So,

What is it that you need a healing for today?

Or maybe not you, but someone you love, someone you care about, someone you know who is struggling, suffering, overwhelmed!

I know some of you may think of this as a strange question, but I gotta say it is an essential one.

Because understanding God’s desire to heal us, and raise us up, and use us to bring even greater glory to Jesus Christ is the essence of the gospel. We are not here to sit around and focus on what is wrong with the world, nor what is wrong with us!

We are here to bring good news to the poor, to the brokenhearted, to those who are weighed down, burdened, and heart sick, and that news is, look up your Savior is coming and with him, the healing power of the Holy Spirit’s presence in your life.

Now, most of us I know for sure, have come to worship with something on our hearts and minds. It may be that our checking account is overdrawn. Or it might be that our sciatica is going crazy.

It might even be that we are not seeing the world or our family, or our community, or even our church very well right now! Our vision is clouded, and we know something is wrong, but we don’t know what.

It could be our attitude, or our anger, or our confusion with all that has gone on in the last year. Or it could be that something is wrong with our eyes that needs to be healed.

Our daughter Katie called the other day and said she was a little concerned because she had been seeing a small dark circle in her field of vision, and while it didn’t hurt her in any way, it was making doing any computer work very difficult.
And while she had already gotten an ophthalmologist’s number from her brother Brian, she was calling me because she knew I had experienced a similar problem and wondered what it was.

I told her my story about two retinal tears, and about laser surgery, and the need to call the doctor pronto if that was what was happening. She needed healing.

But before the call could be made, the source of the spinning orb revealed itself as an aura, a precursor to a pounding migraine headache. It resolved itself, though a visit to the doctor still might be a great choice.

The reality is lots of us need healing.

Lots of us need Jesus to come along side us and touch us and raise us up healed because we are pretty sure that nothing else is going help us deal with what we are facing today.

And please understand; healing can come in a whole host of ways.

An ophthalmologist with a laser and great training can be used by God to heal us. I know, because those retinal tears were stopped in their tracks.

But sometimes, the healing comes unexpectedly, and in ways that totally defy our rather weak understanding of how all this works.

The Confirmation Class began last Sunday, and the reading for the class in addition to booklets on being a good member, and baptism, and the Lord’s supper, plus the 25 of the catechism questions, was the healing story from Mark 8:22-30.

Now, I love that story when I’m talking to teenagers, because, well, it’s gross.

Not the healing, I mean, the man sees again at the end.

But the method, yeah its’ crazy.

While another gospel version of the story says Jesus’ spit into some mud then mixed it up and put it on the man’s eyes, this version says, “Jesus took him by the hand and led him out of the village, where he spit into the man’s eyes.”

Yep! I so much want to see the instant replay.

Exactly how Jesus did that and why are on my list of heavenly questions! But here’s the bottom line. A man who needing healing was healed.

And today’s scripture adds another element to the healing stories, when the woman who had been bleeding for more than a decade touches Jesus’ coat and is healed!

Think about it! She was so scared, but in so much need, that an unclean women dared to touch the holy man’s coat and in the process potentially make him unclean too, hoping that somehow God would answer her deepest prayer!

Such faith filled chutzpah!

And the deceased child is brought back to such a full vibrant life that she needs a snack immediately after Jesus reaches out and holds her hand and calls her back to life.

Her parents had been terrified, the neighbors were convinced she was dead, and her father nearly lost all hope even while standing in Jesus’ presence.

But healing is beyond Jesus. Not even yours!

No healing, even that of resurrection, is beyond the Lord of life.

You see, no matter what you are facing, no matter what you are struggling with Jesus wants to see you healed, so that you can go about being one who testifies to the love, and grace, and healing power of the Lord of Lords and King of Kings.

So, what is it you are facing that needs the Lord’s power to overcome? Ask, seek, and knock, and the Kingdom shall be opened for you. Amen.