Hoping for healing
19th October 2023
As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.
“Who touched me?” Jesus asked.
When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.”
But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”
Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”
Luke 8.43-48
Yesterday was St. Luke’s Day. We remember Luke as the person who wrote Luke’s gospel, and also the book that tells the story of the early church – the book of Acts. Luke travelled with St. Paul in those early days, and Paul calls him ‘the good doctor’ so St. Luke’s day has often been a time to think about healing.
Talking about healing isn’t easy. Often we are longing for healing – either for someone else, or for ourselves. Physical healing, emotional healing, healing following painful and damaging events, healing of our story…
We also long for healing in relationships, in communities, and in nations. At the moment we are especially longing for some possibility of healing in the middle of the terrible events in Israel and Gaza and Palestine.
In the gospels there are many stories of people being healed. Some of them have also been longing for this for a long time – Bartimaeus the blind beggar, the man waiting for so many years at the pool by Bethesda, the woman in today’s reading.
And then Jesus comes along, and they are given the healing and the freedom they long for. But often that just isn’t our experience. We pray and pray and people are often not freed from their outward illness or inward distress. And the broken places in the world remain broken.
Even in the bible, healing does not always come. St. Paul has what he calls ‘a thorn in the flesh’ – some sort of very difficult physical condition. He says that he has prayed three times for it to be taken away, but it is not.
So do we just stop asking? I don’t think that we can. If our relationship with God is real then we must keep bringing him our longings for healing – our own or other peoples’.
And we do sometimes see God at work even when healing doesn’t come straight away, or come fully … People experience God’s love holding them, they receive the care and support of others – we see how God is somehow still part of their difficult journey.
Even in the latest events there are signs of hope. One the radio today I heard about the Muslim colleague who went with her Jewish friend to her Shabbat service. In other ways people from different faiths and viewpoints have been standing in solidarity, like our chaplains for Jewish and Muslim students standing together to read from their scriptures in our Gatherings for Peace.
If we look at the story of the woman who touches Jesus’ cloak we can see some pointers to the way that we can be part of God’s healing work.
Firstly, despite all the crowds around him, Jesus notices the woman. Sometimes just being seen can bring some measure of healing. Especially for those who are excluded or discriminated against because of the way they are, like the woman in the story.
Jesus then stops and gives the woman his full attention – despite being on the way to something very important. He listens to her story. Being listened to, fully and deeply, can be a very powerful and healing experience.
Jesus also affirms her small act of trust, in reaching out to him. ‘Daughter, your faith has healed you.’ Sometimes we can notice small signs of someone’s longing for their life to be different, and that may open the way to change.
Noticing someone, giving them our time, listening to their story, and affirming the small steps they are taking towards wholeness – these can be ways that we can be part of the work of God’s healing love, both for those we know, and for those involved in wider world events.
Where do you long to see healing in the world? Hold this before God.
Lord, you know our heartache, and our helplessness. May we see glimmers of hope even in the darkest situations…
Where do you long to see healing in others? Hold this before God.
Lord, you know and love those who are in our hearts and our minds. We pray for their healing – and we offer ourselves to be part of your healing love…
Where do we long to see healing in ourselves? We come before God and like the woman in our story we open ourselves to him.
Lord, you know the places of brokenness in our lives, in our relationships, in our memories, and hearts, and minds and bodies. We pray that we may know, in some way, the gentle touch of your healing love…