A friend of mine came home alive. For many long weeks there was real fear he would not come home at all. A week or so prior to Thanksgiving he entered the hospital with an emergency illness. After a few days, however, it became apparent something far more serious was wrong. Doctors were baffled. More specialists were called in who eventually diagnosed his malady -- a serious one indeed. Appropriate drugs and medications were administered, but his condition worsened. New specialists were summoned, new tests were conducted, but soon another very serious problem developed. New drugs and treatments were introduced, and then a third, perhaps even more serious, problem evolved. One day his exhausted and desperate wife said to me, "What have we done wrong to deserve all this? For what sin are we being punished?" Devout Christians, my friend's wife said they had been faithful in church, that they attempted sincerely to live the Christian life, and that they believed in God and Jesus Christ. "Why then," she asked, "is all this happening to us? It seems like a bad dream. I just can't believe it."

Sooner or later most of us are confronted with serious illness or disease or injury. And like my friends, many of us will wonder if we are being punished for some public misdeed or secret sin. Harboring as we do a reservoir of guilt deep within our breasts, some of us may feel the justice of God is being visited upon us.

The Gospels reflect a similar attitude. In the popular mind of Jesus' day it was assumed sickness was due to sin. Of the man born blind it was asked whether his or his parents' sin was the cause of his infirmity. Jesus regularly told those he healed to go their way and sin no more, implying their illness was associated with their sin. In the lesson from Mark, Jesus advises his critics and followers that healing and forgiveness of sins and casting out of demons somehow are connected. But is that true today? Do we understand sin and sickness that way? But equally important, how do we go about achieving wholeness and health and healing? I believe the stories of Jesus' healing provide a model for a community of healing.

I.

For one thing, notice that the friends of the sick cared about them. They not only brought them to the good physician without an appointment; they boldly gathered and waited outside the door. They had carried and assisted their sick friends and family members. Now they prayerfully awaited their cure. Nevertheless, one thing is apparent -- these people cared about their friends. They were doing everything in their power to cure them. Yes, they were bold and impetuous, perhaps even ludicrous. But this is clear -- they loved their friends and they were convinced Jesus could help them.

My sick friend's wife said for a long time in the hospital they didn't seem to be making any progress. But one day, she sat the busy doctors down and said, "Look, we're not getting anywhere. My husband is getting worse and you have no answers. I believe the medical profession can help him. Call in any specialist from anywhere. Or if you think I should take him to the Mayo Clinic or New York or anywhere, I will take him. But he needs help, and I am determined to see that he gets it." Her family and friends also were determined, and, believe me, they got results. They put her husband into the middle of the best specialists available. Eventually healing began to take place.

One of the great fears we all have in a time of illness is that of being abandoned, neglected, and forgotten. While many of us may not feel we are being punished for some sin during our illness, we may, nevertheless, be ashamed of our weakness and our inability to cope. Confident, independent, and self-sufficient, many of us find it difficult to be in a position where we are weak, helpless, and vulnerable. We know our family and friends enjoy us in our strength, but we wonder if they will stand by us in our weakness. They often have enjoyed the pleasure we have brought them, but now we worry if they will love us when we bring them the burden of pain.

Like the sick of Jesus' day, and like my desperately sick friend, we all need a community of friends to surround us, to support us, and to bring us to the good physicians. We need to be assured we will not be rejected or abandoned or forgotten. We need someone to plead our case during our weakness, someone to hold up our cause. We need a group to be an offensive line against ineptness and inefficient medicine and the inertia of indifference. Our friends need us, and we need them. We need a community of healing. And we can be one.

II.

Note further that the friends of the sick people not only cared enough to bring them to the good physician. They cared enough to pray in their behalf. They came to Jesus in faith, asking him to heal their friends.

I am convinced one reason my friend came home from the hospital is because his family and friends prayed for him. Medically speaking, my friend and some of his illnesses are still very much a mystery. Despite all the advanced technology and highly sophisticated techniques, they are not yet altogether sure what was wrong. One day while visiting my friend, he said he felt he could make it if only he could get some kind of inner peace. Deep within his being something was wrong, he said. There was an imbalance, a distress, an anguish which prohibited an inward strength he felt necessary for healing. He read the book of Job, as did his wife, and said at one time he felt God was testing him. At other times in his complete exhaustion he barely could talk and would only whisper a faint thank you when I would tell him our church was praying for him, as was, of course, his own church, and others. On stronger days he would thank us with great sincerity in both eyes and voice.

This went on for several weeks as he hovered between life and death. But then one day I saw it in his eyes. The peace had come, a corner had been turned, and slowly, but gradually, he was on his way to recovery. What made the difference? Good medicine and expert specialists to be sure. But he and his wife also will tell you that the prayers made the difference. In the near total exhaustion and bleakest moments, they claim they were sustained by faith and prayer -- their own, and the faith and prayer of others when they were too weak to pray for themselves.

I have had many people tell me that. One man told me that when his minister took his hand to pray for him in the hospital, he could feel the healing power of love flow from the minister to himself. Soon he was home. Another told me as she lay in the hospital bed she just opened herself to receive the healing power of prayers being said in her behalf. It was as though she were being flooded with the color of deep purple. She experienced great peace and inner strength. Another lady told me she didn't know what Christian friends meant until she entered the hospital and they surrounded her with concern and prayer. These and many others I have known have been healed because friends have brought them to the good physicians and have prayed to the Physician of us all. The Church can and should be that kind of healing community. In a lonely world of hostility and alienation we need that kind of concern.

III.

Note further that in the story of Jesus and the sick, healing and the forgiveness of sins are associated.

It may be that some illnesses are caused by sin. I know that many psychosomatic diseases are caused by fear and guilt and anxiety. A lady in another city had been seriously ill with arthritis for years and was taking at least sixteen special tablets or capsules a day. Though married for 31 years the relationship with her husband had not been good for a long time. However, despite her pleading, the husband refused to go for counseling or to talk with her about the marriage. Consequently, she sued for divorce. Strangely, she now has no sign of the arthritis which pained her for years.

However, let us not misunderstand. We are not saying that all people with arthritis have unhappy marriages. I know people with arthritis who have happy marriages. Nor are we saying that divorce was the best solution in this situation. We only are saying that it was one solution that made a dramatic change in the health of the wife. Further, we are not saying that all disease is psychosomatic. We only are saying that some diseases have psychological origins. Consequently, when the psychological distress is relieved, the physical problems fade away. Or to say it theologically, when the sins are forgiven, the bodily ailment is cured.

Doctors know that a large percentage of their patients have problems of the soul more than problems of the body. Disorders such as ulcers or chronic sleeplessness may have origins in the soul which is "ill at ease." Note that we are not saying all diseases have psychological origins. We only are saying that some, perhaps many, do, and that healing in such instances will have to deal with the psyche and the soul, as well as the body.

Consequently, when Jesus healed people he often directed his efforts toward the mind and soul of the patient. When he saw the sick, he may have seen people constricted with fear. Perhaps he saw people frozen under the spell of guilt or immobilized by anxiety. But because of the faith of the friends, and because of the excitement and expectation of the crowd, and because of the penetrating power of Jesus' presence, the sick were assured of release from the guilt that enslaved them. And they became whole.

For the majority of us, I suppose fear and guilt do not cause bodily paralysis. Our malady more commonly is a paralysis of spirit, a bondage of the will. We may well continue to move our arms and legs; our difficulty is getting something going in our frozen personal relationships. Many of us have no special problem with physical mobility. Our hang-up is impotence in social, economic, and political spheres. A community of healing can help us by stimulating us out of our paralysis of will. If others expect a certain level of performance from us, we often are motivated to live up to their expectations. If surrounding us we have those who care about us, who want to see us develop, who wish to build us up rather than tear us down, we have a good chance of becoming whole. If we are supported by a believing, loving, encouraging group, our chances for healthy survival are greatly enhanced. And a church can be a caring, loving, helping support group, rather than a bickering, manipulative, competitive, volatile, highly politicized, stress-causing group. Despite all our claims of independence and self-sufficiency, we really need one another. In mutual love and concern we can bind up the wounds and release our souls from disease.

My friend is home from the hospital and is on the road to recovery. I do not know why some people are healed and others are not. But I do know this: when people are surrounded by good doctors and a caring, praying community, healing very often occurs. And, even if persons die, they do so knowing that they have not been rejected or abandoned or forgotten, but that they have been loved. And for many, that is enough; for love lasts forever, because God is love.

Prayer:

Eternal God, whose power calls a universe into being, and whose presence sustains life and breath upon the face of the earth, we are drawn to you by awe and imaginings beyond our control. In dreams and visions and many splendored things you speak to us of mysteries and marvels which draw us out of ourselves into larger realms of reality. In the bread broken and the cup of water given, you challenge our selfishness and remind us of love's gentle power, its fragrant renewal.

In the word of forgiveness spoken and the aid of a patient, gentle man, you lure us into lifestyles of giving rather than taking, blessing rather than seeking to be blessed. We thank you, Lord, for this upward call to a nobler humanity.

We come to you, our God, out of the anguish of a broken world -- of broken bodies and hearts and souls. Even now our hospitals minister to those in pain, those whom disease and accident and quirks of nature overcame. We do not understand why so many should be ill, but we do know it is your design that we be whole and well and therefore holy. Grant, we pray, the blessing of healing and wholeness to those close to us.

We pray for all ministers and agents of healing, especially those of this community. We ask your wisdom and grace for our hospitals, that they might be places of joy and wholeness. We pray for all nursing homes and nurses, for all doctors and residents and interns. We ask your guidance for all scientists and researchers, that new discoveries might be made to enhance healing. Bless our medical schools, that they might be devoted unselfishly to training for the task of healing. For our special problems in medicine, we ask your guidance, O God; for the malpractice issue, for high costs, for matters of national health insurance, for genetic research and abortion, for euthanasia and transplant issues, we ask your wisdom, O God.

We pray also for those who need healing of mind and heart and soul. Let your grace work through psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, and ministers. Let us experience again your power of healing and wholeness in the deep reaches of our being, that in this fragmented age our lives may know the beauty of your peace. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.