Two of our greatest presidents were born in February, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. One of the things I love about Lincoln was his sense of humor.
Abe Lincoln laughed at himself, and especially at his appearance. He was reportedly a very plain looking man. I particularly like one story that Lincoln told on himself.
He said, “Sometimes I feel like the ugly man who met an old woman traveling through a forest.
“The old woman said, ‘You’re the ugliest man I ever saw.’
“‘I can’t help it,’ the ugly man said.
“‘No, I guess not,’ the woman admitted, ‘but the least you could do is stay at home.”
It takes a great deal of character to laugh at yourself like that.
We thank God for men like Washington and Lincoln. They made a significant impact on history. Nevertheless, their significance is dwarfed by a simple carpenter who lived in the little town of Nazareth 2000 years ago. To paraphrase Robert W. Youngs: “Human beings have always praised and honored certain people in their own generation; but Jesus they have considered as an object of devotion. People recite poems about Paul Revere, but they sing hymns about Jesus. They construct monuments in memory of their statesmen; communion tables in memory of Jesus. Before kings and queens, men bow and women curtsy; before Jesus they all kneel in prayer.” (1)
Our lesson for today from Mark’s Gospel illustrates why Jesus captured the devotion of the people of his time. It was the Sabbath. Jesus and his disciples had been in the synagogue where Jesus healed a man with an unclean spirit. As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon Peter and Andrew. Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they immediately told Jesus about her. So he went to her, took her by the hand and helped her up. Mark tells us, “The fever left her and she began to wait on them.”
Well, so much for the role of women in that time. “She began to wait on them.” No rest for the weary. She was well, so she was able to fill her expected role in the household. But, of course, the point of the story is that Jesus healed her, as he healed many others.
It didn’t take long for word to get around about Jesus’ wondrous acts of casting out demons and healing the sick. “That evening,” says Mark, “after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. The whole town gathered at the door, and Jesus healed many who had various diseases . . .”
Somebody tell me why they waited until sunset . . . It was because it was the Sabbath and pious people wouldn’t travel on the Sabbath. But they came as soon as they could. They wanted to be near Jesus.
In the gospel of Mark, there are ten consecutive stories that tell about Jesus healing people of various diseases and conditions. It is a significant part of the Gospel message: Where Jesus is, there is healing.
Sometimes that healing is physical.
The esteemed Bible scholar Dr. William Barclay says that Peter’s mother-in-law was suffering from what the Talmud called “a burning fever.” “It was, and still is, very prevalent in that particular part of Galilee,” says Dr. Barclay. The Talmud actually lays down the methods of dealing with this malady. A knife made wholly of iron was tied by a braid of hair to a thorn bush. And then for four days, one would recite one verse a day from Exodus 3:2-5. On the fourth day, the bush was to be cut down, and a certain magical formula was pronounced, and thus the cure was supposed to be achieved.
It is noteworthy that Jesus completely disregarded all the paraphernalia of popular magic, and with a gesture and a word of unique authority and power, he healed the woman. (2) Where Jesus is, there is healing. Sometimes that healing is physical.
In one of his books Robert A. Schuller, the younger Schuller, tells about Lory Jones, the wife of actor Dean Jones. Some of you are old enough to remember Dean Jones. He starred in many Walt Disney films, such as The Love Bug (the original one) and The Shaggy D.A., and in the television show, The Teddy Bears.
In February of 1974, Lory and Dean Jones took a vacation to Mexico City. One day when they were sightseeing, they decided to tour a Roman Catholic cathedral. As they followed the tour guide, Dean began making offhand comments like, “This place must be impossible to heat!” To Dean, the cathedral was just another architectural site. He was not prepared for the priest’s final remark at the end of the tour.
“If some of you need physical healing,” the priest said, “now is the time to pray.”
Nor was he prepared for his wife’s response to the priest’s suggestion. Lory Jones turned to her husband and said, “Let’s pray for my arthritis.”
Lory was taking about thirty aspirins a day to relieve the pain in her hands. Some of you probably know what that is like. It’s a miracle her stomach could handle that many aspirin.
That morning Dean had massaged Lory’s hands to alleviate the cramping and pain so she could go sightseeing, giving her temporary relief, but she wanted more. She wanted a permanent solution.
Dean almost laughed when Lory mentioned praying about her arthritis. The only thing that kept him from laughing was the thought of Lory’s intense pain. He considered her suggestion seriously. “A man of great faith, I wasn’t,” Dean admits now. “But I couldn’t resist my wife’s request. What have I got to lose?” he asked himself.
Dean bowed his head. He prayed silently, “God, heal Lory’s arthritis.” Lory’s prayer was much longer than that; however, within five minutes they were walking out of the cathedral.
“I think something happened in there,” Lory said as they walked away from the cathedral.
“Great!” Dean answered as he thought, “If praying makes you feel better, that’s fine.”
Three days later, Lory stopped taking aspirin. Dean watched her move her hands without wincing with pain. Surely this was a miracle. But would it last? They waited for the pain to return. Two weeks passed. A month. A year. Lory had truly been healed. (3)
I wish I could say to you that every prayer for physical healing is answered just that surely. If I did, many of you would surround me after the service. “Why didn’t God heal my daughter?” someone might say to me painfully. “I prayed night and day.”
That’s why the church is very cautious about prayer and healing. It’s a complex subject that none of us can truly understand. But Jesus does heal. I don’t have any doubt about that. Trust him when you’re hurting just as much as you trust him when you’re healthy. No one is ever sorry for praying and trusting, even if physical healing never comes. Jesus heals. Sometimes the healing is physical.
Sometimes the healing is emotional.
Robert H. Schuller young Schuller’s dad of Crystal Cathedral fame once told an important story about former Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Rusk held his high office during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Global tensions called for high level meetings between our government and other leading governments. The Cold War was still very real.
When Rusk’s plane landed in Washington from a European conference and he walked down the steps to meet the press, the first reporter shoved a microphone in his face and shouted, “What are the chances for peace, Mr. Secretary?” The world waited and listened.
After a strong pause, Dean Rusk answered, “It all depends on whether man is a rational or emotional creature.” That’s an unusual answer for a government official: “It all depends on whether man is a rational or emotional creature.”
Schuller admitted he scoffed at the Secretary of State’s answer. Schuller had just graduated after receiving an advanced academic degree. “We all know man is a rational creature,” he thought self-righteously to himself. It was a point of view shared by many during that era.
After forty years of ministry, Robert Schuller changed his mind. The subconscious, he decided, is ahead of the conscious. The head may lead the way, but it’s the subconscious, the emotions, the heart that will ultimately have its way. The brain he determined has an unlimited ability to rationalize any position. Therefore, he concluded, human beings are first and last emotional creatures. (4)
I believe he’s right. There are people who carry around hurts that last a lifetime. Their friends and family say, “Get over it! It’s been twenty years. Let it go.” They know with their brain that they should let it go; if only they could. It would be better for them if they could, but somehow the hurt won’t heal.
I have only one suggestion: turn it over to Jesus. Pray daily for his healing power.
I ran across something recently that some of you might find helpful in seeking healing for your emotions. Tanya Marie Luhrmann, Ph.D. is a Stanford psychological anthropologist. She wrote a book titled, When God Talks Back. For her book she studied evangelical Christians who claim to have two-way conversations with God. She discovered that these believers had three prayer techniques in common.
First of all, they used imagination. When praying Psalm 23, for example, they not only saw the Lord as an actual shepherd but also felt themselves lying down in green pastures and being led beside still waters. They used their imaginations to make the scripture real.
The second technique they used was emotion. While immersed in Psalm 23, for example, while walking through the valley of the shadow of death, they recalled losing someone they loved. Letting themselves re-experience that sorrow made the scripture personal.
The final prayer technique they used was connection. They imagined God as their shepherd walking beside them through the valley and having an actual conversation. That’s when they said God spoke to them. (5)
You might try that in your times of prayer. Imagination, emotion and connection.
Of course, hurts are not always from the past. Sometimes we need help going through current situations.
I once read of a mother with an adopted teen-age daughter. The girl had been through a great deal of emotional damage and was doing her best to spread her hurt around by verbally abusing her adopted mother. When things were at their worst, this mother would sit on a meditation cushion, light a candle in the darkness, and wrap herself in what she came to call her prayer shawl. With the help of these concrete aids, she was able to continue loving someone who was difficult to love. (6)
We all have to find what works for us. But the testimony of scripture is that Jesus heals. He healed Mary Magdalene of seven demons. We don’t know what those demons were. Seven hurts from the past, perhaps times when she was abused. It’s not an easy subject, but healing can come when we bring our hurts to Jesus whether they be physical hurts or emotional hurts.
At times, the healing Jesus brings is relational. Relationships are so delicate, whether they are relationships at the office, at school or primary relationships in the home. I won’t ask how many of you are right now praying for your marriage.
One night at the dinner table, a wife commented to her husband, “When we were first married, you took the small piece of steak and gave me the larger. Now you take the large one and leave me the smaller. You don’t love me anymore.”
“Nonsense, darling,” replied the husband, “you just cook better now.”
It’s easy to joke about marital problems, but they are a source of heartache to many adults, and a crushing blow to many children who are affected by those problems.
There was a study years ago in Psychology Today. It was a study of marriages that last. Most studies are done on why marriages come apart. This study was on why marriages last. Some of the conclusions were surprising.
For example, this research showed that for both husbands and wives the most important factor for marital success was when each could say: “My spouse is my best friend.”
In a day when marriage counselors are advising couples to develop separate interests, the overwhelming percentage of the couples in marriages that last do everything together.
One of the most important factors, however, concerns “give and take.” The authors of the study found very few marriages that were perfectly equal. One woman married for 44 years said she would advise all young couples “to be willing to give 70 percent and expect 30 percent.”
In the long run, the study showed the giving and taking should balance out. If either partner enters a marriage determined that all transactions must be equal, the marriage will suffer. As one husband put it, “Sometimes I give far more that I receive, and sometimes I receive far more than I give. But my wife does the same. If we weren’t willing to do that, we would have broken up long ago.”
Marital fads come and go, but there is one constant that was true fifty years ago and is still true today. “The family that prays together stays together.” Whereas the statistics for marriages coming apart are as dismal overall for church people as for non-church people, it is not true for couples who are committed in a serious way to their faith. If you want your marriage to last invite Jesus into it. Pray for your spouse. Pray for your children. Give God an open invitation to take up residence in your household. It will make a difference.
When Jesus is present, there is healing. Simon Peter’s mother-in-law discovered that. For the past two thousand years millions of other people have discovered it as well. Whether it is physical healing, emotional healing, or the healing of a relationship, trust Christ. Healing does not always come as we would choose, but a life of constant prayer will reassure us that we are not alone.
1. Robert W. Youngs, What It Means to Be a Christian (New York: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1960).
2. David Guzik, http://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/guzik_david/StudyGuide_Mar/Mar_1.cfm.
3. Getting Through What You’re Going Through (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1986), pp. 161-163.
4. Don’t Throw Away Tomorrow (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2005).
5. Reader’s Digest (Reader’s Digest USA).
6. http://day1.org/518-handwitness_testimony.