In A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway writes, “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” We can be broken in many ways, and I think we are healed in many ways, too.
In times of distress, I often turn to the time-tested words of the Psalms. Those ancient prayers sing with wonder of God’s restorative power. It helps me to remember that those songs of praise do not come from carefree lives, but are instead refined in the crucible of hard experience that has learned to expect God’s restoring presence and power.
Our troubles transport us quickly to places of real need. I think “need” is one of the refrains of our time, as our physical, relational, economic, and spiritual needs are laid bare. Now more than ever, we are confronted by our weakness and our inability to restore ourselves.
I want to remind us this month that wholeness and health are drawn out of time and contact with Jesus, when we experience his presence and touch. Of course, when we are sick — whether in body, mind, spirit, or circumstance — living by faith grows very complicated. Our simple, shallow answers grow less relevant. When Reynolds Price wrote his memoir of cancer, surgery, and the life he would ever after experience from a wheelchair, he entitled it A Whole New Life. One reason his story is powerful is that he articulates how life after illness is not like the previous life; it is a new life altogether. A life that is whole and new. He reminds us that for believers, healing — in its highest and best sense — is about abiding with God through a strengthened relationship with the living Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Our hope in times of hurt and distress is not just cure, but care. Not simply wellness, but wholeness. Wholeness is not about being disease- or trouble-free. It is also to be at peace with God and neighbor — what the Bible calls “Shalom,” an all-embracing restoration that says we are at home in God.
This week I re-read the story of Jesus healing the woman who suffered from bleeding for twelve years (Mark 5:24-34). Jesus encounters this woman as he is going to meet another need entirely. She has to press in from the margins of a crowd just to reach the hem of his garments. He could have scolded her for the distraction or the interruption. Instead he stops and speaks to her, recognizing her as a partner in the creation of her whole, new life.
She is not Jesus’ patient. He calls her “daughter” — a gesture that names her place within his family, the family of God. Jesus affirms her determination to be more than a person swamped by pain and helplessness: “Your faith has made you well.” She trusted Jesus, and she also had faith in her own capacity to reach out and receive him. By the way, the Greek word translated “make well” or “cure” also means “saved.” A great deal happened in this encounter. Then Jesus sends her with blessing: “Go in peace.” Go in wholeness. Go live your life in its fullness. Your faith has made you well, made you whole, saved you. Her trust is confirmed in his reaching back toward her.
Can this be our story? From what I can see, there is a great deal of bleeding, hemorrhaging out of our lives and our community. Life is ebbing away from us, day by day. Like that crowd, we can stand by and watch people get pushed to the margins, relegated to hopeless situations — powerless, weak, in pain. Too easily, we say, “She is beyond hope,” or “I just have to adapt and accept my present circumstances.”
But then we hear about Jesus — and about someone who will not give in to the settled arrangement of things. We are reminded that in Jesus Christ, there is power let loose in the world. In whatever pain you suffer, however caught or trapped, will you reach out to that power? Will you let him speak to you? Will you let the whole, new life that God intends for you flow toward you — and through you to the world?
The trust that lets you receive him is the faith that makes you whole.
Grace and Peace,