“‘Faith Healing’ in the Biblically-Correct Sense”
In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.
[Amen.]
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. [Amen.]
“Lord, who once came to bring, On Your redeeming wing, Healing and sight,
Health to the sick in mind, Sight to the inly blind:
Oh, now to humankind Let there be light!”
(Lutheran Service Book, © 2006 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO.
979:2)
Gospel
Reading...................................................................
St. Mark 10:46-52 (esp. 52)
52And Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And
immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way.
Prologue: The following statements appear in the “Faith Healing” section of
“The Skeptic’s Dictionary” by Bob Carroll: “When fraud is not involved,
faith healing is a cooperative form of magical thinking involving a healer
and a patient in which (a) both healer and patient believe in the healing
power of spirits or other mysterious healing mechanisms; (b) the healer
consciously or unconsciously manipulates the patient into believing he or
she has cured the patient’s ailment by prayer, hand movements (to unblock,
remove, restore, etc. some intangible ‘energy’), or by some other
unconventional ritual or product; and (c) the patient validates the healing
by giving signs that the healing has worked, … . When an alleged cure by
faith healing occurs in a religious context it is usually called a miracle.
Many alleged cures by faith healing have involved fraud, as with Marjoe
Gortner and Peter Popoff (Randi 1989: 139-181). Some alleged cures have
involved mistaken diagnoses that required no cure at all, much less a
miraculous one. Most cases of faith healing need no cure, since most
patients will get better even if they receive no treatment at all (Hines
2003). The majority of faith healings are successful because of the
cooperation of healer and patient. The faith healer can't lose. Any
treatment he or she gives is likely to get a high approval rating. Most
patients will validate their treatments. There will be no follow-up, so
there will be few bothersome failures.” (http//www.skepdic.com)
Melissa Taylor wrote the following in the conclusion of her class
term paper entitled “Faith Healing”: “… I believe that the miracle of
faith-healing does exist, but that faith-healing is rare. I believe it is
much more of a miracle when people with diseases and health problems can
have faith in God and trust Him despite their problems. To me it requires
much less faith to believe all of our problems will be whisked away, as if
God held a gigantic broom and dust-pan. The truth is that many faith-filled
Christians have life-long diseases, even if they have faith enough for God
to take them away. Many of these people have used their infirmities to
reach out—even if paralyzed like Joni [Eareckson-Tada]—to touch others and
to bring them to Christ. To me, the fact that Christians can love Christ
despite having debilitating health problems is much more of a miracle than a
faith-healing, which only takes a moment—not a lifetime—of faith.”
(http://www.angelfire.com/mi/FAST/faithhealing.html)
Ken Collins wrote the following about “Faith Healing” in his
website: “When we pray for healing, who must have faith?
“If you have been to many healing services, as I have, you will find
that some are showy and tasteless (like the ones you see on television) and
others are earnest and deeply moving (like the ones you find in local
churches). What most of them seem to have in common is the idea that the
sick person has to have faith in order to get well. This is especially
emphasized by the flamboyant ‘healers,’ because it is a ready explanation
for any of their failures.
“However, in the healing stories of Jesus … it is the faith of the
person asking for healing that matters. In the case of the woman, the
person requesting healing and the person being healed were the same person,
but in the case of Jairus’ daughter, the person being healed was
unconscious; unable to have faith or even to know that efforts were being
made to heal her.
“If there is healing in response to prayer, we know that it was God’s
will to heal, but if there was no healing in response to prayer, the answer
isn’t simple.
“We have to give God credit for being smarter and wiser than we are,
and we must acknowledge that we cannot always immediately apprehend His
designs. Instead of grumbling, like so many Hebrews in the wilderness, at
the momentary discomfort caused by an apparent glitch, we must sit and
ponder eternal things. How immature to pound our fist upon the table like
so many spoiled children and demand what we ask for and demand it now! If
such children have a loving Father, they will be denied many things until
they learn maturity.
“We must in all things seek His will and submit to it. It may be His
will for you to go to the doctor.”
(http://www.kencollins.com/worship/pray-03.htm)
And, the American Cancer Society’s website contains the following
information: “Faith healing is founded on the belief that certain people or
places have the ability to cure and heal—that someone or something can
eliminate disease or heal injuries through a close connection to a higher
power. Faith healing can involve prayer, a visit to a religious shrine, or
simply a strong belief in a supreme being.
“Available scientific evidence does not support claims that faith
healing can cure cancer or any other disease. Some scientists suggest that
the number of people who attribute their cure to faith healing is lower than
the number predicted by calculations based on the historical percentage of
spontaneous remissions seen among people with cancer. However, faith
healing may promote peace of mind, reduce stress, relieve pain and anxiety,
and strengthen the will to live.”
“According to proponents, there is little that faith healing cannot do.
Many religious sects claim faith can cure blindness, deafness, cancer, AIDS,
developmental disorders, anemia, arthritis, corns, defective speech,
multiple sclerosis, skin rashes, total body paralysis, and various injuries.
Christian Scientists, for instance, believe that illness is an illusion that
can be healed through prayer, either for oneself or by trained
practitioners.”
(http://www.cancer.org/Treatment/TreatmentsandSideEffects/ComplementaryandAlternativeMedicine/MindBodyandSpirit/faith-healing)
Well, there’s certainly much more out there in cyberspace about
this mysterious phenomenon, all of which begs Bible-believing,
Christ-centered, cross-focused Christians to ask, “Just what is …
“‘Faith Healing’ in the Biblically-Correct Sense”?
The best way to answer this and all other questions about
religious and spiritual mysteries is to seek what almighty God Himself has
to say about them in His Holy Word, the Bible, instead of reading
quasi-spiritual, self-absorbed, emotion-driven, worldview opinions,
feelings, and perceptions that mostly just make a lot of money for the
authors of the books that such people have written.
Those of you who have faithfully attended the divine services in
our setting for the past two-to-three months probably noticed that the
Gospel Readings according to Saint Mark have contained a number of
miraculous healings by the divine physician Himself, Jesus Christ. In a
sense, I got the best of all of them with today’s account that acutely
focuses on revealing to us just what “Faith Healing” really is in the
Biblically-correct sense. In short, it includes two principles. The first
is that …
I. Spirit-Given Faith Purely Prayerfully Cries Out, “Have Mercy
on Me, Jesus!” (46-48)
46As [Jesus] was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd,
Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside.
47And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and
say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 48And many rebuked him,
telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David,
have mercy on me!”
That simply echoes today’s Introit antiphon, “Out of the depths I
cry to you, O Lord! O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to
the voice of my pleas for mercy!” (Ps. 130:1-2 ESV) In addition, today’s
Collect emphasized it with the prayerful plea to God, “… have mercy on us
and give us eyes of faith to see Your Son that we may follow Him on the way
that leads to eternal life … .”
That two-word phrase “have mercy” appears many times in the
English Standard Version of the Holy Bible. However, the word “mercy”
itself appears many additional times in the Old and New Testaments of the
ESV. It’s a word that expresses deep, sincere, heartfelt compassion.
In Divine Service Setting I, that’s guiding our worship today, we
beg “Lord, have mercy” four times in the “Kyrie” and “have mercy on us” once
in the “Gloria in Excelsis” and twice in the “Agnus Dei” of the “Service of
the Sacrament.” Also, the word “mercy” itself appears at another two
places. (Lutheran Service Book. Pages 151-154, 161, 163.) In addition,
“Lord, have mercy” is the response to each petition in today’s Prayer of the
Church.
The word “mercy” is sometimes used interchangeably with “grace.”
However, there’s a distinct difference between the two. “Mercy” pleads to
purge away something unpleasant that we deserve such as God’s temporal wrath
and eternal punishment. On the other hand, “grace” begs to receive
something pleasant that we don’t deserve such as God’s gifts of forgiveness,
salvation, and eternal life.
So, where does all that lead us in the search to know what genuine
“Faith Healing” really is? Today’s Epistle Reading answered that when it
said, “… [Jesus] is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God
through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” (Heb 7:25
ESV) That word “save” means to restore both body and soul to wholeness and
holiness, something Jesus gained for us with His sinless life, innocent
suffering, crucifixion death, and victorious resurrection from the dead.
Therefore, God reveals in His Holy Word that Spirit-given faith
trustingly looks to the divine Healer Himself for healing. It believes that
He has the power to do so and, therefore, prayerfully begs Him to remove
what’s unpleasant due to our sin-brokenness. In light of that, we recognize
that proper prayer is at the same time unconditional and conditional. It’s
unconditional in that we don’t demand when, where, and how to be healed.
And, it’s conditional in that we join with Jesus Himself in praying,
“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my
will, but yours, be done.” (St Luke 22:42 ESV) All of that is in the
context of realizing that faith does not cause healing to happen; rather, it
receives the healing that God promises to give either here in time or, for
sure, hereafter in eternity.
Of course, the second principle directly connects with the first
one, namely, …
II. Jesus Calls You to Himself for Healing. (49-51)
49And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” And they called the blind man,
saying to him, “Take heart. Get up; he is calling you.” 50And throwing off
his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. 51And Jesus said to him, “What
do you want me to do for you?” And the blind man said to him, “Rabbi, let
me recover my sight.”
Right away I’m reminded of several divine invitation-with-promise
passages in Holy Scripture. Take, for instance, “… call upon me in the day
of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” (Ps 50:15 ESV);
“When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I
will rescue him and honor him.” (Ps 91:15 ESV); “Then they cried to the Lord
in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.” (Ps 107:6, 19,
28 ESV); and “Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. … Is anyone
among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them
pray over him … . And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick,
and the Lord will raise him up.” (James 5:13-15 ESV)
Of course, who could ever forget the gracious words from the holy
lips of our Savior Himself, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.” (Matt 11:28 ESV) Those words recall to our
hearts and minds what Isaiah wrote, “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends
of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.” (Isa 45:22 ESV)
Jesus Himself assured us of His care, concern, and compassion for
us when He told His disciples, “All that the Father gives me will come to
me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” (John 6:37 ESV) And,
near the end of the Book of Revelation we read, “The Spirit and the Bride
say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is
thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.”
(Rev 22:17 ESV) followed by the last statement of that book just a few
verses later, “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all. Amen.” (Rev
22:21 ESV)
All such invitations-with-promise lead us to our Savior, who
reveals Himself to us in God’s Holy Word, Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and
Holy Communion. They’re cast in the context of the familiar hymn stanza:
“Today Your mercy calls us To wash away our sin. However great our
trespass, Whatever we have been, However long from mercy Our hearts have
turned away, Your precious blood can wash us And make us clean today.”
(Lutheran Service Book. Hymn 915:1) And, how else can we respond than what
today’s Gradual expressed, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is
within me, bless his holy name!” (Ps 103:1)
In conclusion, therefore, the following words from today’s Old
Testament Reading concisely summarize this sermon: “Behold, I will bring
them from the north country and gather them from the farthest parts of the
earth, among them the blind and the lame, the pregnant woman and she who is
in labor, together; a great company, they shall return here. With weeping
they shall come, and with pleas for mercy I will lead them back, I will make
them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not
stumble, for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.” (Jer
31:8-9 ESV) That’s ultimately …
“‘Faith Healing’ in the Biblically-Correct Sense.”
Acting toward His sin-broken creatures in a lovingly fatherly
manner, God Himself rescues mankind and will restore all who believe in Him
to wholeness and holiness of body and soul. Of course, in this particular
instance, it’s a no-brainer that “The desire of any blind man is to receive
sight, but in this case the statement of that desire implied faith in Jesus’
ability to give sight.” (Donald Guthrie in Jesus the Messiah: An Illustrated
Life of Christ. Copyright © 1972 by The Zondervan Corporation, Grand
Rapids, MI. Page 260.)
However, in this situation “Jesus commended the blind man’s faith.
It was not a shallow, temporary emotion. He followed Jesus along the road.
That road led to Jerusalem, to the cross, and to the open tomb. Bartimaeus’
persistence and his faith are a model for our own prayer life.” (Harold E.
Wicke in People’s Bible Commentary: Mark. Copyright © Concordia Publishing
House, St. Louis, MO. Page 151.)
Perhaps the real lesson to learn is that “In the Kingdom of God
conditions are quite different from the situation as we find it in the
kingdoms of this world. In the world-kingdoms man achieves greatness at the
expense of his inferiors and by making his will a law unto others. But in
the Kingdom of God we shall be the followers of Jesus.” (Joh. Ylvisaker in
The Gospels: A Synoptic Presentation of the Text in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John with explanatory notes. Copyright © 1932 Augsburg Publishing House,
Minneapolis, MN. Page 530.)
So, realize that you do that when your …
I. Spirit-Given Faith Purely Prayerfully Cries Out, “Have Mercy on Me,
Jesus!” (46-48)
and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, respond obediently when …
II. Jesus Calls You to Himself for Healing. (49-51)
God grant it all for the sake of Jesus Christ, His humble Son, our
holy Savior. [Amen.]
In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.
[Amen.]
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