Healing

 Psalm 147:1-12; 21c; Mark 1:29-39

The Psalms run the gamut of human emotion. If you read the one after another you might feel as if you were on an emotional roller coaster. Today we have praise and why praise, because of the wonder of the creator. And what is this wonder? The awe that the One who creates everything is even concerned with bending down and binding up someone's wounds. It seems inconsequential for One with this much power and yet this is where we find Jesus today.

Jesus is healing a woman, one of the first healings in Mark. Jesus mirrors what God would be concerned about. Then the joy bubbles and comes out. Healing is a tricky thing. Mostly we think of it on our own terms please heal me completely, please pray for my loved one to live, please pray for there to be no more pain. These are some of the requests you hear when you are a chaplain. Please pray for the healing to go my way on my terms and when it doesn't happen they loose faith. God didn't do what was requested and so God doesn't care. Yet today we see it, God does care. Maybe its just we don't tune into God's healing.

Too often we have treated prayer and God like a magic genie. Request, answer the request the way I want it. Life doesn't work this way. We don't get the piles of money we request, we may instead get help to become financially stable. We don't get the healing in the way we request, but we may find healing in other ways. The thing is we have to become attuned to God. Where is God at? What is God active in? or maybe for us it is Jesus we become attuned to. Whichever part of the trinity works, it is becoming in sync with this power bigger than we are.

This is why the Psalm is so intricate today. Praise, gathering the exiles, healing the broken, and yet counts the stars, is wise, and always lifts up those who are low. This is God. We know a bit about being in exile, we know what it is to mourn lost things, and to be broken. The lovely thing is God listens, he hears. Now when the Israelites returned from Babylon things were not healed right away. The temple wasn't rebuilt for years because the young and the old had different visions. The older people wanted things the way they used to be. Sound familiar? The point is there was a healing balm found in being free again. 

What binds us? Sometimes it is the request as we want it. We are so bound to this healing, in the way we requested, we forget to search out other ways to heal. Have we reconciled with our family, friends? Have we learned why we are suffering in such a way? Have we found God/Jesus/Spirit alive and active within us on our journey? One Bible study a woman put it this way. Her husband had been diagnosed with cancer and it was a sad day. A presence of light appeared in the corner of the room and from then on she knew things would be alright, even if this led to death. A son is severely injured in an accident and they don't know if he will make it through the night and when the chaplain leads the prayer all the chaos calms and the person knows things will be better. Not how, just its okay. 

Attuning ourselves inward helps us to realize where we might have encountered God. It doesn't need to be flashy, it may be subtle and peaceful, but it is always powerful in a way the world does not recognize. So maybe this is our journey for today. Where have we found healing in our current situation? Has it drawn you nearer to friends, family? Has it meant we have learned what it means to be outside and exiled out of our buildings? What have we learned from this? and Where has God/Jesus/Spirit been most present to us? 

No, God is not our magic genie. Yet if we seek we find doorways which open to us to reveal the places where there is balm. Where there is healing and where we found the love of the one who made us.