July 13, 2008

Pray to help and heal people. Praying for others makes us all stronger. The strength comes to us from God's love as we feel His Holy Presence. Isaiah 6: Go and say to this people:“Keep listening, but do not comprehend;keep looking, but do not understand.” 10Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes,so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears,and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed.’ 11Then I said, ‘How long, O Lord?’ And he said:‘Until cities lie waste without inhabitant,and houses without people, and the land is utterly desolate; 12until the Lord sends everyone far away, and vast is the emptiness in the midst of the land. 13Even if a tenth part remains in it, it will be burned again,like a trebinth or an oak whose stump remains standing when it is felled.’ The holy seed is its stump. In Isaiah the people's hardness of heart comes from God resulting to the destruction and annihilation of the land. Jesus changes this: Then the disciples came and asked him, ‘Why do you speak to them in parables?’ 11He answered, ‘To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. 12For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. 13The reason I speak to them in parables is that “seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.” 14With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says:“You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive. 15For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears,and understand with their heart and turn— and I would heal them.” 16But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. 17Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it. To Jesus, the hardness of heart rests solely with the people. "I would heal them," Jesus says. It is up to us we can chose to be a rivalry with God or we can chose to be at peace with God. God's peace, that is the Peace of Christ, is not quid pro quo. It is transcendent and transforming, uniting us with God and all of God's people who are simultaneously being transformed. John Calvin said that the time for spiritual healing was in the First Century only and does not happen anymore. Because of this many mainline protestants don't take healing services seriously. Healing services on Television are impressive. I am not certain what the term, "slaying of the spirit" means but this showmanship that goes with it brings spiritual healing into disrepute. A true healing is shockingly simple and direct; it is just asking. It is not out-sourced. The common perception is that there are steps involved and we God's healing power is distant from us. Through medical practitioners, doctors, surgeons, pharmacists, etc God works His healing ministry. His healing power and love is so strong that it even transcends through an atheist doctor. No religion, faith nor lack thereof can impede it. Yet, our culture says that healing cannot be that simple and a healing service seems foolish. God will use any means to be a conduit to transcend His healing power. There is a stigma placed on healing which comes from an understanding in the last 100 years. Mary Baker Eddy the founder of the Christian Scientist convinced by her own study of the Bible, especially Genesis 1, and through experimentation, Eddy claimed to have found healing power through a higher sense of God as Spirit and man as God's spiritual "image and likeness." She became convinced that illness could be healed through an awakened thought brought about by a clearer perception of God and the explicit rejection of drugs, hygiene, and medicine based upon the observation that Jesus did not use these methods for healing: It is plain that God does not employ drugs or hygiene, nor provide them for human use; else Jesus would have recommended and employed them in his healing. … The tender word and Christian encouragement of an invalid, pitiful patience with his fears and the removal of them, are better than hecatombs of gushing theories, stereotyped borrowed speeches, and the doling of arguments, which are but so many parodies on legitimate Christian Science, aflame with divine Love. (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, 143:5, 155:15) She eventually called this spiritual perception the operation of the Christ Truth on human consciousness. She claimed that medicine is a fallacy. Christian Science forms attitudes about healing that make a simple and direct prayer for healing seem foolish to many people. To the Christian Scientist what we do hear at Peace Lutheran is too simple and to those who are outside of a faith community we can be seen as primitive or naive. May we all see God's transcending healing power in all His conduits.