholeness and peace and healing and hope, even in the midst of the struggle. Jesus shows us that healing is an ongoing business, not a one-time-quick-fix. Jesus, the healer, promises us his soothing and strengthening presence, not just once, not with any expiration date, but each and every day, for the long haul. Jesus promises us healing before we are cured. Jesus promises us healing even if we aren’t cured.
And this is so important to remember, that healing comes to us not as an end point to our grief and pain, or as a “reset” button restoring us to life before our present brokenness. Healing doesn’t erase our human story, the parts of our lives, good and bad, that have shaped us and marked us and changed us. Healing blesses us and blesses our stories. It calls our scars sacred and it calls our weary eyes beautiful and it calls our memories holy. The first grace of healing is the grace of seeing our brokenness and letting our brokenness be seen in front of God and others, without shame, but instead with solidarity and mutual understanding. Healing acknowledges the pain in our selves and the pain in world and then walks us through it. Or, put more differently, Jesus acknowledges and blesses the pain that we know, and Jesus walks us through it...and Jesus will not leave our side.
Grief advocate Megan Devine, reflecting on grief and healing says, “When you are in pain, you don't need to be fixed. You don't need to be labeled as broken, your feelings shoved into codified lists or prescribed stages. You don't need to be pushed to get better fast. What you need are those things — those people, those places, those words — that come up underneath you and give you roots. You need those things that nourish you, that help you do the work your heart already knows how to do. The work it is already doing...Some things cannot be fixed. They can only be carried.”
This is what healing is all about. Not about “fixing” but about being carried in by Christ in our times of trouble. And about carrying one another. And about receiving wholeness and peace even in the midst of the journey.
Jesus has begun the work of healing the world and Jesus continues this work into the future. Wherever there is yet suffering, wherever humans are yet terrible to one another, wherever our creation groans, wherever there is pain, wherever we weep, wherever we pull the covers over our heads because we can’t face the day, in all of these places, Jesus walks with us. It’s not like Jesus died, rose, ascended into heaven, and then forgot about us. The world still longs for healing. And so Jesus still is in the business of bringing healing to the world.
Healing is about receiving again and again, in real ways, hope for today and hope for the future. Healing is about God’s hope acting in us to restore our spirits, and it is about God’s hope acting in us to enliven our bodies, and it is about God’s hope acting in us to mend and restore our world.
Jesus, at the heart of healing, assures you, that when you feel most broken in pieces, that you are whole and beloved in God’s sight. And not that you will be beloved in God’s sight only after you aren’t sick anymore, and not that you will be whole only after your spirit and the world are at peace. But that even in the middle of your human condition, and even in the middle of the condition of our world, God loves you, and you are whole, and you are well in the sight of the one who created you, who calls you by name, who offers you peace and strength now, and who promises you life everlasting. This, my friends, is what healing is about.
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