Is healing about complying or is it about faith? I ask because of something I heard in church today.
In the New
Testament of the bible, the book of Mark relates a curious event. The New
International Version gives it the heading “Jesus heals on the Sabbath.” You’ll
find it in chapter 3. It goes like this:
Another time Jesus went into the
synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. 2 Some
of them [Pharisees] were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched
him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. 3 Jesus
said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.”
4 Then
Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to
save life or to kill?” But they remained silent.
5 He looked around at
them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man,
“Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely
restored.
As the story was shared with me, the teller hit the expected
high points.
- The Pharisees, considered paragons of righteousness by their peers in 1st-century Israel, in this story gave rules precedence over compassion.
- Jesus—the very gentle Jesus we are taught about—got angry.
- Sometimes it is more appropriate to break the rules than to color within the lines.
Where I got curious was in the last sentence, “He stretched
it out, and his hand was completely restored.” What was the order of events
here?
Jump into the story. Think about it. Suppose you’re a man with a shriveled hand
and you went to Sabbath service. This guy shows up at the same service. And off
to one side you see a group of guys you really respect. They’re kind of a big
deal, you know? And they’re looking at you. They don’t usually do that. It kind
of makes you uncomfortable. Folks read more into your shriveled hand than they
ought to. Like it’s a curse or something. So staring and whispering are not
unusual, but they’re not comfortable.
The group is also looking at this other guy. He’s a
traveling teacher who doesn’t always come to this service. He has a reputation
for doing hard-to-believe things. Healings. Not today, of course. It’s Sabbath.
But he could if he wanted to. He knows they’re watching. You get the idea he’s
used to being stared at too.
The teacher is now looking at you as well. Everybody is
looking at you. You wish you could just quietly leave, but they’re all between
you and the exit. The teacher asks you to stand up in front of everybody. Every
body. It was uncomfortable before, but it’s almost unbearable now. He’s looking
into your eyes, but talking to the group that had been watching you. “Which is
lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” he
asked them. Suddenly it was very quiet. Nobody said anything, and that seemed
to tick off the teacher. He looked back at you again and said, “Stretch out
your hand.” So you stretched out your hand and …
[Freeze frame]
Something incredible is happening. It may have been just now
or it may be in the next millisecond. It’s not the proper time, of course, but
it’s happening anyway.
I asked a friend today what she
thought the order of events was. How do you think it happened?
The teacher asked you to stretch out your hand just now and
you did. What were you thinking? Perhaps “This is not going to end well.” Or
maybe, “Oh, boy! This isn’t supposed to happen on a day like today, but I think
I’m about to be healed. Me! I’m in. Let’s do this.”
Did you reach out and see your misshapen hand being replaced
with healthy sinews? Or did you reach out in response to his command, amazed to
see a well-formed hand at the end of your arm even as you stretched toward the
teacher?
What's it matter? I think there is a significance to the order of events. It
won’t change the rotation of the earth or change the seasons, but it could
change your life or mine if we embrace it.
In my opinion, the healing preceded the act of reaching out.
But it didn’t become visible before the outreach happened.
Follow-through. Think of outreach like the follow-through in an athletic
event. If you stop short when hitting or throwing a ball, you’ll probably get a
substandard outcome. You need to commit to the action and follow through to hit
your target.
When that rabbi said, “Stand up in front of everyone.” you
knew what could happen. You embraced the possibility of a miracle. You were
primed for something. You mentally prepared yourself to become the
manifestation of a good work. You weren’t sure what it would look like. Maybe
you would gain a little range of motion. Maybe your hand would just straighten
out a bit. Who knew? What you did know was that you’d heard good things about
this guy, so you were at least in a “Why not?” frame of mind.
So I believe the healing occurred internally, then became
visible when the man responded by reaching out. If you need a basis for this
opinion, think about people in your sphere of influence. Have you ever seen a
need and tried to meet it? You set things in motion to make things work out for
somebody, but they fumbled it because they didn’t believe it could happen for
them. They’d become accustomed to less than optimal results and it had become their
expectation. It’s the outreach principle in reverse.
Belief is a switch in
a really big circuit. None of what I’ve shared considers who this teacher
was. A miracle must have a source, but that’s another story. The point I want
to make is that we have a role in the miracles we experience. Think of it like
electricity.
When you walk into a room and turn on the lights, electrons
from a current source flow in a closed path called an electric circuit. The light switch can control circuit, and has
one of two states: either "closed", meaning the contacts are touching
and electricity can flow between them, or "open", meaning the
contacts are separated and the switch is nonconducting.
If blessings and miracles were an electrical current, is
your switch open, so all the blessings stop short of you? Or is your switch
closed, completing some supernatural circuit and accepting—even expecting—the
flow of good things into your life? Maybe it's time to stand up in front of everybody and reach out.
