"If you choose...you can..."

25Feb
A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’ Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, saying to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’ But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.
-Mark 1:40-45


Today’s reading from Mark features Jesus healing the sick and casting out demons. His ministry quickly grows based on his reputation so that, at the end of the chapter, he can no longer go into towns but must remain in the country where crowds can come to him. The leaper who approaches Jesus prays the prayer many of us have offered up when faced with an illness of our own or that of a loved one: “If you choose, you can make me clean.” 


I am no priest or biblical scholar but I imagine that this line must be one of the most challenging to interpret within our Christian understanding of God and Jesus. “If you choose…you can…” If we accept that God and his incarnate son, Jesus, have the power to heal at will, what does it mean when They “will” it not to be so? When prayers for healing go unanswered?


I am grappling with this as I process the news of a young local child for whom healing prayers did not work. Her illness, her treatment, her passing all happened so very quickly - quick steps ahead of our sophisticated healthcare system’s ability to cure. Mark’s lesson here does not provide helpful guidance. I suppose this is where the gospel takes you to the edge and you have to make the difficult decision to walk over it with blind faith. The Lord is here with us but we are not yet in His kingdom. Bad things happen. Sweet innocents are lost. But our faith experience shows us that there is the Holy Spirit. There is Light. There is Love. And this can be just enough to keep walking. 


Mark tells us that Jesus kept walking. Exhausted, he was interrupted every time he stopped to pray or sought a bit of silence and quiet time. His disciples came to find him “People are looking for you!” And so Jesus moved on to heal and teach. Because he did, we have his biography in the Gospels. Because we have his story, we have hope and comfort. Even if it’s just the comfort that you are not alone. We are not alone. I pray for the family and friends of this young girl. I pray that they can be wrapped so tightly in love that they have no room to doubt they are held too by the Holy Spirit. As the Jewish teaching says, “may her memory be a blessing.” 


Musical Reflection - "It's Quiet Uptown" from HAMILTON, Lin-Manuel Miranda


Almighty God, grant to all who mourn a sure confidence in thy fatherly care, that, casting all their grief on thee, they may know the consolation of thy love. Give courage and faith to those who are bereaved that they may have strength to meet the days ahead in the comfort of a reasonable and holy hope, in the joyful expectation of eternal life with those they love. Help us, we pray, in the midst of things we cannot understand, to believe and trust in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, and the resurrection to life everlasting. Amen. (BCP 481)

Healing

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