October 18, 2009 Pastor Tim Pusey

HEALING HANDS
Luke 4:38-40

We’re sure hearing a lot about H1N1 right now, aren’t we? And, with it, we’re hearing lots of warnings about not spreading germs. We’ve given some thought to just hosing everyone down with disinfectant in the courtyard before you can enter the building, but we decided maybe that was going too far! We have, by the way, put antibacterial dispensers throughout our building and we encourage you to use them. I’ve thought that maybe throughout the winter months our greeters might offer you a bulletin and a squirt of antibacterial hand gel!

I suppose there have often been scares relating to people infecting other people with diseases—and practical wisdom says that we’re to keep our distance when someone’s sick with something that’s contagious. I understand that and respect that, but I sometimes wonder if we don’t let this principle carry over into other arenas of life—particularly keeping our distance from people who are really hurting because we don’t want to get infected with their pain. It’s easier to keep a distance—protecting ourselves from letting other people’s problems drag us down. After all, we’ve all got our own problems! Why should I involve myself in the pain in other people’s lives?

One of the men of our church was reflecting this week on a bracelet that he wears—which has on it the simple letters “WWJD.” It poses the question, “What would Jesus do?” and reflects the question of a now classic Christian book by Charles Sheldon entitled “In His Steps.” And when we apply this question—What would Jesus do?—to the matter of getting close to people’s pain, we have to acknowledge that Jesus did not keep His distance from hurting people. He went to them! He broke through cultural barriers and customs in approaching people otherwise ostracized by their diseases. I’m reminded of Jesus healing the man with leprosy and His response to the woman caught in adultery. He placed His hands upon such people. He actually touched them!

For the next several weeks we’re going to be looking at passages from Luke’s Gospel where Jesus came close to people and placed His hands on them and healed them. We’ll call the series, “Close Enough to Feel the Pain”—and I might encourage you to invite to worship with you those you may know who are experiencing some sort of pain in their lives—for we know that the same Jesus who touched people’s lives in New Testament times still brings hope and encouragement and healing in His touch today.

In a contagious world we learn to keep our distance. If we get too close to those who are suffering, we might get infected by their pain. It may not be convenient or comfortable. But the reality is that it’s only when you get close enough to catch their hurt that you’ll be close enough to for them to catch your love. The miracle of Christ’s healing hands was initially experienced in His willingness to share another person’s suffering—getting close enough to feel their pain. In some ways, we see in these healing scenes a foreshadowing of what was to come when Jesus took upon Himself our sins. He came from the safety of Heaven to the earth to identify totally with humanity—and ultimately to give His life for us. It is by His suffering that we are healed.

Jesus didn’t call us to live in quarantine. He called us to be a kind of hospital—where hurting people find healing. John Ortberg put it like this—
Imagine a hospital where the doctors say, “This has been a successful day. I wasn’t infected. My patients were loaded with filthy germs, but I kept them all outside. They may be dying, but at least I didn’t touch any of them. I didn’t get infected.”
None of us would want to go to a hospital like that! No! We’re not called to live our lives in quarantine. We’re called to follow the example of Jesus—and Jesus got close enough to people to feel their pain.

Let’s look at just such a scene from Jesus’ life and ministry. It’s found in Luke’s Gospel, chapter 4—but in reality, such scenes were found all throughout Jesus’ ministry. This was early in the days of His public ministry, for He had not yet even chosen His 12 disciples and challenged them to follow Him. It was a Sabbath day—and He had been teaching in the synagogue. The people were amazed at the authority with which He spoke and the authority that He had demonstrated even over the powers of darkness. Then we come to this passage—
[Read Luke 4:38-40, NIV]
The scene began with a crisis of a serious illness in a family—Peter’s mother-in-law was frighteningly sick with a high fever. And those who were getting to know Jesus asked Jesus to help her.

We learn from this scene that Simon Peter was a married man. It paints a very human picture of him, because he was a man with a house, a wife, a business and even a mother-in-law! Mark’s Gospel (chapter 1) tells us that this took place in the home of Simon and Andrew—who were brothers. It seems somewhat safe to assume that Peter’s mother-in-law must have lived in the home as well, so I’m envisioning a not-so-untypical ancient Mideast household of multiple generations and extended family under one roof. So when Jesus soon after this challenged Peter to become one of His disciples, He was not talking to someone who was footloose and fancy-free. This guy had a home and a family to be concerned about—in other words, he wasn’t that much different than most of us.

The mother-in-law was in bed with a high fever. And remember that they didn’t have bottles of aspirin or Tylenol on their shelves. They didn’t have thermometers or emergency rooms or medical health plans—private insurance or a universal government plan! She was terribly sick and they needed someone to help—so they asked Jesus to help her. I might also tell you that the one who has recorded these words for us today—the man named Luke—was himself a doctor. And it’s pretty interesting to read his Gospel account of the healing ministry of Jesus.

We might also venture to guess that Simon Peter’s mother-in-law may have already heard about Jesus herself. She may have been a follower, or it may have been that she could have been upset about the way in which Jesus was rocking the world and the priorities of her son-in-law! If that was the case, can’t you just imagine her saying to her daughter, “Good grief! What in the world has gotten into that husband of yours?!”

But whatever was the mother-in-law’s perspective of Jesus, what we do know from both Gospel accounts is that He went to her, took her hand and helped her up. Immediately the fever left her and, evidently in keeping with the woman’s character, she got busy herself from that moment on serving a meal to those who had come into their home—including Jesus.

Luke tells us that Jesus “rebuked the fever and it left her.” Those seem like strange words coming from a healer perhaps. I can’t recall my doctor ever rebuking my high blood pressure or my high cholesterol! (Though I have probably had a doctor rebuke me for being overweight!) Some have concluded from this scene where Jesus rebuked the fever that the presence of illness represents the presence of some sort of evil in the body—and that Jesus was acting just as He did when He called evil spirits out of individuals. But scripture makes a distinction between the accounts of Jesus healing people and Him setting people free from evil spirits, so it seems that they understood the difference quite clearly and that they were not assuming the presence of physical illness to imply the presence of some sort of evil in a person’s life that was causing it. In rebuking the fever, Jesus was in effect personifying the fever as He rebuked it—more in the language that He used than in implying any sort of spirit present in the sickness. It might be like me talking to my car when it’s not working right or someone telling their clock to hurry up when they’re anxiously waiting for something to occur.

When the Lord created us, He put us in human bodies—knowing that our bodies would be imperfect and that we were mortal, in other words, that our bodies were not created to last forever. Sickness is part of life. And while Jesus often chose to heal people and while He still chooses to heal some people today, the reality is that our bodies are designed at best to be temporary.

Unfortunately, pain is also part of life—physical and emotional pain. What Jesus early demonstrated is that He is Lord of sickness and pain—that He has power to free us from it when He chooses. But, perhaps even more important, His love brings Him to where we are, getting close enough to us to feel our pain. We are not alone! Whatever happens in our lives, He walks beside us—and His Presence makes all the difference! In His Presence is healing and power! In His Presence is hope!—which gets us beyond the trap of our own fears. And best of all, in His Presence there is love! He loves us enough to get close enough to feel our pain.

After the healing scene in Simon Peter’s home, Luke tells us of a beautiful scene as people brought to Jesus many who were sick, and laying His hands on each one, Jesus healed them. The crowds had apparently waited until evening, after the Sabbath was over, to carry out their labor of love in carrying those who were sick to Jesus. Can’t you just imagine it—one by one the people would wait their turn, waiting for Jesus to place His hands upon them and heal them. Perhaps there were others with fevers—maybe H1N1, who knows! Perhaps there were some with epilepsy or those who were crippled or blind. I’m guessing there were those who brought sick babies and children for Jesus to touch them and heal them. People who had lost sight of hope themselves were brought by others to the Healer—and He touched them, and made them whole, and restored their sense of hope and peace. He placed His healing hands upon them—and everything changed.

Do you understand the power of physical touch? We’ve heard so much about the misuse of touch and inappropriate touch that I fear we’ve lost sight of the beauty and the power in human touch. I understand that there are boundaries to be maintained, and I respect that and urge people to wisely observe those boundaries. But let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater! There are times when people are hurting and grieving so profoundly that there is nothing in our words that will help, but there’s something powerful in just reaching out to someone in those moments—maybe taking their hand, perhaps putting our hands on their shoulders, or maybe even letting them bury their sobs in our embrace.

Some of you may have been astute enough to examine the verses just prior to the ones I read and to go ahead to the verse that immediately follows it. In both cases, we read of Jesus commanding demons to leave people. And while I don’t want to get sidetracked this morning into a full discussion on what demon possession may or may not have meant, we can’t ignore the fact that the New Testament tells of many occasions when Jesus delivered those who were possessed by an evil spirit. I do believe that there is such a thing as demon possession—and those who have served in ministry in third-world areas of the world often tell vivid stories of dealing with such, and I can’t imagine that it’s limited to those settings. But for our purposes this morning, let’s clearly note that Jesus brought not only physical healing, but spiritual delivery and healing as well.

The mighty God upon whom we call and upon whom we trust is certainly able to deal with our physical, emotional, psychological, situational and spiritual problems. There is nothing too difficult for Him! He’s the Great Healer—and we don’t need to understand all the dimensions of our need in order to embrace His healing touch, any more than we all need to have medical degrees to accept the council of wise and caring doctors who give us guidance on how to deal with our physical problems. Our Heavenly Father is the expert. He not only loves us deeply, but He has the power to make a difference in our lives today!

So, how are our lives impacted today by the touch of Christ? Was this something only experienced by those touched by Jesus during the years of His earthly ministry? Or are lives still transformed by His touch today?

The power of God that was seen in and through the life and ministry of Jesus is still at work in our world today. The God that came close enough to feel people’s pain in the Gospels still comes close enough to feel our pain today. The Gospel—the Good News that Christ brings—did not end when they crucified Jesus. He rose from the dead and is alive today and at work in our world through the Holy Spirit! And His touch still brings healing and hope even to our little corner of the world!

And we need His touch upon our lives, don’t we? We need to know that our Creator God recognizes us, that He cares enough to come to where we are and embrace us as we are. We need to know that He loves us too much to leave us as we are, but that He’s willing to forgive our sins and make us new and continue His refining work in making us to be more and more like Him in character. And He loves us too much to leave us alone and without hope in life—so He comes beside us, He tells us not to be afraid, He strengthens us by His touch upon our lives, and He sticks right with us throughout all the hurdles of life!

Several years ago I had a young man in my church who was dying of AIDS. I knew what it was and he and his family knew what it was—but we never spoke of it. I visited him many times in the hospital and was in the room when he died. To this day, his parents and I have never spoken of what killed him, but I’m guessing they feared I knew all along—though I’ve always wished they had been able to acknowledge it to me. I was determined to make it clear that it didn’t matter. Whenever I walked into his room, I reached out to shake his hand. His parents and him and I held hands many times as we prayed around his bedside. In all my inadequacies, I somehow knew enough to make it clear that I was willing to come close enough to feel his pain, not fearing contamination by his disease, but rather embracing the opportunity to demonstrate Christlike love to my young friend. As far as I know, my young friend came to peace with Christ before he died, and I have always hoped that my presence and my care and even my touch upon his life spoke to him again of the Christ who comes close enough to feel our pain.

While I can’t pretend to have knowledge or understanding of the kind of personal pain with which you might be living, I’ve become convinced that there’s a lot of hurting people in our world. I’m convinced that our church and every other church are full of just such people week by week. I wish I had the human capacity to step into each of your lives and with my touch bring to you the touch of the Lord, but the marvelous and mysterious ways of the Lord do not require that. God comes to each of through His Holy Spirit. And in a very real way, He puts His hands upon us and speaks peace into the storms of our lives…He brings healing to the physical and emotional wounds we carry…and His touch brings hope into our otherwise overwhelmed and overspent lives. And He wants to come alongside you today.

There’s a marvelous verse found in 1 Peter 5:7 that simply says, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). And that’s what I’m going to encourage you to do this morning. No one else may understand the stress with which you’re living. No one else may know the details of your life that spark such foreboding fear and anxiety, but your Heavenly Father knows and He cares. And He’s approaching you this morning—to touch you and help you and heal you. “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” That’s our privilege as His children…