"Truly Forgiven"

Scripture: Mark 2:1-12
Preacher: Rev. Ross Purdy
Date: February 19, 2006

Does God always heal?   Last week we had a "healing service".   Some of you came forward to pray for God's healing in your life.   I have heard from some of you who said that some pretty powerful things happened throughout the week.   Some of those things included physical healing. Some of those included emotional healing.   Others said there were some pretty spiritual things, perceptions about God that were changed and healing that took place.   Thank you for sharing.

So we know God heals.   We have experienced the healing presence of God and we will invite more healing moments to come in our service so that the effects of healing can occur through the week following.  

But I want to ask you this question: Does God always heal?   And how is healing connected with our passage today?   The skit you just saw asked some of those questions.   Can we be sick because we don't forgive ourselves?   Can we be sick because of things we've done?   Certainly we do encounter illness at times just because we live in a sick world.   But how should we examine healing and illness?

I want to tell you about my sister-in-law this morning.   Juli is not only a wonderful relative of mine, she is a very beautiful woman (some of you know her).   I met Juli many years ago.   I had known her through my church at that time.   I grew to know her as we began a college and career ministry together.   Juli had and has rheumatic arthritis.   It was evident that parts of her body were disfigured from the disease.   When I first met her she was still able to get around on foot.   It's not that way anymore.

A few years ago, as she was walking through the corridor of a hospital, someone pushed/slammed through a door and knocked her to the ground.   Juli's frail body and brittle bones shattered.   She would find herself confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life.   I have prayed for Juli.   I believe God can heal her.   I know that God heals.   But, for Juli, healing has not occurred...at least not physical healing.   God has said, "no" to our prayers in this way.

Juli is a powerful Christian woman.   She has a glowing spirit that shines through her.   She has touched many lives, not only because of her suffering and faith in Jesus Christ, but because she lives as a follower of Jesus and wherever she goes, Jesus is visible through her.

I love Juli.   I want to protect my sister-in-law from the hurts of life wherever and whenever I can.   But I want to tell you, this morning, that I get very angry when some Christians, who mean well I suppose, come up to her and lecture her on her illness and healing.   I know a man who prayed with Juli for healing.   When she didn't get out of her wheelchair, this man blamed her for her lack of faith.   I get angry when people suppose they understand the mystery of healing and seem to think there is a formula to healing in their simplistic, and ignorant faith.   I get angry when others tell Juli that she's in her wheelchair because she has unrepentant sin; that if she'd just come clean, she's be healed.   As though Juli desires to hide her "sin" choosing instead to remain in her situation!

The Bible makes it clear that healing and illness are not always connected.   Yes, we're told to have faith.   But its focus is not "having great faith in God" as much as it is having "faith in a great God."   God heals and the faith we're called to have regarding this is not as though we have to work up our spiritual hype as though we were charging a battery.   Faith is a simple trust that God can heal and God will heal when God is invited to do so wherever and however God desires to do so.   Faith is a simple trust that our loving Heavenly Father is good.   Faith is what we do when we try to stop doing it all ourselves and get out of the way to let God work.   Our response to faith is to remove the barriers that get in the way from us receiving. And, when God says "no", faith says, "okay, I don't see the plan now, but I've released it all to you.   It's in your hands.   Do with it as you will."   It is not about working up some kind of energy in our lives.

A man named Lazarus, a great friend of Jesus, had no faith when Jesus raised him from the tomb.   Jesus heals.   Sometimes there are no preconditions.   Stop blaming others for their illness.   Jesus never did.

When Jesus came across a blind man who was never able to see from birth, the disciples asked the question, "Jesus, who sinned....whose fault is it that this man is blind?   His parents or him?"   Jesus said, "neither...now, watch the glory of God."   He reached out and healed the man.  

Sometimes there is no fault.   We live in a fallen world were illness reigns.   We fight against illness, pain and disease, so we have to look forward to the one where illness, pain and disease do not exist.   But as we do, we call down the Kingdom of God to break in to this temporary and dying world to bring the healing presence of the perfect.

The Kingdom breaks in and when it does, some get healed.   Everyone gets healed in some way because the Kingdom is powerful.   But sometimes not everyone gets healed in all ways.  

Healing is a mystery.   It doesn't make sense and we better be careful not to develop high "theologies"   or "systems" on how healing occurs.    I believe we better be careful when we try to figure out a formula for the paralyzed man in our text.   The skit said it well, what do you think?   But it came to the conclusion that Jesus is God, the One who can forgive sins.   Maybe that's the point of the passage.   Maybe the paralyzed man and his illness is not the focus of the story.   Maybe it is Jesus who is the focus.   As God, Jesus heals.   But even further, Jesus always forgives sins.   This type of healing, the one that involves sins, always happens when a person is brought to Jesus.   The point is about being truly forgiven.   How it is connected to a physical healing might just be a mystery.

On the other hand, sometimes there are situations where there is a reason for the illness.   Yesterday, at a breakfast we had here, Bill and Polly Craig came and spoke about God's love.   Polly Craig said these words, when speaking about her healings throughout life:

"Sometimes we walk around damaged when the Lord wants us whole."

I believe, and have seen, some people hold onto illness for psychosomatic reasons.   I have seen people who walk around in guilt.   Isn't there enough guilt in the world today?   Don't you feel guilty enough?   Oh, I know that guilt is good when we need to feel guilty.   But it is not good when we hold onto it long past its usefulness.   Bring it to Jesus and let him free you from that weight.   Guilt is a great tool of the conscience to move you to do something about why you're feeling guilty.   But guilt is not supposed to last, to be guarded as a child's teddy bear.   Yet I see damaged people who hold onto guilt because they can't believe that forgiveness can be offered.   And so they suffer.   The guilt breaks down the body, soul and spirit.   They develop ulcers and all other types of unnecessary diseases.   Sometimes people can develop even more dangerous things such as heart-disease and diabetes.

There is enough guilt in the world today. If you've brought your sins to the cross and been truly forgiven, then let the guilt go.  

"Sometimes we walk around damaged when the Lord wants us whole."

Sometimes healing doesn't occur because of unrepentant sins.   I received a call from a man many years ago.   "Pastor Purdy, can you come and pray for me?   I'm in the hospital with pneumonia."   I went to the hospital and prayed for the man.   I trusted that the Lord was going to heal him.   I prayed before I prayed with to see him.   I prayed with him at his bedside.   I prayed after I prayed with him.   I prayed in my car for him.   I prayed that evening at home for him. I prayed so hard for this man that I was certain that God was going to answer my prayers for healing.   I had determined that I was going to be that persistent widow in prayer who received what she requested from the uncaring judge just so he could get rid of her.  

But God didn't heal this man of his pneumonia and I started to get a little perturbed at God.   God, this is not a difficult healing for you.   Just bring healing to this man's body.   But God was silent.   Several weeks later, this man called me again.   "Pastor Purdy, can you come and pray with me again?   I have been released from the hospital, but I still have pneumonia.   I can't seem to shake this even with all the antibiotics they've pumped into my system.   I'm in pain.   I'm miserable."   I was a bit surprised that the hospital had released him, but I went over to his house.   This time I almost stretched myself out on his bed, hoping, like Elisha to the young boy to breathe life into him.   I prayed a long prayer and felt heat coming through my hands when I laid them upon him.   I knew that the healing presence of God was there.   But the man didn't get healed.

I returned to my office and cried out.   "God, heal this man!   He's not deathly.   He's not elderly.   He's not in bad shape.   Why, God, won't you heal him?"   God was silent.  

Two weeks later, the man became better.   I went to see him and prayed with him a prayer of thanksgiving for God finally doing this work.   But, I have to tell you, I was frustrated inside at God's distance in this situation.   "God, why did you take so long?"   As I sat there with this man I turned to him and said, "Let's talk about your illness.   What happened?"

Then this man spoke to me these words that I'll never forget, "Ross, I have a confession to make."   "Ooh?" I said.   "Yes.   The reason I had pneumonia is because I've been snorting cocaine and it went into my lungs.   The reason why my pneumonia probably didn't go away is because I kept snorting cocaine and I'm sure that I probably kept myself sick."  

I said to him, "I'm angry at you.   You brought this sickness on yourself and you kept living in sin.   You refused to give up what was hurting you, yet expected God to heal you.   When I prayed over you by your bedside, I felt healing in my hands and I believed then that God was willing to heal you, to save you from your pain and suffering.   But you, by your decision, chose not to accept that healing."

Then I thought about my sister-in-law.   Here is a beautiful woman that deserves, if anyone does, to be healed.   But she is not.   I have struggled with why some people get healed and others do not.   I do believe, and have witnessed tremendous healings.   Perhaps we'll never know the "whys".  

But I think about the passage this morning.   What if, as I said, Jesus is the focal point and that it's not so much about the healing?   What if, by being revealed as God incarnate, the only One who can forgive sins, He was showing that the power of the Kingdom often comes when forgiveness takes place?   When that man received the power of forgiveness, then he was available to receive even more.   The healing in this passage is the evidence that sins can be forgiven.   Who knows why this man was paralyzed?   Does it matter?   No.   It only matters that we'll see him forever.   He has been forgiven of his sins.   We can ask him someday, "what happened?"  

I wonder if he might say, "forget about that stuff.   I saw Jesus stop his teaching to consider my miserable condition.   I saw the Master's eyes pierce my own and I knew the healing presence of His love.   The rising and walking for me was only secondary.   I felt my soul pierced and healed.   MY SINS WERE FORGIVEN.   Don't worry about my body.   Just consider the fact that I've been forgiven.   I appreciate the physical healing.   But it paled in comparison to the one that made me who I am now, in eternity."

Have you opened your life up to the most important thing of all - true forgiveness?  

I can tell you this one thing.   God wants us to be healed.  

The old Jewish word "shalom" was turned into a greeting.   The word "shalom" means peace.   But when a Jewish person said that blessing to another, he wasn't saying "how's it going?" as we often greet one another.   The real meaning of that word was a prayer for healing.   Shalom means true peace - full peace.   When someone said "Shalom", they were saying "Peace be upon you.   Peace for your body, soul, mind and spirit.   Peace in all ways."   That simple word is an invitation to enter the healing of God's Kingdom.   Your body will be healed of its pain someday...so will be your mind and spirit.

We are heading toward the fullness of Shalom.   Shalom is here when Jesus, the prince of peace, shalom, is among us.   That's why people get healed.   But God is more concerned about who we really are.   God is concerned that our bodies alone don't receive healing.   God is concerned about our character.  

What I can conclude about my sister-in-law is this: had she not been in a wheelchair pressed as a piece of coal, she could not have been turned into the diamond that she is today and will be forever.   I still want her to be healed.   But I know that through her suffering she has so much to give.   Jesus lives in and through her.   I don't know if she would be as beautiful in spirit if she never connected with that wheelchair.   She'd have to tell you that.  

But I can tell you that Juli's not disabled at all.   I see others, with healthy bodies, sometimes more sick than she.   One day I will run through the fields with her, and that day is coming soon.   And, as God shapes my character through my challenges, body, soul, and spirit, I too might be pressed into a diamond as well.

Until that time, I want to fight to bring shalom/peace/healing to this world.   I want to experience it myself.  

What do you need?   Whatever it is, let's ask for more healing, no judgments, no blaming.   But let's also ask for an opportunity to start at ground zero if need be.   Let's start with true forgiveness.   Have you laid your guilt down before the One, Jesus, who is willing to take it away from you in exchange for freedom and life?

Allow yourself to come to the cross where you can find healing for your whole being.   Jesus died on the cross to offer you a way to eternal life.   Come, lay down the guilt; lay down the burdens; lay down the stress (that's one of my big problems which I don't handle well); lay down the failures; lay down the anger, the frustration, the bitterness and be open to hear Jesus say, "Your sins are forgiven.   Rise and walk."

Amen.