Category Archives: healing

Sensing God :: See

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John 9 is one of my favorite passages in all of the Bible and will be the chapter we look at for the First Sunday in Lent as we talk about Sensing Jesus. In John 9, Jesus heals a blind man. I realize that we can find a lot of these instances in the Gospels, but this one is very different. It includes a conversation challenging a flawed theology of what caused the man’s blindness, an intense conflict between the healed man and the Pharisees, and a realization that the authorities who placed themselves as the judge of others bring judgment on themselves. We also watch the amazing development of the blind man in his knowledge of Jesus move from, “I do not know him” to proclaiming him Lord and worshiping him…quite a transformation.

Today, on Ash Wednesday, I want to focus on the first of many lessons I glean from this passage. In Jesus, God is revealed as the giver of life, not as a rules-maker and rules-enforcer (take a moment to look at his healings on the Sabbath as a primary example). Early in this story, Jesus radically reorients how his disciples (we) see and think about God. The disciples asked Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” This question reflected the theological belief of the day among Jews – that someone did something wrong for him to be born blind. It was cause and effect. That’s how God works because God is a God of rules they believed. Jesus challenged that.

It is very important to recognize that how we see God impacts how we live life, how we see ourselves, and how we see others.

If you see God as the divine rule-maker and rule-enforcer, they you will see yourself and others in those same terms (well, mostly others). If that is who God is then we will find ourselves constantly judging others by how well they are following codes of behavior.

If you see God as a giver of life, you will participate in sharing that life in yourself and with others. You will participate in healing, reconciling, and loving.

How we SEE God directly impacts how we live, move, and have our being. The beginning of John 9 and this question of the disciples before the actual sign (miracle) doesn’t seem to have the impact of the rest of the story, but I think how the chapter starts is critical…because it challenges us and calls us to examine how we understand sin and its effects. Once we wrestle with this opening section, the rest of the chapter will make a lot more sense. John 9 is about how we all begin our journey through life in blindness. Our spiritual life hinges on our willingness to allow Jesus to transform our capacity to see everything.

This is the first step on the first day of Lent…recognizing that we all begin our journey in blindness.

The Way of the Healer – A Curious Healing Story

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One of my favorite stories of Jesus is found in Mark 8:22-26. It is the unusual healing of the blind man from Bethsaida. What makes this real life parable so amazing is the unique movement of Jesus and the blind man and what Jesus says at the end. (When I say real life parable, that doesn’t mean it did not happen…it simply points to this event as a teaching story…as Mark’s way of trying to point out how Jesus wanted all those who are blind to see…the physically blind, like this man…and the spiritually blind, like the disciples and us.)

Mark 8:22-23a, “They came to Bethsaida. Some people brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village…”

Many years ago, Rev. Grace Imathiu who was born and raised in Kenya, shared with me that in Eastern and African cultures a village is more than a geographical location. A village is an identity, a culture, the people, the norms, the beliefs, and the worldviews. The village is made up of houses and boundaries, but it is much more than that. So when Jesus meets the man in Bethsaida, the first thing he does is take him out of the village – remove him from his defined identity. This is a powerful first step in healing. In his village, he was a blind man – beggar, doesn’t contribute to the whole, no family, no children, no productive work, no value. That is who the village says he is. In order to be healed, he has to be removed from those ‘village’ definitions. Jesus takes him by the hand and leads him out.

Mark 8:23b-24, “…and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Can you see anything?” And the man looked up and said, “I can see people, but they look like trees, walking.”

A lot of people, including me, have struggled with this passage. It takes two attempts to heal the man. That really doesn’t happen in healing stories with Jesus. What’s going on? It seems there are two important lessons for us:

  • Healing is a process that takes time. Anyone who needs healing of body, mind, spirit, or relationships knows that healing isn’t immediate. It takes time. Just about every other healing story in the New Testament is immediate. That causes a lot of people to ask, “Why doesn’t Jesus heal me completely and immediately?” This story reminds us of the process of healing.
    • Healing also involves our participation. We have to participate in healing and wholeness. While Jesus’ healing powers are not limited, we can limit the effects of grace and mercy in our lives if we refuse to receive those gifts. In John 5, Jesus asks the paralytic by a pool in Jerusalem, “Do you want to be made well?” Seems like an odd question to a man who had his infirmity for 38 years, but it makes sense. Many of us find it hard to give up the brokenness that defines us. Letting go of our brokenness and pain means finding new ways to live free…that’s not easy for everyone. (And one other thing…when we are unwilling to be healed of anger, hatred, fear, and brokenness, we see others as enemy, monster, object…tree – not as a child of God we are called to pray for and love.)

Mark 8:25-26, “Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again, and he looked intently, and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. Then he sent him away to his home, saying, “Do not even go into the village.”

My favorite part of this passage is also the most difficult. Jesus heals the man and tells him to go home, but not return to the village. He lives in the village! Jesus means, “go home, but now that you are healed and can see, I do not want you to return to the pre-defined role the people in your village had of you. You are not longer that person…you are a new creation and you need a new definition.”

So, I guess the question for us all is, “Do we want to be made whole?” And if we do, are we willing to leave our “villages” and participate in the healing Jesus has for us?