“Soulistic Health”
Mark 5:24—34
October 10, 1999
Rev. David Beckett

Praise the Lord!  The medical profession is finally realizing what people of faith have known for centuries.  That is, there is a connection between healing and faith in God.  By now we’ve all read about the hospital studies.  One group of patients were prayed for by a group of religious persons.  Another group did not receive any prayer.  The results?  The patients who were lifted up in prayer healed better and faster than those who did not receive prayer. 

I have to tell you that I do not understand intercessory prayer.  I don’t understand how it is that God intervenes in our lives.  I don’t understand why there are people with cancer right now in our community all praying for healing, and why some will die and others will live.  I don’t understand it.  But I have discovered something very liberating when it comes to prayer.  I DON’T HAVE TO UNDERSTAND IT!  I just need to pray, pray, and pray some more.  It helps to know that science has “proved” that prayer works when it comes to healing.  But I don’t need this evidence to motivate me to pray.  I pray for the healing of others because it aligns me with the desires of God. 

Let’s take a look at our scripture story for today.  This woman had suffered a disorder that has lasted 12 years.  12 years!  Some of you will have special empathy for this woman because you have suffered pain for a long period of time in your life.  But it wasn’t just the physical discomfort she suffered.  It was also the social and religious stigma she had to endure.  Under Jewish purity laws, some of which are found in the back of Leviticus in the Old Testament, ANY woman who went through a normal, monthly hemorrhage was considered unclean.  No other person was allowed to touch her during her seven-day period of uncleanness.  No one, including her family, was permitted to touch any object that she had touched.  If they did they had to wash their entire body as well as their clothes.  Any of you who have had to deal with head lice know the detailed cleaning to protect yourselves from infestation. 

Every Jewish woman then was considered unclean seven days out of every month.  On the 8th day of her uncleanness she had to take two turtledoves or two young pigeons to the priest as an offering for her atonement before the Lord.  Think about it.  This woman, simply because of her physical disorder, was considered unclean for 12 years!  She was rejected, isolated, humiliated, and the object of constant gossip.  This was a woman in pain.  Mark writes that “she had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had.”  Despite this effort and this money her health had not improved one bit.  In fact she had become worse.  Have you ever endured a chronic medical illness that doctors and medicines and time could not heal? 

But then she heard about Jesus.  She probably thought there would be no chance of a special audience with Jesus, a time just for her.  Perhaps over the past 12 years she had come to believe what others had told her....that she was unclean...that she was unworthy.  In our minds we could understand how it could be desperation that drove her through the crowd to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment.  Jesus didn’t think so. 

With the crowds pressing all about him Jesus was aware that this woman had touched his garment.  “Who touched my clothes?”  I can’t help but chuckle when I imagine this scene and the disciples responding, “Jesus, look at all these people pressing in on you!  How can you say, ‘Who touched me?’” Apparently Jesus is able to tell when a touch is more than just a touch.  He knew that this woman’s touch had something very special.  Her touch was a touch, not just of flesh, but of faith.  And this proved to be the crucial element in her healing. 

With fear and trembling she fell down before him.  She knew what had happened.  She knew that Jesus had healed her.  And she told him the whole story.  Can you imagine what she was feeling?  Can you picture in your minds the reaction of the crowd, perhaps with some of the same people who had shunned her for so long?  Can you see the face of a compassionate Jesus as he listened to her story?  And then Jesus said to her these powerful words, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

This woman was truly liberated, not just from her disease, but from all the hurt that filled her soul.  Jesus was not simply concerned about healing the body.  He was and is more interested in healing peoples’ souls.  Jesus’ profession is “soulistic health.”    How do we know this?  One piece of evidence is found in the original language of this gospel.  The Greek word for “made you well” is “sozo.”  But guess what?  Sometimes the gospels have Jesus saying to someone after a healing, “Your faith has SAVED you.”  The Greek word in this case is...guess what... “sozo.”  Being saved is the same as being made well.  Salvation is the same as wholeness.  This was such a revelation to me when I stumbled upon this word study years ago.  I had been led to believe that salvation was a ticket to heaven.  I heard it all the time growing up, “Have you been saved?”  “How many people were saved at the revival last night?” 

But now I learn that Jesus is not just interested in separating our souls from our bodies or our minds.  He wants to save our whole being.  He wants to heal our entire person.  He wants to free us from our addictions.  He wants to free us from anything that would block the flow of love and health in our lives.  I don’t know about you but this is just about the greatest good news I can imagine.  Think about the feelings this woman experienced after being healed.  In touching Jesus’ clothes she knew she had been healed.  But sometimes healing isn’t always easy to recognize.

A story is told of a service provided to users of a drug for Alzheimer’s disease.   It is a round‑the‑clock advisory line Alzheimer's caregivers can call, free of charge, to speak to a nurse for advice, for information, sometimes even just a sympathetic voice.  There was one particular call, from a woman whose mother's Alzheimer's was slowly sapping her ability to recognize members of the family.  Now, the daughter sometimes joked about one positive "side‑effect" of this terrible disease: As her mother's memory faded, she forgot how much she loved to hate her son‑in‑law.  Then one day, the phone rang at Family Care. The daughter said to the nurse:  "Remember how I told you Mom was having a hard time recognizing us? Well, listen to this."  And she held the phone away from her ear, and the nurse could hear a woman's voice, then a man's in the midst of a heated, high‑volume argument.  At that point, the daughter spoke into the phone.  "You know how Mom never liked my husband?  Well, this morning, at the breakfast table, for the first time in a long time, Mom recognized him and she started right in giving him a bad time."

This daughter was soul‑sick at the very moment her household had become artificially "peaceful."  Her soul became whole when an important relationship once again became authentic and honest.  In her case, the voice of a mother ranting and raving at her son‑in‑law was healing music to her soul.

Sometimes healing comes to us in unexpected ways.  But when it does come and we do recognize it we need to pass it on.  Once we have been touched by Jesus’ healing power, don’t we have a responsibility to share this love with others?

Henri Nouwen, one of my favorite writers, has a book entitled, “The Wounded Healer.”  His premise is that all of us are wounded in emotional as well as physical ways.   When we open ourselves to the healing power of Jesus we discover that healing may be instant or it may be over a period of time.  Healing of damaged emotions are rarely healed in an instant.  As our wounds begin to heal we can be “wounded healers” for others, bringing them into Jesus’ healing presence. 

A pastor tells the true story of a vacation in northern Minnesota.  Each Saturday night, in a small town near the lake there was a community dance.  It was in a hall over the hardware store and featured lots of polkas and waltzes and easy dancing music.  Among the well behaved crowd of local people and tourists was a young man who had significantly too much to drink.  He was obnoxious.  He was uncoordinated.  And he was

dancing with every one of the young ladies and their mothers among the local folks.  This pastor would have expected every one of those women to have turned him down flat ... told him to get sober and get a life ... but that was not the case.

There had to be a story here, so he asked one of the women whose daughter had cheerfully taken her turn dancing with the young man what was going on.  "Oh," she said, "Tom's brother wandered off into the woods last winter and a terrible storm with deep cold hit us.  His brother became lost.  In spite of Tom's best efforts to find his brother, he could not, and his brother died of exposure to the cold.  Since that time, Tom has never forgiven himself.  It wasn't his fault, but Tom can't quite see that yet.  In the meantime, Tom drinks too much at times.  I guess to drown the pain in his heart.  Our community has decided to keep him here at the dances so he doesn't wander off.  Each one of the girls and mothers takes turns dancing with him so he knows we love him and understand his pain.  One of these days we hope he will be right again.  He is really a nice boy."

The reason Jesus wants to heal us all is because his compassion and love can see through all of our pain.  He can see through our outward behaviors that would mask our inner hurt.  He knows how long we have carried a burden.  And what he sees underneath is a really nice boy or girl.  More than this, he sees a beautiful child of God.  We may not like the person we are underneath.  Other people may have teased us unmercifully over the years.  Others may have shunned us.  But Jesus wants to take that wounded little child within each of us, and hold us and love us with the love of God.

A long time ago one woman who had suffered for 12 years and was shunned by society somehow understood this about Jesus.  She didn’t wait for Jesus to come to her.  She was assertive, pushing her way through the crowds to go to Jesus.  It was her faith that pushed her and her desire to be made well.  Do you have such a faith?  How strong is your desire to be made well?  Can you reach out to touch our Lord?  Can you hear him saying to you, “Daughter, Son, your faith has saved you.  Your faith has made you well.  Go in peace; and be healed of your disease.”