Heavenly Health Insurance
We see Jesus' healing activity in Mark 7:31-35 and realize that nobody is without Heavenly Health Insurance. It offers coverage to all. Because Jesus' hurtful compassion reversed the cursed effects of sin and redeemed us forever, his care for us is always and only perfect. September 20, 2009.
The task of overhauling our nation’s $2.5 trillion health care industry has proven to be quite a conundrum for congress. How many Americans should be insured? With what kind of coverage? And who pays for it? Answers to those questions have stirred emotions that have boiled over into irate town hall meetings and misbehaving members of congress interrupting the president. It seems that health care reform could use some divine help. We see such help in Mark 7 today – not in the form of a bill that both Republicans and Democrats support, but in the form of Heavenly Health Insurance found in the painful compassion and perfect care of Jesus. The behavior of Jesus healing the deaf man with a speech impediment seems a bit strange. So let’s focus primarily on the healing activity of Jesus in this particular case – his style, so to speak – why Jesus did it that way, what happened, and how it makes a difference for us.
Jesus hurts with painful compassion
Have you ever played that joke where you get a few friends together on a busy sidewalk, and all of you look intently up into the sky. Others pass by and they look up into the sky also, to find what you’re looking at, and but you tell them you’re not looking at anything. You just wanted to see how many others you could get to look up in the sky. The Bible says that when healing this man, Jesus “looked up to heaven,” except Jesus had a real purpose for it. Jesus looked up to heaven when performing other miracles. “Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves,” before he fed the 5,000 (Mark 6:41). When he raised Lazarus from the dead, Jesus “looked up and said, ‘Father, I thank you that you have heard me’” (John 11:41). In the case of this deaf man, however, it doesn’t appear that Jesus is looking up to heaven for thanks, because when he looks up to heaven he does so “with a deep sigh.”
This deep sigh is not a quick huff, like expelling a bunch of air from the lungs. It is more like a groan. A deep, gut-wrenching groan like you’d hear from a football player writing on the field who just tore an ACL. A pain-filled groan. Yes, Jesus is hurting. Like the Bible says we hurt at when “we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for … the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). Or, “We groan and are burdened … so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” (2 Corinthians 5:4). There’s this pain we have. It doesn’t bleed, it doesn’t nauseate us, it doesn’t make our nerves scream, but it hurts. It’s the pain of sin. The hurt of our mortality. The burden of knowing we allow ourselves to be less than God expects, and the consequences that come along with it – broken relationships, disease, guilt, stress, and death to name a few. Those hurt us, and right here they were hurting Jesus who approached this man to reverse sin’s dreadful consequences. It’s a compassion that calls for sacrifice – bloody, painful, deadly sacrifice like the commitment of a nation that goes to war and sends its sons and daughters to die for freedom. The pain-filled groans of thousands of children who lost a mommy in the war or thousands of parents who lost a son in the war doesn’t compare to the painful compassion Jesus bears in this moment, and in every healing miracle he performed. “He drove out the spirits … and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: ‘He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases’” (Matthew 8:16,17).
The Jesus painfully sighing for this deaf man to hear is the Jesus painfully crying from the cross, “My God! My God!” He leaves nothing of sin alone. He bears it all – the mistakes, the bad decisions, the burdened consciences, as well as the sickness, the stress, the death, and the bitter loneliness and separation from God. At his own hurtful expense. The Jesus speaking into the ears of a deaf man who will not be deaf anymore, “Ephphatha! (Be opened)” is the Jesus risen from the opened tomb for believers who will die but not remain dead, who will fall into sin but rise up again, and again, and again. With every healing, and with his very death and resurrection, Jesus reverses the effects of sin with his painful compassion. Jesus healed this man not as a wonder-worker but as the world’s Savior who takes issue with all of sin and its consequences, starting with defect and disease, ending with death, and including every hurt in between. Your hurt changes to hope because Jesus redeems you from sin’s effects forever. That’s Heavenly Health Insurance.
Jesus heals with perfect care
When people think of miraculous healings of the Bible who comes to mind? Blind Bartimaeus, perhaps, or the healings performed by Elisha. The ten lepers cleansed miraculously by Jesus, or the demon possessed freed of their tormentors. But don’t forget Job, Jacob, and Paul too. Job was inflicted with boils, and they healed him of any self-righteousness. Jacob limped away from wrestling against God, and it healed him of self-reliance. Paul lived with a thorn in his flesh, and it kept him from being conceited. The litmus test for the healing power and perfect care of God isn’t whether or not we can put away the band aids, crutches, eyeglasses, medications, or syringes. It isn’t whether or not the pain decreases from an 8 to a 3 or the blood counts are stabilized or the swine flu is contained. Heavenly Health Insurance promises the perfect care of Jesus. Always. So that means when defect, disability, or discomfort remains Jesus uses it as his servant. When Jesus heard that his good friend Lazarus became critically ill he didn’t go to him promptly and Lazarus died. People perceived it as coldhearted indifference but Jesus explained otherwise, “This sickness … is for God’s glory … so that you may believe” (John 11:4,15). Don’t blame God by making him the bad guy when you or a loved one isn’t healed as promptly as you’d like. Don’t give up on faith in God’s perfect care when you or a loved one are still taking tests or hospitalized despite your prayers asking otherwise. We have no right to demand from God that he heal us at our time in our way according to our plan. “This sickness is for God’s glory,” Jesus said. We aren’t God. We don’t have the right to glory that belongs to him, and if he’s going to be glorified by my allergies or your cancer or your bum back then who are you to rob him of that right?! “This autism … diabetes … hearing loss … ADHD … Downs Syndrome … anxiety disorder is for God’s glory.” So don’t tell God what to do. You can ask him what you’d like him to do. You can humbly request that he grants you health. You can share your fears and frustrations with him in prayer. But be sure to believe that no matter what he answers, he loves you. He cares for you and those you love perfectly. God speaks to us through the prophet Isaiah, “Say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong. Do not fear; your God will come … he will come to save you’” (Isaiah 35:4). God’s healing will come. Maybe in your body. Definitely in your soul. Maybe in your character, your attitude, or you skill. Or he may also be reaching out to others through your pain, that they might believe.
“Pastor, why doesn’t God just take me to heaven?” the weak, wrinkled woman asked me through belabored breathing even though the tubes had been pumping oxygen into her nose for weeks. “I don’t know why, Esther” I allowed, “but can you believe that this isn’t just about you?” In response to her curious look I took her hand and continued, “It’s about the doctors and nurses who monitor your heart rate, but also observe you pray. It’s about your roommate who hears you rejoice in God’s blessings even though you are bedridden. It’s about your grandchildren who give you hugs and you whisper in their ears, “It’ll be okay, I’ll see you in heaven.” Through her, Jesus was healing others. Let him do the same through you.
Don’t be afraid. Jesus won’t forget about you in the process. You’re not just some conduit he uses to get others’ attention. He cares about you personally. The friends of the deaf man with a speech impediment knew enough about Jesus that they brought their friend to him and “they begged him to place his hand on the man.” Jesus didn’t heal the man they way they wanted. Instead, “he took him aside, away from the crowd.” Jesus wanted a one-on-one with this hurting soul. A private moment with just the two of them. And touching the areas of defect, even using his own spit, Jesus healed them his way. A meaningful way that spoke to a man who couldn’t hear and couldn’t speak. When your life is crowded and Jesus wants to take you aside, go with him. Leave the hustle and bustle, leave the crowd, because he wants to touch you with personal blessings meant just for you. And they will make you new.
Jesus has his way of healing that we won’t always understand, but when we believe in his compassion and care we find blessing after blessing. The touching story of DJ Harper is a case in point. 5-year-old DJ was rescued from a burning van this summer by off-duty firefighters, and brothers, John and Joel Rechlitz, who reached into the flames and were themselves burned. DJ wasn’t immediately, miraculously healed and so he remained hospitalized, receiving multiple skin graft surgeries and fighting infections. So John and Joel kept visiting him in the hospital. As life-changing as you’d imagine this trauma to be for a 5-year-old, he’s not the only one impacted. “This has probably been the most intense event that we have been a part of,” John Rechlitz told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “To have this little boy grabbing for your to pull him out of the fire … To be that close … To physically watch somebody burning in front of you … It changes your life” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Tuesday, September 15, 2009, p. 5B). Through DJ Jesus is working in the lives of the Rechlitz brothers.. Believe in that care. Be part of it whether you’re lying in a hospital bed or sending a card to a sick friend.
Some who claim authority in the health care debate say that as many as 46 million Americans don’t have health care, while others say that number is only 30 million. Some say the $1 trillion price tag on health care reform is too expensive and others say it need not increase our budget deficit. Partisan rhetoric continues. But here is a fact. Nobody is without Heavenly Health Insurance. You are not too sick or sinful for it, you are not too old or young for it, it doesn’t exclude you for a pre-existing condition, it is not cancelled for slackers or doubters, it offers coverage to the wealthy and the poor and everyone in between. Because Jesus’ hurtful compassion reversed the cursed effects of sin and redeemed us forever, his care for us is always and only perfect. That’s the kind of coverage we can all live with. Amen.
Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (www.gracedowntown.org) on September 20, 2009
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