Change the World: Heal the Sick (Luke 6.1-12)

Introduction

When we were living in France, I used to lead a home group in the east of Paris at the home of a couple who were quite young in the faith. They hadn’t been Christians very long. They hadn’t grown up with any exposure to Christianity and had so much to unlearn and so much to learn. So for several years a group of about 10 of us used to meet weekly at their place to read the Bible and talk together about what we were reading.

Between 1993 and 1995 their son Quentin had many health problems. He seemed to be in a permanent sickly state; flu, high temperatures, gastroenteritis, infections, earaches; nothing life threatening but it was unrelenting. He had to be hospitalised several times in that period because medicine just didn’t seem to change anything. One night his mother Eloïse, completely at the end of her rope, asked the group to pray for her son’s healing. No doubt about it, he was ill way beyond what was normal for a child of his age. So, that night, as soon as he was settled and sleeping in his cot, our little group crowded into his room and started to pray over him. From that day on, Quentin enjoyed normal health.

At the time I had faith that the little boy could be healed but I did have a few doubts, I’ll be honest. What if our prayers make no discernable difference? What if the boy actually gets worse? There was one person in our group who was particularly sceptical. “Why can’t we just come here to study the Word of God together?” he said. For most it was more fear than doubt. They said that they believed God could heal, but were afraid he wouldn’t. But we did pray, the child’s nonstop sequence of ailments stopped - and I believe God did that.

Now, I share that little story with you not because it was particularly remarkable – I have seen God do much greater things in answer to prayer for healing – but because that was the day I discovered that healing was essential to the mission of the church. Essential. Not peripheral, not incidental, not secondary, not trivial – but absolutely vital and central.

Since the day I was converted at the age of 17, I have believed that God can and does heal today. The more I read the Bible the more convinced I am that this ministry should be a significant feature on the public face of the Church; that all Christians, as a matter of course, should know how to pray for the sick in the power of the Spirit, expecting that God will raise them up.

That does not mean, incidentally, that we should snub the National Health Service and medical science in general. In fact, our reading tonight, describing the instant healing of a man with a crippled hand, was written up by Luke who was a medical doctor. But the Church is designed by God to be a centre of healing for the world. It’s in our DNA.

I have detected a shift recently in the Church’s approach to healing. All my life so far I’ve been used to thinking about healing services in church, prayer ministry at the communion rail, mention of people needing of healing during the intercessions, leaflets like this with lists of names for prayer… but in the last few years God has raised up people who have put the healing ministry back where Jesus exercised it; in the market place, in the public squares and street corners.

Healing on the Sabbath

Let’s take a closer look at the reading in Luke’s gospel. It’s a tale of two Sabbaths. In v1-5 Jesus and his men are walking through a field of wheat and, being a bit hungry, they rub off the chaff from some stalks of wheat and eat the cereal grains. When grain in a wheat field begins to harden, you might never have realised this but it is really good to eat raw. You pluck the heads off the corn, and then rub it in your hand and eat what’s left.

For us it looks a bit dishonest going into someone’s field and eating his produce without asking. But in Bible times it was allowed. It must have been quite common because there is a specific Bible verse that says it’s OK; Deuteronomy 23.25 says, “If you enter your neighbour's field of grain, you may pick kernels with your hands, but you must not put a sickle to his standing grain.” In other words, take what you need for your lunch but don’t take advantage by cutting a whole load down to take away.

Anyway, that’s what the disciples do; they take just enough for themselves. The Pharisees get to hear about it and don’t like it because it’s a day for religious observance and they have repressive ideas about what the Sabbath day is for.

It is significant that the attitude of the Pharisees is recorded here because that judgemental, look-down-your-nose mindset is still commonplace today. Religious people love to pick holes and criticise. “Why are they doing this? This is against the rules. You can’t do that here. Don’t touch, don’t taste.” And Jesus says to them, “Oh Please. Go away and read your Bibles.” (I’m paraphrasing slightly here).

And then Jesus says this; “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” He is saying “I’m in charge of what happens and what doesn’t happen on Saturdays - not you.” His supremacy is over rest and recreation, his authority is over eating and drinking, his power is over life and death, his sovereignty is over health and sickness.

But it’s interesting that Jesus says, “Haven’t you ever read the Scriptures?” Because when you look in the Bible about what God says on the subject of healing you discover that as far back as Exodus 15 he says “I will not bring upon you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians for I am the Lord who heals you. Yahweh Raphé. And the Old Testament’s witness to the healing power of God is loud and clear.

When you get to the New Testament you find that one quarter of the gospels focuses on healing. A quarter! Unless God intended the healing ministry to be central to the mission of the church you’d call that a waste – or maybe just careless. And, of course, once Jesus was ascended, healing and deliverance noticeably accompanied the preaching of the Gospel as the Church expanded – authenticating the message as true.

So in v6 we find Jesus on another Saturday in the meeting place teaching. There’s a man there whose right hand is withered or crippled. The word “withered” is the same word that was used about a plant that has shrivelled up because it was never watered, or about dead wood that had become soft and weak and crumbly. It probably means some kind of muscular atrophy. People must have noticed him; you know what it’s like when someone with a very conspicuous physical deformation walks into a room; people want to stare but deliberately look the other way or pretend they haven’t noticed. It’s what I call the elephant-man in the room.

The Pharisees are only interested in religious games and power play here. Arms folded, eyes narrowed they’re thinking, “Who cares about whether this man can ever work again? Who cares about his health and wellbeing? Who cares about bringing hope to his heart and dignity to his family? Let’s see if we can spot a procedural breach of canon law here! Let’s see if we can pick Jesus up on a technicality!”

Verse 8 says, “Jesus knew what they were thinking.” Everyone can feel waves of hate and loathing and contempt from these men. Jesus asks the man to stand in front of everyone. The man gets up and walks to the front. If you don’t like confrontation you’re already feeling sick. You can hear a pin drop. People are craning their necks to look over the people seated in front of them to make sure they don’t miss anything. Will he or won’t he? Will Jesus dare to provoke the powers that be? Will he defy their organised religion?

“Let me ask you a question,” he says in v9. “What kind of action suits the Sabbath best? Doing good or doing evil? Helping people or leaving them helpless?” And he looks around slowly, looking everyone in the eye, finishing with the man in front of him. No reply. “Stretch out your hand.”

People are thinking, “Oh no! This is going to be embarrassing! Poor man! Everyone’s going to stare at that ugly, weird, freak-show, shrivelled hand.” So the man slowly lifts his arm and, as it appears before everyone, fully extended, it is already completely new and healed.

Sola; why don’t you come up and share what God has recently done in your life… (testimony followed)

Matthew 4.23 says, “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.” There are four strands to Jesus’ ministry as defined by that verse.

First, he went throughout Galilee. So he was mobile; he went from place to place and was not confined to one location. Second, he taught in their synagogues. That means he opened the Bible and explained to churchgoing types what it means. Third, he preached the good news of the kingdom. That is to say his message was enjoyable to hear, people would warm to it because it was good news – hookers, harlots, thieves, taxmen, drug dealers, crooks and rogue traders could get cleaned up and become new people because God loves them. Fourth, he healed every disease and sickness among the people. Notice that detail. It wasn’t just in the synagogue but it was among the people, it was on the streets as well.

Now. Of those four emphases what score (out of 10) would you give the Church in this country for its attempt to be faithful to Jesus’ ministry?

• Go from place to place
• Faithfully teach the Bible
• Give some good news to desperate people
• Heal in the power of the Spirit on the streets

Praise God for what he did in Sola’s life – that is an encouragement. But God does not want us to stop there. Jesus healed on the streets, the apostles healed on the streets in his name and all through church history men and women have healed in the public arena in the name of Jesus.

Irenaeus, who was Bishop of Lyons in the 2nd Century, said this; “Some do certainly and truly drive out evil spirits, so that those who have thus been cleansed frequently both believe [in Christ], and join themselves to the Church. Others have foreknowledge of things to come; they see visions, and utter prophetic expressions. Others still, heal the sick by laying their hands upon them, and they are made whole. Yea, moreover, as I have said, the dead even have been raised up, and remained among us for many years.”

You can read similar testimonies in the following centuries from Justin Martyr, Theophilus of Antioch, Tertullian, Origen, Augustine and many others. But nothing compares with the explosion of signs and wonders that has accompanied the preaching of the gospel in the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements of the 20th and 21st Centuries.

You have been born at a time in human history where the power of the Holy Spirit has been poured out in unprecedented intensity and magnitude.

Change the World

Over the next few weeks we’re going to look at a passage of Scripture and consider the ways in which God is challenging us to change the world. Each week we’ll look at ways in which that is starting to happen in our community and beyond; we’ll gather testimonies from Stockton Town Pastors, A Way Out, Sowing Seeds, Lion’s Raw and, tonight, Healing on the Streets.

The Church that will change the world will be a Church that is very at ease with the healing ministry. Not the Church of the Pharisees that squabbles and fusses over the finer points of ecclesiological trivia.

The Pharisees didn’t see hungry people who needed food. They didn’t see a man with a crippled hand. In each case, they saw a problem that would inconvenience their church routine and having church just the way they liked it.

With Jesus hungry mouths get fed and broken lives get healed.

I’m going to interview Judith in a minute because she has been very involved in Healing on the Streets since it began in Stockton about a year ago. I want you to be encouraged because God has started to make waves. But I also want you to be stirred and motivated in faith so you can see that, under God, you can surf those waves too.

In the times I have got along there I have noted three things.

1. People really stop in the middle of Stockton High Street and ask for prayer
2. God really does heal
3. The team is mostly comprised of people over forty years-old. I want to commend them for their faith and boldness. They fear nothing and no one. Like Moses, these people are legends. But I do ask myself, “Lord, where is the Joshua generation?”

So I want to challenge everyone here, however old you are. Is God calling you to join in with what he is doing in Healing on the Streets? Is there something else more important he is calling you to do between 11:00am and 1:00pm on Saturdays?

Ending

I was sitting down at my desk early this morning typing up a few notes for this talk and I was struggling for a compelling illustration to end. And I looked up for inspiration and I saw a couple of blackbirds busily gathering bits of long grass for a nest they were building – in the eaves of Witham House, just across the road from me, and which is halfway through demolition. By this time next week it will be gone, and the nest with it.

Those birds, at one level, are doing a perfectly valid thing. Indeed it would be remiss of them not to build a nest in spring; that’s what birds do. That’s not the point. The point is that they are wasting their time. Don’t waste your life! God is doing a new thing. Do you perceive it? I think that’s a word for a few people here.

Judith… (testimony followed)


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 11th April 2010

The Day That Changed History (Acts 10.34-43 and Luke 24.1-12)

Introduction

A Bishop with a badly defective memory was having a garden party one day with all his clergy. “My dear fellow,” he said to one vicar, “how lovely to see you here today; and how is your dear wife?” The vicar was a bit surprised by this question. “She’s dead, Bishop. Don’t you remember, you wrote me a very helpful letter at the time?” “I am so sorry,” said the Bishop, “Do please forgive me.” And then he moved on. Later that afternoon, the Bishop came across the same clergyman. “Hello there,” he said. “So good to have you with us; and how is your dear wife?” “Still dead, Bishop, still dead!”

Of course, when we die it’s overwhelmingly likely that we stay that way for the foreseeable future! That’s not a particularly cheerful start to a sermon is it? So let’s spend a moment thinking about some entertaining headstones.

Here’s the epitaph for Ezekiel Aikle in East Dalhouse Cemetery in Nova Scotia: “Here lies Ezekiel Aikle. Age 102. Only the good die young.”

Emily White was an inexperienced driver from Berkshire. Her headstone reads: “Here lies the body of Emily White. She signalled left, and then turned right.”

Jonathan Blake, buried in Uniontown, Pennsylvania is a variation on the same theme. “Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake - stepped on the gas instead of the brake.”

Sir John Strange was a barrister and his body lies in a chapel in London. “Here lies an honest lawyer. And that is Strange.”

John Dryden commissioned the following epitaph for his wife in 1700. “Here lies my wife: here let her lie! Now she’s at rest, and so am I.”

Or what about this one? “Here lies an atheist six feet below - all dressed up and no place to go.”

What would you put on Jesus’ grave do you think?

“Can’t keep a good man down”? “Here today, gone tomorrow”? Or maybe just “Tomb for sale. As new, one careful owner”?

Announcing the Resurrection

I said just now that, when we die, we usually get to stay that way for some time. And that is why what the apostle Peter says in our first reading today is so unusual. It’s about what happens if you don’t stay that way longer than a few days.

To give you the context; Peter (an Orthodox Jew) is invited to the house of a man named Cornelius (who is a gentile from Rome). This is, in itself something of a marvel. In fact, it took 5 miracles to set the meeting up (a heavenly vision, an angelic visitation, a trance, the audible voice of God and an impossible coincidence) but we’ve no time to go into that now.

When Peter gets to Cornelius’ house he basically says five things.

a) It doesn’t matter where you come from or who you are; God loves you and wants to touch your life (v34-35).

b) I have seen personally how good Jesus really is; saying wonderful truths, healing the sick, driving out evil spirits and doing good (v36-39).

c) Tragically, he was put to death as a common criminal (v39b).

d) But he rose from the dead and there were many witnesses of that event (v40). In fact, piecing together all the different appearances in the Bible we know that Jesus was seen after his death and burial, alive-and-well, by over 500 people. That is a substantial number of eye witnesses.

e) Those who have experienced seeing him alive have a responsibility to tell others in turn (v41-43).

We’re going to concentrate just on the end part of this speech today. Starting at v40 where Peter says, “God raised [Jesus] from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen.” Peter is breaking news. I saw it. It really happened. I’m not making this up.

I want to share with you three simple reasons why I think it is.

1) Peter’s Change of Direction

Firstly, consider this. Peter was a fisherman who had a small business on the Sea of Galilee. He lived in a village on the northern shore of that lake called Capernaum and, as far as we can tell, he never left the area. He had no need to. There was no other fishing zone for miles and there was a large population around the Sea of Galilee that support a thriving market for his fish. Furthermore, he was a settled married man and his extended family was in that area too – so everything points to a pretty settled lifestyle. But in our reading today we find Peter in Caesarea (that’s miles away on the Mediterranean coast). Elsewhere in the Acts of the Apostles we find him in Jerusalem, in Antioch and eventually he travelled to Rome - 1,500 miles away.

Why would a settled, comfortable, small-time merchant in a provincial backwater end up travelling to the ends of the then known world? His life completely switched course. How do you account for that? The resurrection of Jesus changed the direction of his life.

2) Peter’s Unimpressed Initial Response

Secondly, think about our Gospel reading. How would you describe Peter’s behaviour there? I think it is remarkable how unimpressed he was by the fact that Jesus’ tomb was empty.

The women went first, they didn’t understand what had happened, so they went back and told the men.

Verse 11 says, “But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.”

Typical men; they didn’t take the women seriously. They probably shook their heads patronisingly and thought, “Typical women, I bet they went to the wrong graveyard and met some weirdo who said to them “Hey listen, get me a beer.” And they probably misheard it as, “He is risen; he is not here.” So they went hysterical and ran back here spouting their nonsense.

So Peter rolls his eyes and goes off to see for himself - I think it’s so he can come back later and condescendingly tell the ladies where they went wrong.

Verse 12; “Peter got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.”

There he is, scratching his head and frowning as he looks around. “I could swear that’s where the body was laid on Friday. Hang about, maybe it was in the next row of tombs? No, no, it was definitely here. Why is stone rolled away then? Maybe the cemetery staff have put the body somewhere else… But why would the burial shroud still be in the tomb then?”

Back to my question; how would you describe Peter’s behaviour there? Frankly, I think he was underwhelmed.

Actually, how many of us are underwhelmed? It’s possible to come to church on Easter day, say “hi” to the people we know, sit through the service, sing the songs, then return to our homes unmoved and unchanged. Could it be that some of us don’t really get it either?

It seems that Peter just didn’t compute that Jesus might no longer be dead. To be honest, if the Gospel said, “Peter ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and instantly believed, telling everyone that Jesus was raised from the dead” it would look a bit fishy wouldn’t it? It would just be a bit too easy. They say that if you want something to be true enough you can delude yourself that it is. But Peter didn’t get it at all until he actually met Jesus alive a day later.

No one expected it at all or understood it at first. The whole narrative rings true.

3) Witnesses

Thirdly, I want to go back to the Acts reading again. Verse 41 says; “Jesus was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen - by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Twice in this speech by Peter he uses the word “witnesses” and twice he uses the word “testify…” which is what Spencer and Joseph have been doing already this morning. They are witnesses who testify to the power of the resurrection that still changes lives in the real world today. Their lives have been touched by grace – and it has left an impression.

Did you know that every touch, every movement you make leaves some kind of identifying mark? Fingerprinting is well known, but forensic investigators can also trace foot­ (or shoe) prints on carpets, tool marks and tyre imprints. They can be incredibly accurate. Even clean, dry­ shoes can be detected because they create electrostatic charges from which you can build up a visual image. Wire cutters, screwdrivers and crowbars that are used to force entry all leave microscopic marks that investigators can trace and identify. Tyre marks work the same way. Forensic teams can identify the brand of tyre, wear and tear on the tread and even alignment problems just by studying tyre tracks. In forensic science there is a rule that, simply stated, says, “Every touch leaves an impression.”

When a life is touched by the risen Christ, it always leaves its mark.

I met a man called Dennis Balcombe the other week. He is a church leader in Hong Kong and he often travels into mainland China to visit outlawed churches where there is a spiritual revival unprecedented in human history. Christians now number around 100 million in China - and they are more numerous than members of the Communist Party. Now, this man Dennis Balcombe had heard rumours of great signs and wonders accompanying the preaching of the Gospel there including resurrections from the dead, so he was eager to make enquiries about it. “Is what I have heard really happening?” he asked. Everyone said, “Yes, it’s true” and one man came forward saying, “I was one of those who was raised.” Others present confirmed his testimony saying they were mourners at his funeral when it happened. He had been certified dead the previous day. Many were converted... Every touch of grace leaves an impression.

That man will die again one day. Those who are miraculously healed will grow old and will one day die. But Jesus was raised and lives for evermore - saving the desperate, transforming lives, healing the sick and mending broken hearts.

That’s why the first Easter Sunday is the day that changed human history. It’s changed Joseph’s and Spencer’s human destiny. It’s changing families, communities, cities and nations. Jesus is alive!

Ending

Let me end with a story I heard recently about a Muslim man who became a Christian and some of his friends asked him why.

He answered: “Well, it is like this: suppose you are going down a road and suddenly the road forks in two directions. You don’t know which way to go. If you meet two men at the fork – one dead and one alive – which one would you ask to show you the way?”


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 4th April 2010