Do the Word

One does not have to google very long to find an order of worship for a special church service on healing. Be slow to employ these. Jesus never did a special healing service, and the reason why is very telling.

First, a Scripture, Mark 3:1-6 from the NIV:

Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. ² And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him.³ And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” ⁴ And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. ⁵ And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man,“Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. ⁶ The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

At first it’s hard to imagine why the Pharisees and the Herodians are so eager to destroy Jesus just for healing a man on the Sabbath. And then we come to a realization.

Jesus hadn’t been invited to preach in the synagogue that day.

In essence, Jesus blows up someone else’s service. Busts in and while someone else is preaching their three-points-and-a-poem sermon, sees a sick man and looks around, incredulous that everyone else is simply staring forward listening to today’s encouraging message and not lifting a hand to help. So instead of taking his seat and listening quietly, he heals the man and throws the service into chaos.

Try that in any church this Sunday and see how well it goes for you.

For Jesus, the idea of a special healing service would be passing strange. Not because healing ministry would be passing strange but because engaging in worship while oblivious to the pain or physical need of the person sitting next to you would be to him an outrage.

To Jesus a “special healing service” would be like saying “Today is a special service for the poor!” or “Today we reconcile with each other before we partake of the Lord’s Supper!” There are certain things that ought never to be relegated to the status of special. Healing is one of them. For Christians, healing and comforting is normal. It has always been our hallmark across the millennia to heal those who are sick, to share our bread with the poor, to be at peace with others so far as it depends on us. These are not special worship service themes. They are daily service opportunities.

So next time you walk into a worship service and see a person who is suffering, signal for a time out in the pastor’s message, call over an usher or two and maybe even a few elders, and pray for the one who is sick.

It won’t be popular. The worship planning committee would rather you wait for next month’s special healing service. But in doing it you will mirror the love of Christ, who never walked past an illness without regarding it as an interloper in the human frame.

It is Depends Underwear, not the Lord Jesus, that advertises, “Get back into life with Depends.” By contrast, the Scriptures portray Jesus healing people not in order to get them back into life but rather to catapult them headlong out of normalcy and into a new way of life that is distinctly in Kingdom territory.

There is of course real truth to the idea that Jesus healed many whose illnesses had caused them to become socially outcasted–the woman with the issue of blood, the lepers, those who were demon possessed and always throwing themselves into fires and such. But notice that when Jesus heals them, he seldom says, “Now get back to normal.” Instead, he frequently says things like, “Stop sinning” and “Return home and tell everyone what God has done for you.”

In fact, Jesus was puzzled and put off when nearly all the lepers he healed in one group just  went back into life. He praised the one who returned. And it’s hard to overlook that when Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law, she jumped up and started to serve him.

Jesus’ compassion is never short-sighted. He would not heal someone only to consign them back into the same-old same-old of the sin-drenched world. His healing always opens the door to new self-identities for people, new relationships for them with God and with others.

At the same time, Jesus’ healings are not an effort for him to buy sin-stained stock at fire sale prices. In other words, Scripture never portrays him as responding to the “God-if-you-heal-me-then-I-will-serve-you-more-than-I-would-otherwise” offers we humans often make. Why would he? He is the God of grace, and our works are as filthy rags in his sight. Our works are means of grace he uses to bless us, not himself.

Healing is never a means to an end. It is, however, a gateway to an abundant life and a repudiation of business as usual. Whether the body is healed now or later (or when a new body granted to us in the resurrection), the forgiveness of sins–a topic Jesus nearly always brings up when he heals–is always offered to us, and with our acceptance of it the start of something really big.

I can recall even as a young kid in the Methodist Church being puzzled and mildly amused by the confession liturgy the congregation would drone through every week. In my eight year old sensibilities it loosely came across like this:

Whole Entire Congregation drones: “We have done a lousy job again this week, Lord.”

Lay Leader: “It’s OK. God isn’t upset about it. Try to do better next week.”

The Whole Entire Congregation didn’t really sound terribly troubled about having done a lousy job, and the Lay Leader didn’t sound altogether excited that God was willing to let the week’s bygones be bygones. So the whole ritual puzzled me and seemed rather ineffective and ineffectual.

Sadly, as I grew up and away from my liberal church upbringing and into an evangelical heritage, I saw that many evangelical Protestants having encountered the same thing, dealt with it by discarding not only the droning liturgy but the practice of confession itself.

I think we evangelical Protestants have not even the slightest clue how much that discarding would have shocked the Protestant reformers and broken their hearts. Luther, for example, who held that the whole Christian life was an embodiment of repentance, believed fervently that the Christian should participate in three types of confession:

• Confession to one’s pastor
• Private confession to God
• Confession to the church

He was passionate, of course, to make certain Christians knew that in confessing to their pastor it was not the pastor who forgave sins but God, and that the pastor’s role was one of soul care or midwife.

Already in his time, however, Christians were beginning to toss confession overboard. Fast forward half a millenium later and what remains is confession flotsam–general confession liturgies in mainline Protestant churches, and comprehensive absolution without any confession in evangelical circles.

Enter Randy Asburry’s awesome post, Comfort From Anonymous Confession? Essence: This is not hard to figure, people. Healing and comfort become real when confession (to God and regularly in the presence of others who can hold us accountable) is specific and followed by absolution (pronounced by real live people in person), which is the gospel proclamation of the forgiveness of sins. Asburry is especially troubled by the notion of Internet confession or salacious anonymous tell-alls:

I also puzzle over the misguided notion that merely confessing sins–whether online behind the anonymity of a user name and password, or writing them on a piece of paper and throwing it into the fire, etc., etc.–is enough. That seems too much like feeling sick, having the symptoms of the flu, and merely saying to myself, “I have the flu.” Merely getting to that point still hasn’t given me the true healing and restored health that I need!

Only the Absolution can do that, where sins are concerned. Absolution is the real medicine, the real “stress reliever.” Here’s how the Apology of the Augsburg Confession says it: “We also keep confession, especially because of absolution, which is the Word of God that the power of the keys proclaims to individuals by divine authority” (Apology XII:99, emphasis added).

So to summarize:

• Confession: Specific. Offered to God. In  the presence of accountability partners.
• Absolution: Gospel rooted. Glued to confession. Like day following night.

No droning, no generalities, no anonymity. That medicine has expired and should be tossed from the cabinet.

And the medicine we previously tossed from the cabinet due to personal discomfort is the one we desperately need to bring back.