Delivered and Healed
The Lord sustains him on his sickbed; in his illness you restore him to full health.
— Psalm 41:3
In the Ancient Near Eastern mind, healing was closely associated with salvation. Unlike the West, the Eastern Church conceives of salvation as more like healing. The Orthodox Churches don’t exclude the forgiveness of sin, but lean heavily on healing as a dominant way of thinking about God’s saving work in Christ.
We all need healing, don’t we? Perhaps that’s why it’s prominent in Pastor Bo’s B4 pillars: hope, healing, freedom, and flourishing, coming immediately after “hope.” One cannot conceive of being healed apart from hope. Hope allows us to approach God for healing, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual. And yes, God can and will heal in all of those categories because we all carry afflictions and wounds that are often less than obvious.
If we believe that God will heal — will deliver us from what afflicts us — that He wants to heal, then we approach Him with hope, and maybe even a little sass.
That’s what my mom used to call “back talk.” My favorite example of sass is the Gospel encounter Jesus has with the Syro-Phoenician Woman:
Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret. In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an impure spirit came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.
“First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
“Lord,” she replied, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
Then he told her, “For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.” — Mark 7:24-29
Did you catch that? She wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. She knew who it was she was asking for help. Do you? Do we? Do I? If Jesus walked into our building this Sunday in the Person of the Spirit, would we, like Jerusalem, be so obsessed with our religious observance, so numb in our comforts, that we would miss the hour of our visitation?
When Pastor Randy spoke last Sunday about desperation and desire driving people to Jesus. I looked around the room and asked myself, “Are we too comfortable to be gripped by either desperation or desire?” I asked that of myself, “How serious, Steve, are you about your healing, about hope and healing? Will you go to Jesus with unrelenting trust and refuse to be sent away?”
The story of the woman is notable for another detail beyond her persistence. She doesn’t challenge Jesus’ metaphor, even though it presents her people as “dogs.” Nope, she dives right in and asks for crumbs. Crumbs! What faith. She knows her daughter’s deliverance and healing require no more than crumbs from the Master’s Table. That impresses Jesus enough for Him to act, and it humbles me.
Often, when I dare to pray bold prayers, there’s a little gnat of doubt that loves to fly around in my head, chanting, “You’re asking for too much!” You know what? Next time that happens, I’m gonna say., “Shut up. All I’m asking for is crumbs.”
The “crumbs” of Almighty God more than suffice!
— Pastor Steve