Healing and Forgiveness

Peter J Blackburn

Readings: John 9.1-7; James 5.13-20

One cold winter’s weekend in Stanthorpe we had Rev Darrell Gaydon on deputation for the work of Hospital Chaplaincy. That was how the various ministries of the church were promoted to the local congregations in those days, but – never Stanthorpe in winter! I can still picture him rugged up warmly, but standing in the kitchen with his back to the wood stove!

He made the comment that, in his work as a hospital chaplain, he was becoming increasingly convinced that unresolved anger was a factor triggering some forms of cancer. In many ways, our inner life is reflected in our physical health.

Causes of Illness

We have already seen in the ministry of Jesus that forgiveness of sin was an important ingredient in a number of healings. This has been so in two of our Bible readings over the past two weeks.

We hear Jesus with the invalid healed at the Pool of Bethesda, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you” (John 5.14). With the paralytic, carried by his friends to Jesus, “Take heart, son, your sins are forgiven” (Matthew 9.2b). The first of these was spoken after the healing, the second before the healing took place.

However, Jesus dealt uniquely with people where they were. As we saw last week, faith was an important factor, yet at times Jesus healed even where faith wasn’t evident. We are all too ready to set up our own series of “hoops” for people, confident of the origins of sickness and the process that will ensure healing.

Some fifteen years ago a colleague showed me a list he had been given of the demons responsible for every imaginable form of sickness. If these demons were cast out, the person would be healed. There was a demon of asthma, another of tooth decay, another of arthritis... and so the list went on. My friend and I both thought, “That’s not the way Jesus regarded sickness.” He took full account of the works of the evil one who delights (?) to interfere with and disrupt our human lives. He cast out demons when they afflicted people. But he didn’t subscribe to this view that all sickness is the work of demons.

The Man Blind from Birth

This morning, as we consider healing and forgiveness, I have deliberately chosen as our first reading the account of the healing of the man born blind. Jesus is challenging some of the then-current Jewish attitudes to sickness.

“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9.2) That was one of the debates of the time. Some of the rabbis in fact taught that a person could sin before birth.

Jesus accepts no connection between sin (his own or his parents’) and his blindness. It’s not that they weren’t sinners like we all are. In a general sense the Fall is the cause of many human afflictions, but not the specific sin of this sufferer or his parents.

Of course, parents’ actions can have an effect on their children. STDs can be passed on – and may cause blindness. A mother’s alcoholism or drug-addiction will be passed on to children. Also, predisposition to heart trouble and other ailments may turn up in the next generation. Parents may well feel guilty that they have caused the health issues their children face.

Recalling my story in Stanthorpe... My diagnosis was tubercular meningitis. Dad’s diary records a sense of guilty fear that his TB might have contributed to Peter’s condition.

We hear Jesus saying, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life” (v. 3). All their questions and assumptions about the origins of the man’s blindness were irrelevant in the light of the work of God in his life.

Jesus spits on the ground, makes some mud with the saliva and puts it on the man’s eyes, “Go, wash in the Pool of Siloam” – a fairly obvious direction. The man goes, washes and comes home seeing (vv. 6-7). The work of God is displayed in his life – not just in the healing. Read the rest of the chapter and see how this man grows as he faces the opposition of the authorities and finally sees Jesus for the first time.

The Prayer of Faith – and Forgiveness

James, the brother of Jesus and a leader in the Jerusalem church wrote a general letter to Christians throughout the ancient world. He was concerned with the practice of the Christian faith.

In James 5 he urges us to be patient and firm in the face of suffering – “because the Lord’s coming is near” (v. 8). There is to be no grumbling against one another, but wholehearted support. We are to pray when we are in trouble, and singing songs of praise when we are happy (v. 13). We are to live every aspect of our lives in the awareness of God’s presence and grace.

“Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven” (vv. 14,15).

Last week I gave some of the reasons why the elders of the local church are to be involved in the prayer for healing – rather than some outsider who comes in and goes away. The elders have ongoing pastoral responsibility and care for the person. They are the ones, together with other intercessors in the congregation, to discern how to pray for the sick person.

“He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord” (v. 14). Now anointing in the Bible particularly signifies the consecration of a person to God – perhaps for their service as a priest or a king. Where anointing is associated with prayer for healing, this is still its significance. God is the Healer. The relationship of the person to God is of key importance. Notice that James doesn’t say that the person is healed by the oil, but “the prayer offered in faith will make the

sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven” (v. 15).

It is interesting that the word translated in the NIV “make well” (sōzō) – “heal” in the GNB – is the same verb translated “saved” in, for example, Ephesians 2.8, and in James 5.20. In v. 16 – “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” – a different word is used for “healed” (iaomai), which could be rendered “cured”. (It is the Greek word from which we get “-iatry” words like psychiatry and podiatry). There is physical healing, but there is a wholeness that is much more profound and all-encompassing than the physical. Forgiveness isn’t some optional extra tagged onto the healing.

Forgiveness

Jesus placed strong emphasis on forgiveness. In what we call the Lord’s Prayer, he taught us to pray for forgiveness of our sins – as we forgive those who sin against us (Matthew 5.12). Of all the petitions in the prayer, he made sure we got this one – “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (vv. 14-15).

Nothing could be plainer. Yet, much later, we hear Peter asking, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" (18.21). Temperamental, explosive Peter, talking about his mild-mannered, approachable brother, Andrew!

Jesus tells the parable of the unmerciful servant (vv. 23-35) – forgiven an incredibly large debt, then unwilling to forgive a fellow-servant a small pittance. Now we have the notion that forgiveness is somehow pretending that no wrong has been done. But the large debt in the story didn’t disappear. Until the servant was forgiven, the master had every expectation that the money should somehow someday be repaid. By forgiving the servant, the master was accepting the debt on himself. God has never said that our sin isn’t serious or that it doesn’t matter. Jesus died on the cross to carry the debt for each and every one of us. Your sin and mine are as serious as that. God forgives us on the basis that he has, in the person and redemptive work of his Son, taken all the punishment due to us. On that basis, he offers us forgiveness. On that basis he now calls on us to be willing to forgive others.

One of the doctors in a country town had a rumoured reputation of taking advantage of young women in the privacy of his consulting room. One evening the parents of one such young woman poured out to me the story of their daughter and their anger at this doctor. “We can never, ever, forgive him for what he did to our daughter...”

That’s a tough one. How can there be forgiveness where there is no remorse? I think these situations are hardest when they involve another family member. It is somewhat easier to deal with what happens to us. But it was poisoning their system and affecting their health. True, forgiveness and reconciliation couldn’t be complete. And yet Jesus had carried the sins of this man too. God was not wanting this man to perish, but that he too should come to repentance (2 Peter 3.9). Paul wrote, “not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord... Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12.19,21).

There are burdens that we cannot afford to keep on carrying. We need to come as far as we can towards forgiveness – and leave the rest to God.

I was visiting a lady – perhaps in her late 70s or early 80s. She was a regular at church, but always had a dark heavy look about her. She had begun showing me her garden when suddenly she stopped – and it all started to pour out. She had been unfaithful to her late husband forty years or so before. He hadn’t known, and now he was gone. She had carried her guilty secret all these years and it was poisoning her – not only her memory, but her relationship with God and her physical wellbeing. We talked about her husband and the confession and reconciliation that could never happen. We spoke about David and his sin with Bathsheba and subsequent disposal of her husband, Uriah the Hittite. David became aware that, above all else, his sin had been against the Lord (Psalm 51.4). We thought about Jesus who died on the cross for the very purpose of opening up the possibility of God’s forgiveness of our sin. We prayed as the finished work of so long ago became a reality in the present experience of this forgiven lady.

Jesus said to the invalid at the Pool of Bethesda, “Do you want to get well?” (John 5.6) Those words may well be addressed to all of us. The theme of the public memorial service for the bushfire victims in Victoria was “Whatever it takes”. Jesus has done “whatever it takes” for our forgiveness and reconciliation. But do we want to get well? Are we prepared, from our side, by the grace of God and the enabling of the Holy Spirit, for “whatever it takes”?

Are there any secret unconfessed sins? You don’t have to carry that guilt and burden. Jesus has already paid the penalty. John wrote, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1.9).

Is there a person or situation in our lives where we are unwilling to forgive? The words of Jesus are so definite, “if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” Matthew 6.15).

Forgive and be forgiven – the two go hand-in-hand and are essential for both our physical and spiritual well-being.