A Healing Work

When we talk about the kind of healing that we are uniquely able to bring to our communities because of our faith, because of the things that we know that the world just doesn't know, we find ourselves naturally led into a conversation about what 'healing' really is. 

The Pharisees said that healing was 'work.' We know this because they continually chastised Jesus, and even plotted to kill Him, for healing persons on the Sabbath. This was complicated, of course, by the fact that they didn't believe some of these persons should be healed (and how could they, in a world in which a person's infirmity was the result of his or her sin?), but they always phrased it as a violation of the holy order. You can't heal that man today. Today is the Sabbath. 

Healing is work.

And the response that I have to that is...oh, c'mon. How would the Pharisees know that healing is work? They never healed anybody. Not on the Sabbath; not on any other day. The Pharisees were not in the healing business, but they still claimed that they knew what it took to heal someone. (That alone is a problem, but we'll talk about that some other time.)

At least Pharaoh, when confronted with the miracles of God, called on his magicians to copy the work. Yes, he brought more than a plague of frogs on himself trying to prove a point, but at least he was invested in the conversation. At least he was right there, willing to say - yeah, I know what this takes. It at least takes something to do this. 

The Pharisees did no such thing. They never even attempted a healing work. Not before Jesus. Not after Jesus. Not during the lifetime of Jesus. When Peter cut off the ear of the high priest's servant, not one Pharisee stepped forward to say, "I got this." No, they were already signing the condolences card. Sorry you lost your ear, bro. That's rough. No, it's Jesus who has to heal the soldier, the very soldier who has come out to arrest Him. 

The point is that the Pharisees don't know anything about healing. They've never done it. But they're pretty sure that they know how it's done. They're pretty sure it's 'work,' even though most of the time, all Jesus did was speak a word. 

The same is true of our world. It doesn't understand healing. It doesn't understand the kind of grace that we offer in the darkness. It doesn't know what we do because the world doesn't do what we do. It can't offer what we offer. It never has. But it thinks it knows. 

That's why the world comes out against us when we try to step into the darkness with a measure of our faith. We respond to the tragedies of the world with "prayers," which the secular world has watered down to "thoughts and prayers," and the world says...that never works. That'll never work. What a waste. What a farce. What bunk! Because the world doesn't pray. The world doesn't know how to pray. The world hasn't heard a word from God, hasn't had Him answer their deepest ache. So they don't know, but they think they know. So they feel qualified, somehow, to speak on what they don't know based on what they do know (or think they know), which is that 'it doesn't work like that.' 

Yet...it does. It does work like that. Jeroboam's wife knew it. She knew that the Lord works the way the Lord says He works. We know it. We know that God is who He says He is. 

The world says the only way out of the darkness is to scratch and claw your way toward the light, but we know that there is a light in the darkness, that all we have to do is cross that threshold and bring it in. And that's why we do. 

Because we are a people who actually know a thing or two about the stuff the world is content to just talk about forever. We're the ones who know what healing actually is because we're the ones actually doing it. 

Or at least, we should be. 

Into the Dark Places

This week, we're talking about how we, as Christians, don't respond to hard things the same way that the world does, and we introduced the story of Jeroboam's wife yesterday. In 1 Kings 14, Jeroboam sends his wife to the prophet to find out what is going to happen with their child, and the prophet tells her that the child will die as soon as she sets foot back in her town. 

But she goes home anyway. 

She goes back home. She takes that step that she knows will seal her child's fate. She puts her foot down tenderly, but confidently, in the place in which she dwells, knowing that with her next step comes her child's last breath. And it's reasonable, maybe, to ask...why? Why would she do such a thing, knowing what she knows?

But it's exactly what she knows that enables, empowers, and encourages her to do that very thing. It's the fact that she knows that she's carrying a message from the Lord, that if she doesn't take that step back home, no one in her house will know what the Lord had to say about this. She knows that if she doesn't go, even if her child doesn't die, an entire household will wrestle forever with questions that she has the answer to, even if the answer is not what they wanted to hear. 

That is why we, as Christians, do the things that we do. It is why we step boldly into the dark places. It's why we're unafraid to go into the hard places. It's why we are able to take that next step toward a reality that we'd rather not embrace - not because we have resigned ourselves to disaster or because we're excited about God's judgment or because we believe it's inevitable and just want to get things over with, but simply because we know that the dark places have a lot of questions that we have the answer to, whether the answer seems satisfying to our soul right now or not. 

This world has questions that its own understanding is completely ill-equipped to answer. It has doubts about...everything. About God, yes, but about itself. About the things it thinks it understands about how things work. Anyone in Jeroboam's house could have looked at that child and known that death was imminent, but their own understanding was insufficient to respond to the deep ache of those torn between yearning and mourning. Only the prophet, only the Lord, could speak to that kind of ache. Only Jeroboam's wife knew the words He would say. 

Several years ago, I was seeing an oncologist for management of a medical condition. And on our first meeting, he talked about how persons of faith are usually the first ones to jump in and say, yes, run the test. Do the biopsy. Ask the questions. He said persons of faith are the ones most likely to just want to know, and they are the ones least afraid of knowing. 

As we ought to be. We know this world holds no power over us. We know that there's nothing in this world that takes God by surprise. We know there's nothing He hasn't planned for, nothing He can't handle. And so we know that, come what may, there is an answer to whatever ache we might experience, whatever questions we might have. We know that we are not immune to the things of this world, but we also understand that we have the answer to this world's questions. We know. We have the very word of God. 

And if we don't cross that threshold into the darkness, how will we ever tell anyone else? 

It's why we step into the hard things.  

A Bittersweet Knowing

Yesterday, we introduced the idea that as Christians, we do not grieve the way that the world grieves because we know things that the world doesn't know. We have an intimate knowledge of the goodness of God that changes the way that we respond to the circumstances that we face. 

And as I thought about that this weekend, I found myself reading the story of Jeroboam's wife in 1 Kings 14. 

Jeroboam's child was very sick. Near-death sick, as the children of sinful kings tend to be. (Remember how David's child with Bathsheba became ill and would not live because of David's sin.) Jeroboam is, understandably, sick at heart. He keeps vigil over his child, and he longs to know what is going to come of the situation. Clearly, it looks as though anyone with a set of eyes can tell how this situation is going to end, but Jeroboam wants to know for sure. 

So this man who has a...complicated...relationship with God decides that the best thing to do is to go ask the prophet what the Lord says, but of course, he can't go himself. He's the king. So he sends his wife, in disguise, to go ask the hard question: what will happen to my child?

The disguise doesn't work, and the prophet knows exactly who Jeroboam's wife is before she even comes into the room, even though he is an old prophet and his eyesight is failing. (And why you dress in disguise to go see a blind prophet is another story altogether.)  The prophet tells her that he knows who she is, he knows why she's come, and he doesn't have good news for her: the child will die. 

In fact, the child will die as soon as she sets foot back in the town. 

In other words, the child will die before she even has a chance to tell her husband, or anyone else, the word of the Lord on the matter. 

There seems, then, to be an easy solution: don't go home. If the child will die when you cross the border into the town, then it stands to reason that if you never cross that border, the child will never die. You will never see your child again, perhaps. Perhaps the child will spend the rest of his life in bed, sick and near-death, but at least the child will be alive. You can almost hear this mother's heartstrings being pulled. 

But for some reason, she doesn't even seem to consider this option. Filled with grief, she turns toward home. She turns back to the place from which she came, where her child lay dying and her husband paces the floor. She goes right back to the place where she knows, as soon as she gets there, the story is over. 

Except...not quite. Because she understands that she holds an essential piece of the story that, if she never goes home, she never gets to tell. She knows something that no one else in that house knows right now. She knows what God has to say about things. And if she doesn't tell them, who will? 

You may already see where I'm going with this, but hold on with me (because I want to say it, okay?). We'll connect the dots on some of this tomorrow. 

A Holy Grief

Today, we are grieving. It seems strange on a day that we know that the tomb is empty, strange at a time when we're so certain of the promise of Christ. And yet, here we are. Grieving. 

It's been a tough few days for many of us, as someone that we love so well (and by whom we were loved so well) left us so early, under such difficult and terrible circumstances. We knew that the last few days had been hard ones for her, and we were praying for her comfort, praying for her relief, praying for answers to what seemed like a thousand questions all in one breath and then...we were grieving. 

We called ourselves together, sent out an urgent message, unlocked the doors of the church and declared that we were coming together to pray. Anyone who was able. Anyone who was near. Anyone who felt called to come and pray, then come. Pray. Lift your voice to heaven with ours in intercession for this who had so often, and so faithfully, interceded for us. 

What we did not know, what we had not yet learned, was that at the time that we called ourselves together, it was already too late. No one had told us yet, but she was already gone. 

It's something that I've been thinking about all weekend, particularly as I have grieved and as I have known that my brothers and sisters are also grieving. We all felt the weight of Good Friday this year, every one of us. And yet, we are a people so confident in Easter Sunday. We are a people who know better, a people that understand what the empty tomb means. And I've thought about how we, as a people of hope, grieve differently than the world grieves, how we mourn through tear-stained hallelujahs...somehow. 

And as I've thought about that, about how we grieve (and I have done my share of hospice work for this very reason - because I am well-acquainted with a holy grief), I've also thought about this realization that I've had that at the moment we were coming together with all of our hope, it was a moment that was too late. 

'Too late.'

What do those words even mean to a heart of hope? What do they mean to us who know that the end is only the beginning, that death does not have the final word?

If we had known it was 'too late,' would we have stayed in our homes? Would we have failed to come together? If someone had stepped into the prayer meeting and said, "I'm sorry, but it is too late," would we have dispersed? Hung our heads and silently walked out to our cars, nothing more to say?

I...can't believe that is true. I can't believe that if we thought it was too late, that we would have stopped praying. That we would have failed to pray. I think about all of the times in Scripture when someone would come to Jesus or come to the prophets or come to the men and women of God in moments when they thought...it's too late. And it was never too late. 

And I'm not talking about a resurrection. I'm not talking about turning back time or working a miracle or changing the outcome of this situation. That's too narrow a view of what it means to pray in faith, as a people of faith. That doesn't tell the whole story. 

What I'm talking about is...well, it's the understanding that even if we had known it was 'too late,' there's something in us that would have prayed anyway. We would have prayed a different prayer, but the heart that brought us before the Father was not changed in the circumstance. That thing that draws us to God is still real, still vital, still...vibrant, even when we're losing. Even when we've lost. 

That's the thing, I think, about being a person of faith. The world says there's nothing more to see here, but the heart of faith knows that whatever it is, it has just begun. The world says it's over, but we know that it's just getting started. The world says death wins, but we know there's an empty tomb. And so in a moment like this, we still come together. We still pray. We still cry out, even if it's 'too late,' because we know something that the world doesn't know, something that we sometimes can't even put into words. We are confident in something that seems...impossible right now, and yet, we know it more certainly in this moment than maybe we ever have. 

I've been thinking about these things this weekend, about how faith changes the way that we encounter moments like this one. About how what we know is so sure, so certain, so confident, even now. 

And then, over the weekend, I read this story in 1 Kings.... We'll dive into that tomorrow. 

Good Friday

When Jesus died, two men came for His body. One was Nicodemus, who came to Jesus early in John’s story and met Him in the middle of the night so as not to be discovered by the Jewish elite. He would later say a few words, but just a few, in Jesus’s defense when the Jewish leaders were starting to scheme against Him. Joseph, from Arimathea, also came for the body. He, too, believed in Jesus, but only in secret because he was also a member of the Jewish elite and didn’t know what they would say.

                So here are two men who both quietly believed in Jesus, who both watched Him from a relative distance, who both kept an appearance up with the world while secretly entertaining His holiness in their heart. And it’s tempting to wonder what the conversation went like when they both showed up to take care of His body.

                Was there any posturing left? Was there any sense that they still needed to protect their secret allegiances? What there an open confession between these two men about all of the things they’d heard about and witnessed and hoped for with this Jesus? Did they perhaps just look up at one another, nod knowingly, and go about the sacred work they had undertaken? On the eve of the Sabbath, as the sun set, on the Passover, no less, was there any more room for posturing or pretending, or did these two men finally look up at one another and whisper, ‘Brother?’

                We may, at any given time, be in the presence of someone else who secretly holds Jesus in his or her heart. We may be among brothers and sisters and not even know it. For whatever reason, there are still many among us who are not willing or ready to openly confess their interest in this Son of God, who have been watching and listening from a distance or in the dark of night and building a little place for His holiness in their hearts.

                That’s why we must be gentle with those with whom we come in contact. Gentle, and slow to judge. It’s easy to look at someone and say that they must not be a Jesus follower, that they must not be a Christian, that they must not have any interest at all in knowing who our Jesus is because of something that we see in their outward lives. But it’s not always so simple.

                Joseph and Nicodemus were both members of the Jewish elite. They were both studied men, part of the discussion and dialogue for three years about who this Jesus was and what kind of threat He might pose to men like them. On the surface, it’s easy to think that neither man would have much of an interest in this Jesus at all. …until they met on the night of His death when both men showed up prepare His body for the tomb.

                All of a sudden, their tenderness shows. All of a sudden, their secret love manifests. All of a sudden, we see of them – and they see of each other – the secret hope they’ve been holding onto.

                May we have our eyes open to see this in our fellow man, even in the men in whose lives we might least expect to find it. May we meet one another on the way to the tomb, smile knowingly, acknowledge each other’s presence, and at the very least whisper, ‘Brother.’