Healing

Healing

Preface

Healing

Healing and Faith

Healing and Forgiveness

Healing

Four Sermons on Healing by

Peter J Blackburn

© Peter J Blackburn, Allingham, 2010, 2013

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New International Version, © International Bible Society, 1984

Preface

These four sermons were prepared and presented first at the Uniting Church, Edmonton, North Queensland, in October 2010.

I make it quite clear from the start that I am no miracle-working healer. However, I don’t believe, as some do, that the age of miracles concluded with the death of the apostles. Yet in my forty years of active ministry I can think of only two staggering miracles I have witnessed. It is God who heals. It is too easy to slip over into a desire for personal approval and glory.

The theme of healing is important for two reasons: first, healing was a significant part of the ministry of Jesus and the apostles (though never allowed greater importance than the preaching of the gospel), and, second, there is a lot of misconception and misinformation made worse by showmen who make millions from their TV programmes and healing crusades.

In this series I endeavour to consider just what the Scriptures have to say about healing and also to reflect on my own experiences in forty years of active ministry.

Does God heal today? Yes, he does, though not necessarily in the manner or timing we would desire.

Is physical healing and wholeness God’s ultimate plan for us? No, it isn’t! God’s plan is that we know him and that his character become increasingly visible in our lives.

My prayer is that, in reading what I have written here, you will be driven back to the Word of the Lord and to an encounter with the Lord of the Word.

Jesus, describing himself as the Good Shepherd, said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10.10). That life is his provision, whatever your need.

God bless you!

In Christ,

Peter J Blackburn,

Allingham, Queensland, May 2013

Healing

Readings: John 5.1-15; 2 Corinthians 12.1-10

Three weeks ago I was sitting in Ingham church aware that I was due to go into Townsville Hospital the next morning for surgery. Shane, our minister, paused before the end of the service to pray for me and said, “Peter will be able to tell us something about healing after this.” At that stage I hadn’t given a thought to what my theme might be last Sunday. However, on reflection I became increasingly convinced that healing should be my theme last Sunday in Ingham – and today, my first Sunday in Edmonton.

The theme is important for two reasons: first, healing was a significant part of the ministry of Jesus and the apostles (though never allowed greater importance than the preaching of the gospel), and, second, there is a lot of misconception and misinformation made worse by showmen who make millions from their TV programmes and healing crusades.

Let me make it quite clear that I don’t believe, as some do, that the age of miracles concluded with the death of the apostles. Yet in my forty years of active ministry I can think of only two staggering miracles I have witnessed. It is God who heals. It is too easy to slip over into a desire for personal approval and glory. Let me share some of my parents’ experience.

My father was a Methodist minister. Mum and Dad’s first child, Kenneth, was born while they were stationed at Enoggera. The family moved to Charters Towers where Robert was born. The next appointment was Murgon, where Kenneth, now five, started school. The happy family was expecting the birth of a third child. However, one Monday Kenneth came home from school sick. His condition didn’t improve and on Saturday morning he died. David was born that afternoon.

I was born in Murgon four years later. When I was eight, we were living in Stanthorpe. Dad had contracted tuberculosis and the cold dry climate was reckoned good for convalescence. But I took sick and tests confirmed that I had just two weeks to live. The diary Dad kept during that time records that some folk from the church picked them up – they had no car – and took them to the parsonage where people had gathered to pray for me.

I am sure people prayed as earnestly for Kenneth – the brother I never knew – as they did for me. It is just not possible to answer the question why he was taken and I was healed. But I do affirm that there is infinitely more to God’s purpose for us than our physical lifetime can ever contain.

At the Pool of Bethesda

In John 5 we read about the healing at the Pool of Bethesda. When I visited the Pool of Bethesda in February 2001, our Jewish guide explained that the rock is limestone. Water hollows it out. Evidently, water would build up in one of the hollows to a point where it was suddenly released, causing a periodic bubbling spring which the people believed to be caused by an angel. That explanation is verse 4 in the old Bible, but missing from the oldest manuscripts. The gospel record doesn’t endorse this belief, even though it explains why so many sick people were there. The problem was that only the fittest people were ever healed.

But, of all the people there that day at the pool, Jesus only came to one man. He had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. “When Jesus say him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, ‘Do you want to get well?’ ” (John 5.6).

We would think of that as an obvious, almost insulting, question. Why else would he be waiting there? Weren’t all the other folk wanting to get well too?

But when we hear the man’s answer, we gain insight into Jesus’ question – “Sir, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else does down ahead of me” (v. 7). Instead, of saying a simple “yes”, he complains that he is never able to get in first.

“Then Jesus said to him, ‘Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked” (vv. 8,9).

Paul’s Thorn in the Flesh

In 2 Corinthians 12 Paul tells about “a man in Christ” who had “visions and revelations” from the Lord. There is no doubt that he is referring to his own experiences, because he goes on to say that “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me” (v. 7). What was this “thorn in the flesh”? some difficult person in the life of the church? No, it was literally “in the flesh” – a “painful physical ailment”, as the Good News paraphrases it. Many suggestions have been made as to just what it was. But it is as well we don’t know, since Paul’s experience can be applied to any of us.

Paul says he prayed three times for the Lord to take it away from him, but the Lord answered, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (v. 9).

Some have argued that it just can’t have been physical, or Paul, of all persons, would have been healed. But I think it is as well he wasn’t healed physically. Why? Because so many times we aren’t!We have this idea that divine healing should be an instant “zap!” out of heaven bringing physical healing. When it isn’t, we feel guilty – blaming ourselves and our prayer partners for lack of faith and persistence – or let down – God hasn’t lived up to our expectations.

Five Miracles of Healing

In the late 70’s I heard an American by the name of Danny Morris speak in Brisbane. I picked up a booklet he had written entitled Any Miracle God Wants to Give. In the booklet Danny recalls going with Dr McPheeters to the bedside of a sick man in New York. Dr McPheeters said to the man,

“We have come to pray for God’s miracles of healing for you. Which miracle do you want?” Before the man could answer, he went on to explain five miracles God gives in answer to our prayers. At the end, the man said, “I want any miracle God wants to give” – which, of course, became the title of Danny Morris’ book. These “five miracles” are a useful, but not exhaustive summary. I am sharing them with you in my own words.

• The miracle of the instant cure. That was so with the healing at the Pool of Bethesda. However, this healing sometimes occurs over a period of time as in a story I will share with you in a moment, but it is beyond normal medical explanation.

• The miracle of our body’s design. God designed our bodies with a natural capacity to be healed. A broken bone will mend – it will need a plaster cast to ensure it mends straight. A cut finger will heal – the antiseptic prevents the infection that would hinder this natural process.

Three weeks ago, having done all the pre-admission stuff on Friday, I set about to do some jobs I wouldn’t be allowed to do for six weeks. I mowed the lawn and then set about laying some more pavers between our house and the neighbour’s fence. All was going well – laying them out, cutting them to size when necessary and hammering them down hard through a block of wood – until, as the light was dimming, I miscalculated and hit my thumb! A proper job of it, split it open, blood pouring out. At least I know my bones are good – no fractures. Alison swabbed it with Betadine and fixed it as best she could, but... surgery Monday? Better slip into the hospital for a more thorough job. It’s healing well. Doctors, nurses and paramedics may well be involved in this and other points of healing.

• The miracle of God’s guidance to a cure. Dr McPheeters quoted the time when the prophet Isaiah went to the sick King Hezekiah to tell him he was going to die (2 Kings 20.1-11). As Isaiah was leaving the palace, he was stopped by the Lord’s word to the king, “I have heard your prayer and seen your tears: I will heal you”. Isaiah called for a poultice of figs. This was applied to the king’s boil and he recovered. Sometimes the right diagnosis and course of treatment is the sticking-point. We need to pray for doctors, specialists and medical researchers for guidance to a cure.

• The miracle of God’s grace. Paul prayed three times for healing from his painful physical ailment. But the Lord said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness.”

• The miracle of the triumphant crossing. Jesus promises to all who put their trust in him that the end of this life is the beginning of an eternity in his presence and love. At the end we are released from the limitations, pains and struggles of this life into the arms of God. We are amazed at the miracle of the raising of Lazarus (John 11.38-44). Know something? Lazarus died again – I’m quite sure of that. But I am equally sure that it was a triumphant crossing.

Over twenty years ago when we lived in Brisbane, I received a phone call from a couple whom I had married in Toowoomba some fifteen years before. Their twelve-year-old son had been helping his father, a carpenter, during the school holidays. He had fallen ten foot off a ladder onto his head on concrete and was unconscious in the Holy Spirit Hospital. If he survived, they were told, he would be a vegetable. I visited and prayed with them twice a week for the next three months. He was in a coma – no improvement for three months. Then it happened – he woke up and began to respond. He made a complete recovery and later was apprenticed to his father.

During my three months with those parents, I could make them no promises – only my care and constant expectant prayer to God for them and for their son. We certainly prayed for God’s guidance for the medical team. The parents constantly needed God’s grace for themselves in their persistent attention to their son right then – and if he was restored to them with brain damage. Whatever treatment the medical world could offer would at best co-operate with the healing processes God had designed. And the triumphant crossing?We don’t like to think about that one, and yet we had to. What if he just didn’t pull through? At this point the family had no relationship with any church. As a result of this profound experience, the mother was converted and became actively involved in a local church.

In the healing ministry we are not trying to manipulate the situation or to coerce God. Rather, we are prayerfully surrounding people with God’s love and peace and expecting them to receive a gift of God’s grace in whatever way he chooses to give it. The final will of God is that people be united with him. So physical death is the final healing that allows complete union with God.

Healing and Faith

Reading: Matthew 9.1-8,27-34

Last week we began thinking about “healing”, and focused on two Bible readings – the instant healing of the invalid at the Pool of Bethesda (John 5.1-15) and Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12.1-10) for which Paul prayed three times for physical healing and received instead the promise of God’s grace and strength in his weakness.

I told the story of my Mum and Dad and their experience. Their first-born, Kenneth, took sick when he was five, was prayed for and died; their fourth born (me) took sick at age eight, was given two weeks to live, was prayed for and recovered. If God is the healer, if God is love, why does he heal sometimes and not others?

Then we tried to grasp, not just what individual Bible verses say about healing, but the broader biblical teaching – and Dr McPheeters’ summary to the sick man in New York – the five miracles of healing:

• The miracle of the instant cure.

• The miracle of our body’s design.

• The miracle of God’s guidance to a cure.

• The miracle of God’s grace.

• The miracle of the triumphant crossing.

Today our theme is healing and faith. In a number of Jesus’ miracles, faith is a significant factor. What do we mean by “faith”? We read in Matthew 13 that, when Jesus visited his home town, Nazareth, “he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith” (Matthew 13.58). This, and other references, might lead us to the conclusion that, if we believed hard enough, everyone we prayed for would be physically healed.

In Luke 4 we also read about Jesus’ visit to Nazareth. The people were impressed by his teaching – in effect, “we know Jesus, but where did all this come from?” (v. 22) But then they wanted this returning son to “do his thing” for them – “Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum” (v. 23). They were furious with his reply and “got up, drove him out of town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff” (v. 29). Their lack of faith was specifically related to their response to the person of Jesus.

Some folk say, “I have a lot of faith in prayer.” They mean well, and it is only a slight shift but – the issue is “Do we have faith in the God to whom we pray?

The Healing of the Paralysed Man

Faith is a significant element in the record of many healings in the gospels. The centurion who came on behalf of his servant – “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith” (8.10). The woman who touched the edge of his cloak – “Take heart, daughter, your faith has healed you” (9.22). The disciples unable to heal the boy with a demon – “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” “Because you have so little faith...” (17.19,20).

Matthew 9 records four healing miracles. We are considering just two of them this morning.

Jesus has just returned to Capernaum from the region of the Gadarenes and the healing of two demon-possessed men. In Luke 5.17-26 we are told that “as [Jesus] was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judaea and Jerusalem, were sitting there. And the power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick” (v. 17).

“Some men brought him a paralytic, lying on a mat” (Matthew 9.2a). Mark gives us some more information. The room is so crowded that they have to carry him onto the roof to make a hole in order to lower him through (Mark 2.1-12). We try to imagine the scene inside the room – noise in the ceiling, then bits of mud falling (roofs were often made of woven cane and plastered with mud), then the sky and four faces as the man is lowered right in front of them!

“When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven’.” (Matthew 9.2b) Today I want to focus on the significant statement, “when Jesus saw their faith”. Whose faith? We presume the man was able to signify his faith – his desire to be taken to Jesus – but he couldn’t do it without their faith – the faith of his four friends.

What was this faith? It was a confident openness and trust in Jesus – whatever he might do. Undoubtedly they had heard stories of others who had received physical healing through the ministry of Jesus. Was it a surprise to them that Jesus dealt first with a deeper (perhaps even secret) problem? Next week I want to look further at the theme of healing and forgiveness. Right now Jesus is confronting the serious charge of blasphemy. It is easy to say, “your sins are forgiven”, but only God can rightly say that in an absolute sense! Jesus speaks words of physical healing, “Get up, take your mat and go home” (v. 6).

As a sideline, we notice in this story that there was a cost to the home owner in this healing – just as the Gadarenes were upset at the loss of their pigs!

The faith of the four men was expressed in action – carrying their friend to Jesus. This was also true of those who brought the demon-possessed mute to Jesus (vv. 32-33). Their faith-in-action brought the man to the place where the miracle happened.

The Healing of the Blind Men

Then we have the healing of the two blind men (9.27-31). This is a distinctly different occasion in Galilee from the later miracle down south in Jericho when Jesus healed blind men when he was leaving Jericho (19.29-34).

These two men are pleading for Jesus to have mercy on them. They call him “Son of David” (9.27), which suggests that they have come to the conviction that he is the promised Messiah.

They follow Jesus indoors and he asks, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” (v. 28) They confidently answer, “Yes, Lord.” Jesus then touches their eyes and says, “According to your faith will it be done (or let it happen) to you” (v. 29) and their sight is restored.

Their faith didn’t cause the miracle. Rather, it made them ready and able to receive the miracle of healing which they were already convinced Jesus could do.

Jesus actually did miracles in Nazareth, but not many. Because of their lack of faith (11.58), they were not ready or able to receive miracles at the hand of Jesus.

The Faith to be Healed

So what can we say about the “faith to be healed”? Already we have noted that this faith is a confident openness and trust in Jesus – whatever he might do. It involves a conviction about the person and authority of Jesus. It is also a readiness and openness to receive whatever miracle he wants to give.

In Mark 11 we read an account of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem – “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” (vv. 1-11). Jesus looks around at the temple, but it’s late and he goes back to Bethany with the twelve.

Next day they are heading into town. Jesus is hungry and sees a fig tree in leaf. The first crop of figs should be there, but it isn’t and Jesus says, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again” (v. 14). This is a graphic picture of the barrenness of temple worship which Jesus was about to confront in the city (vv. 15-18).

The next morning they see that the fig tree has withered. Jesus tells them, “Have faith in God. I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins” (vv. 22-25).

Some people take v. 24 to signify a kind of name-it-and-claim-it faith. Against any evidence to the contrary, you must steadfastly “hold onto your healing”.

A beautiful Christian lady – one of our elders, passionate about healing ministry – was dying of cancer. But she was “claiming her healing”. A prayer meeting which met each week in their home couldn’t pray for her because “she was healed”. Her husband would come out to the car to tell us how she was doing. Her family from the other end of the state would ring us up to find out how she was – her husband was not able to talk about her condition in the home. Right until she lapsed into unconsciousness the day before she died, she insisted she was healed. At her bedside when she died, the thought most strongly in my mind was this, “The battle is over! The victory is won!” Her physical battle with cancer was over. But that wasn’t the point. Jesus, not cancer, has won the victory and had received her to the place where there is no more cancer, no more suffering or pain.

So what are some of the important elements of the “faith to be healed”?

• It is faith in God – Creator and heavenly Father. God is the Creator – the designer of our human body. Many of the ailments that afflict us are part of the result of the Fall. They may be life-style related. They may be part of human impact on our environment. Medical research has gained many insights, but no researcher knows the human body and what goes wrong with it as does the Creator himself. The Creator is also our heavenly Father who loves and cares for his children.

• It is faith in Jesus and in his finished work. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into this world with a mission – he “did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10.45). We hear his last cry from the cross, “It is finished!” (John 19.30) – not “I am finished”, but more like “Mission accomplished!” The early Christians readily recognised his fulfilment of Isaiah 53.5 – “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” We pray “in Jesus’ name”, not as a correct formula that guarantees results, but as the only basis on which we can present our requests to God.

• It is a wholehearted openness to the one who gave himself for us and gives himself to us. He taught us most clearly, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” We do not always receive simply on the asking. Often, as we “seek” and “knock”, we are drawn closer to our Lord and to an understanding of how to pray. Someone has said that “Faith is not getting God to give his attention to what we are focusing on, but giving our attention to what he is focusing on” (quoted in Harold Taylor, Sent to Heal). The “five miracles of healing” may help us to widen our focus as we pray in faith for healing.

• It is faith shared within the Body of Christ. In quite a number of the miracles of Jesus, the person healed (or raised!) had no faith for healing – or even opportunity to express faith. In a number of cases, however, there were others – like the four who brought their paralysed friend – who apart from or together with the person were expressing their faith. So we read in James, “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” (James 5.14-15). In Christ we are inter-related. We feel one another’s joy and pain (Romans 12.15). God gives and increases our faith to prayerfully support one another.

Healing and Forgiveness

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.

Healing and the Body of Christ

Readings: 1 Corinthians 11.17-34; 12.27-30

During our time at Bulimba, when our children were ten, twelve, fourteen and sixteen, we had a bonus – a fifth child. We bought a people carrier – a Mitsubishi Express. It served us well, as did its successor.

I recall one time when our local mechanic replaced the timing belt. Driving the car home, I couldn’t go faster than thirty kph or the shaking became unbearable. The engine had two balance shafts designed to make it run more smoothly. But the mechanic had only managed to align one of them correctly which made the engine unbearably rough!

A wheel that is off-centre is called “eccentric” – so is a person who is “off-centre” in some way.

What is the central reference-point of our lives? We are designed to have God at the centre. Because we have inherited and chosen to put ourselves and “things” at the centre, we have become sinners and, in all sorts of ways, our lives just don’t “run true”. And the breakdown in our relationship with God soon manifests itself in breakdowns in relationships in the community.

Jesus died on the cross and rose again to bring about forgiveness and a restored relationship with God. His purpose is also restored community. That is why Jesus emphasised so strongly that God’s forgiveness of our sin requires of us a desire to forgive others.

The Body of Christ

In spite of all its imperfections and failures, the Church is the Body of Christ, “the fulness of him who fills everything in every way” (Ephesians 1.23). The word translated “fulness” here (plērōma) could also have been rendered “fulfilment” or “completion”. It isn’t as if all of Christ is now to be found in the Church. That just isn’t so – certainly not at this point in our history. And yet, the “Body” is an important part of the fulfilment of his redemptive work. It is also the principal visible means by which he brings the gospel of his saving grace into today’s world.

Have you noticed? A high official from Ethiopia had been in Jerusalem to worship and was heading home with his own copy of the book of Isaiah. The Spirit brought Philip alongside to explain the gospel to him (Acts 8.26-39). The Body of Christ was at work. Saul of Tarsus was “breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples”. On his way to Damascus he had an encounter with the risen Christ. But the Lord sent fearful Ananias to him so he could regain his sight and be baptised (Acts 9.1-19). The Body of Christ was at work. Cornelius was a Roman centurion at Caesarea. He and all his family were “devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly”. One day, in a vision, he saw an angel of God... to bring him the gospel of Jesus? No! To send men to Joppa to fetch a hesitant Simon Peter who would tell them the gospel (Acts 10 ). The Body of Christ was at work.

I set out for an evening service in one of our churches in the parish. I wasn’t preaching that night, and, as I set off, I decided on a slightly longer route to drop in on a home where the husband was dying of cancer. I rang the doorbell and the wife just about collapsed into my arms – “How did you know to come?” I didn’t! The Body of Christ was at work.

In Romans 12 Paul writes, “as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully” (vv. 4-8).

As Christians, we are no longer independent, but interdependent. It’s not just that, being born again, we are brothers and sisters in God’s family – though, if we could really grasp that much, we would have come a long way! Paul’s favourite image for the Church is the Body of which Christ is Head and Lord.

We need a body, don’t we? We can’t work without one. And if, for whatever reason, it won’t function properly or refuses to respond to what we want it to do, we are in a bad way! Without a body we are not equipped for life in this world. The Body of Christ is the principal means by which Christ works in this world.

Various Gifts

In the Corinthian church each person was very proud of the particular spiritual gift he or she had. This led to conflict and chaos because there was no awareness of the Body.

In 1 Corinthians 12 Paul begins by acknowledging the variety of gifts the Spirit has given to individual members. Then he says, “The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.” (v. 12). The parts of the human body need one another, he is saying (vv. 14-26). “you (all of you together) are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it” (v. 27). As he goes on to list the gifts again, he is emphasising order and leadership in the Body. None of the gifts made anyone a “superior” member of the Body.

The problem, Paul is saying, is that we are so “me-centred”, failing to understand that any gifts we may have equip us in our place within the Body so the Body can function. That is why, in chapter 13, Paul goes on to speak about love. Without love, he is saying, our so-called spiritual gifts are nothing.

Paul speaks of some of the members having a particular gift of healing. In the passage from James 5 that we looked at last week, that gift is seen to act through the whole Body and ministered through the elders. I am sure that, where an individual has this gift, it is to be a Body ministry and part of the “prayer of faith” of the whole congregation.

Means of Grace

As we have mentioned previously, Jesus dealt with each person uniquely. He didn’t have a fixed “healing” formula or routine. He touches the leper (Matthew 12.2-4), speaks the word (from a distance) for the centurion’s servant (vv. 5-13), touches the eyes of two blind men (9.27-31), puts salivary mud on another blind man’s eyes (John 9.6-7), rebukes the demon (Matthew 17.18)... We don’t detect a pattern in the healing ministry of Jesus. Touch was often important, but not in a formal laying-on-of-hands sense. At no time is it recorded that Jesus anointed anyone with oil.

Once we get into the book of Acts, we note the awareness that it’s not them but Jesus who heals. So, to the crippled beggar at the Beautiful gate of the Temple – “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk” (3.6).

When Peter and John were taken to account for their actions before the Jewish Sanhedrin – “It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed” (v. 10). In Acts 19 we read that “Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed... ‘In the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out’.” One evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” (vv. 13-16). We only live, and can only serve “in the name of Jesus”, but it’s a relationship, not a formula.

There are a number of general means of grace that God uses to build us up within the Body of Christ. These promote our spiritual health and growth and are important in the healing ministry of the Body.

God uses our reading of the Scriptures and our attention to the Word preached to build us up in our faith in God and to equip us for life and service.

Just the Scriptures are the important means by which God communicates with us, so prayer, individual and corporate, is the vital link by which we respond to God’s presence and grace. In 1818 James Montgomery wrote,

Prayer is the Christian’s vital breath,

the Christian’s native air...

Samuel said to the people of Israel, “As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you” (1 Samuel 12.23). It is that constant prayer for one another within the Body that will express itself in specific prayers for healing.

At its heart, Fellowship is our inter-relatedness within the Body, our sharing together in the grace of Christ and the life in the Spirit. That is why we “rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn” (Romans 12.15). Within the Body we feel the joy and pain of others.

There are two particular means of grace. We call them the “sacraments” – Baptism and Holy Communion. The Basis of Union says, “himself acts in and through everything that the Church does in obedience to his : it is Christ who by the gift of the Spirit confers the forgiveness, the fellowship, the new life and the freedom which the proclamation and actions promise; and it is Christ who awakens, purifies and advances in people the faith and hope in which alone such benefits can be accepted” (para 6).

Let me tell you the story of Jack – an eighteen-month-old boy whose family was holidaying at Inskip Point. He was found floating face-down in the water and was unconscious. Nobody knew how long he had been there. Dad worked for Telstra Mobilenet, but there was no signal until forty kilometres along the road.

Nambour Hospital phoned me, “Could you come to the hospital to baptise Jack?” I hastily called for prayer support and headed off to the hospital. I had to wait for half-an-hour, trying to shut out “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” which was showing on the TV and to focus my thoughts and prayers on this boy and the situation I would soon face.

In the emergency room the mother, still wearing her muddy jeans, was lying with the still form of her son between her legs and connected to oxygen. The request for baptism was repeated. A sterile stainless steel hospital bowl was soon brought and filled with hospital water. After a few words of introduction and counsel, there followed a simple service of baptism followed by earnest prayer for the life of Jack.

After the baptism, three doctors came and explained to the mother that Jack’s oxygen levels were too low. There was nothing more they could do for him in Nambour. He had to be transferred to the Royal Children’s in Brisbane. But rain had set in, so they couldn’t go by helicopter – it would have to be by road. The mother took the information in and the doctors left. A nurse came to relieve the one caring for Jack. She suggested it might help to move the Mum off the narrow bed and lay Jack down by himself.

Almost immediately he pulled off the oxygen mask – a worry to the nurse! He was offered a toy to distract him so the oxygen could be kept close to his face. He threw it on the floor. I saw him next day in a ward, the nurse by his bed saying, “You wouldn’t know anything was wrong with him!”

Six months later we went to his second birthday party on the other side of Brisbane. “This is the minister who prayed for Jack”. Well, that was my privilege, but it was God who healed him!

People have all sorts of questions about when and how baptism should take place. But we miss the point if we fail to see that God is at work.

1 Corinthians 11 contains what is almost certainly the earliest written record of the institution of Holy Communion. But something was seriously wrong in the way it was happening in the Corinthian church. There were divisions among them (v. 18). And it wasn’t really the Lord’s Supper, but more like a meal where some were gorging themselves with food and drink and leaving the poorer members with nothing (vv. 20-21).

We should eat the bread and drink the cup in a way that recognises the body of the Lord (vv. 27-29). Is Paul thinking of the elements – the bread and the wine – here? Perhaps, though I think it is a reference to the Body of Christ composed of those who believe in his finished work. By their selfish individualism and their lack of care for their brothers and sisters, they were eating and drinking judgment on themselves. The result – “many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep” (v. 30).

We gather this morning to celebrate Communion. We focus again on the Lord – on his body and blood given for us. We are come to receive his grace freely offered and available to us. But our focus is also on the Body – the people of this congregation gathered with us and people meeting in other congregations in our region with different name-tags, different emphases and different styles of worship. We want to be a healthy and healing Body of Christ in our community – forgiven and forgiving, receiving and giving, reaching up and reaching out...