Let us pray: Gracious and eternal God, today we come to you seeking to deepen our understanding of the ways in which you are present and working in our lives to heal us of our afflictions. May we in these moments receive the gift of wisdom. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
You may be familiar with the life story of Thomas Dooley, the Christian military doctor who devoted his life to serving sick and dying people living in Vietnam and Laos in the 1950s. When he died of cancer in 1961, the world considered his death a tragedy, which indeed it was.
One of Tom Dooley's books is titled The Night They Burned the Mountain. The setting is the Asian country of Laos in the hot, dry season preceding the wet and rainy monsoons. It was a period of intense fighting between the Communist and Laotian government forces who were supported by the Americans.
Late one night, as Dooley was sitting in the main room of his house, he heard a great racket outside. Sensing that something was happening out there, he took a flashlight and walked out onto the front porch.
Dr. Dooley writes that the mountains all around the village looked as though they were covered by swarms of lightning bugs - they were blinking, flickering lights in all directions. They looked almost like Japanese lanterns in a parade.
Then he saw one section of the jungle catch on fire. Then came more and more fire. Suddenly, one whole mountain slope burst into a blinding glare of yellow flame - the flickering lights he had seen were people moving with torches to set fire to the jungle. As oppressive rolls of heat poured down the valley into the village, the young doctor felt terrified. Were these communists burning the jungle down? Was this another of their horrible atrocities?
Then one of the Laotian helpers said to the physician: "Do not fear. This is the night they burn the mountain."
Tom Dooley learned that evening that the burning of the mountain was a religious and agricultural ritual; that the village sorcerers and astrologers chose this special night for people to set fire to the slopes of the mountains. The end result would be that the ashes would cover the ground, and when the rains came in a few days, the ground would be rich and fertile. In this black, scorched earth, the tribes would plant their rice roots and from the seedlings would grow the poor mountain rice which was the staple of the villagers' diet.
As Dr. Dooley and his friend watched the mountain burn for many hours, the young doctor reflected upon what was happening. "What would become of these mountains and these tribes?" he asked himself. "What would happen to their kingdom and their freedom when the war was finally settled?"
A few days later, when the heavy monsoon rains came, Dooley writes that in this land and in this season, God was everywhere. He saw God in the mountains, in the air, in the mist, in the morning fog. He heard God in the monsoon rain tapping on the thatched roof. God's hand of life was also present in the people he served as a doctor.1
Now I share this story with you because I think that it speaks to us of the way in which God is revealed to the person of faith who opens his or her mind and spirit to the Lord God. It speaks of how God can be seen by one who has chosen to serve Christ, in this instance by a man who had made healing others his purpose in living. It is about seeing God through the eyes of faith by having a genuine concern for one's fellow humans.
In our Scripture lesson for the morning, we have another account of a healing by Jesus; however, the circumstances of this miracle are quite different from the others that we have been considering. This story concerns a Roman centurion who was presumably an officer in the Army of Herod Antipas. We need to understand that a centurion was a highly respected and powerful member of the armed forces. He would have had to have been an outstanding individual to have achieved this position, which was the equivalent in rank to a sergeant major in our army of today. Centurions are well thought of throughout the New Testament.
We are told that this centurion had a slave who was very dear to him. This gives a clue as to the nature of the man. According to Roman Law, slaves were considered to be merely a thing or a tool, for they had no civil rights. The master could treat a slave in any way he liked; he was free even to take the slave's life if he so desired. When a slave was past the time when he could work productively, he would be put out of the household to die. So clearly, for this army officer to love a slave was indeed unusual. This tells us that he was a man of great compassion.
You will remember the circumstances of the healing of the paralytic which we discussed last week. The friends of the handicapped man believed that their companion would not be healed unless he was touched by the hand of Jesus. Since they could not get into the house where Jesus was working because of the great crowd, they dismantled the roof so that their friend could be healed.
In today's lesson, we see a very different approach to healing. The centurion sends out some elders to ask them to bring Jesus to come and heal his beloved slave. Jesus agrees to come and sets out to the house of the centurion. The officer is described to Jesus by the Jewish elders as a good man, one who has loved the nation of Israel and built their temple. For this reason they have judged the centurion to be "worthy" of Jesus' assistance.
Then something very strange and unexpected happens. The centurion sends friends to Jesus who relay this message: "Lord, do not trouble yourself.... But say the word and let my servant be healed." When Jesus hears this, he is amazed. He tells the crowd which is following him that "not even in Israel" had he found such faith. When the friends of the centurion returned to the house, they found that the slave had been healed.
Now what is the message for us in this story? I think that the lesson for us is that even though Jesus may be absent in the flesh, his very word is enough to heal us. We remember in Genesis that when God began to create the world, all he did was say "Let there be light, and there was light." God had only to speak and his will was done.
So it is also with God's son Jesus, who according to the Gospel of John, was "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth ..." The Word of God revealed in Jesus Christ has great power among us.
The theology which informs the healing ministry of the church holds that God is both transcendent and immanent. What this means is that God is not only in the heavens, but that God in Christ lives in our minds and our bodies as well. To receive and to share the power of healing, we must tap into the omnipresent power of God in Christ through prayer for ourselves and for others.
Modern science has informed us that contrary to what was believed for centuries, the universe and everything in it is not made up of irreducible bits of matter, but of energy and vibrations. The abandonment of the materialistic interpretation of how the world is constructed opens up new ways of understanding how the power of the Holy Spirit is present and working in and through everything in God's creation.
One of the more intriguing theories has been developed by a Princeton University physicist by the name of Edward Witten. He invites us "to jump into a world of infinite dimension."2 Some have labeled his hypothesis as a "theory of everything." The "string theory," as it is commonly called, does away with the familiar image of a universe composed of billiard ball-like particles which are pushed and pulled by forces of gravity and electricity. In the 1920s, quantum physics revealed that the billiard balls had wave-like properties like vibrations. String theory holds that these string-like vibrations make up everything in the universe from lightning bugs to gravity to gold.3
If we conceive of the universe in this manner, then perhaps it is easier for us to grasp, at least on an intellectual level, how it is that God's healing energy is present and working everywhere at once in our world. The challenge for us as people of faith is to learn how it is that we might work in concert with the Holy Spirit so that this healing energy may enter the bodies and minds of those who suffer from mental and physical illnesses.
Agnes Sanford describes how it is that we might transmit the healing power of God to those who are afflicted: "Then if we would help man through intercession, we must hold God by one hand and man by the other hand, never separating ourselves either from the love of God or from the love of man. As we do this by the indwelling of Jesus Christ, God can work through our normal human love in ways that we do not see."4
So it is that the lesson which today's Scripture lesson teaches us is that God is everywhere among us. In the midst of our most difficult moments, we can call upon God in Christ to help us, yes even to heal us.
Christ need only speak to us nearly 2,000 years after he walked the earth, and his life-giving power and love will reach into our bodies and minds and souls as we are cured of all our physical and mental afflictions. What a comfort it is to know that Christ is always with us, wherever we may be, whatever we are doing. We need only call on Christ and he will give his Word so that we may receive healings. This is the great hope and promise of our faith.
The great Japanese Christian, Toyohiko Kagawa, tells how a Christian missionary helped him to understand the love of God. One time when Reverend Kagawa was spending a sick period alone during his days as a student, the missionary man knocked at the door. He requested that the man not enter. He said, "Do not come in! I have a contagious disease."
But the missionary entered anyway and said, "I have something more contagious than disease. I have come with the love of God."5
A number of years ago when I was living in Massachusetts, I had an opportunity to hear an address by that small and saintly woman named Mother Teresa, the Roman Catholic nun who has lived her life in service to the suffering and destitute in the streets of Calcutta, India. One is truly moved by standing in her presence.
Mother Teresa was asked on one occasion what words she lived by, and she responded by quoting another Teresa, Saint Teresa of Avila:
Christ has
No body on earth but yours;
No hands but yours;
No feet but yours;
Yours are the eyes
Through which is to look out
Christ's compassion to the world;
Yours are the feet
With which he is to go about
Doing good;
Yours are the hands
With which he is to bless now.6
My friends in Christ, God in Christ is indeed all about us. He need only speak the word and we may be healed. What we need to understand is that as Christians, as members of the body of Christ, we are the ones who carry the love of God to those who are in need. We are the ones who can serve as a channel of God's love as he heals those we know and love. God is everywhere, because we carry his power and spirit in our hands as the body of Christ in the world.
May our prayer this day be that we have the faith of the Roman centurion. May we carry the Word of Christ to all, so that we can be agents of Christ's healing ministry.
Benediction: Lord we have heard your word and sung praises to your name. As we go from this place, may your love and presence be with us always. The blessing of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen.
1. Thomas A. Dooley, The Night They Burned the Mountain (New York: Farrar, Straus, Cudahay, 1960), p. 135.
2. Edward Witten, in K. C. Cole, "A Theory of Everything," New York Times Magazine, October 18, 1987, p. 21.
3. Cole, "A Theory," Times Magazine, October 18, 1987, p. 22.
4. Agnes Sanford, The Healing Light (St. Paul: Macalester Park Publishing Co., 1955), p. 147.
5. The Preacher's Illustration Service, Bonus Issue, 1988, p. 2.
6. St. Teresa of Avila in A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants, ed. Rueben P. Job and Norman Shawchuck (Nashville: The Upper Room, 1983), pp. 22-23.