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Lenten lesson: The power of healing
This broken world, disease-ridden bodies and hearts gripped by grief, all cry for healing. A word, according to the Rev. John Strecker-Baseler, pastor at Our Savior's Lutheran Church, that is foreign to our culture.
Strecker-Baseler, addressing a community congregation of 113 at the first of seven Community Lenten services at Memorial United Methodist Church, said that in our culture, we "want a quick fix, if something's broken, we want it fixed and fixed now."
The quick fix can be counter-productive, however, Strecker-Baseler said. "Healing doesn't come easily because healing takes time. And quick fixes can defeat true healing, healing that transforms a victim into a survivor."
Strecker-Baseler revealed that created man was never meant to die. Sickness, brokenness, and our need for healing are all a result of the fall, the separation of God and man from the first man's free will decision to disobey the commandment of God.
"We were created to live forever," said Strecker-Baseler. Death is the direct consequence of sin.
"Illness, disease, injury, the brokenness that is our reality, weren't part of the original plan," he continued. "Jesus came not only to heal this woman spoken of in Luke 13 of her painful affliction, he came to heal the brokenness of man."
But healing isn't found in a magic pill, it isn't found in a quick fix. There is more than sickness, more than pain, more than grief that needs healing. And God isn't just waiting up there in heaven to hear our wish list and grant us favors.
When Jesus healed, he healed more than the affliction, he touched and changed the person in need of healing. This is the kind of healing God provides. And it takes time -- time for us to change our perspective -- time for us to give up our shallow thinking, our shallow faith.
"Too often, when God doesn't answer our prayer," Strecker-Baseler noted, "if he doesn't answer our prayer just the way we think he should, we question his very existance.
"Healing requires that we learn to follow God," he said. There is no real cure out there for so many of diseases: alcoholism, certain cancers, diabetes, gambling addictions... "But there are treatments," he continued.
For healing, true healing, to come, restoring health and wholeness, we sometimes have to stay in the pain in order to come out on the other side with a new perspective.
"The situation hasn't changed," Strecker-Baseler allowed, "but our perspective has."
At creation, humanity was given a great privilege, that of free will. Admittedly, humanity has, Strecker-Baseler explained, made some pretty poor choices. Because of these choices, brokenness exists between people, between nations, and between man and God. In fact, Strecker-Baseler asserted, most of our brokenness has come about because of our choices.
"Jesus came to bring life, abundant life, eternal life," said Strecker-Baseler. "His mission was to bring a healing for mankind that would restore the original plan so that man could love and serve God, and love and serve one another, just as God intended from the beginning."
The woman in the Scripture passage had been bent double for 18 years, her affliction caused by a spirit. Jesus laid his hands on her and said, "Woman, you are freed from your sickness."
"Immediately she was made erect again and began glorifying God."
But the healing took place on the Sabbath, explained Strecker-Baseler, igniting the indignation of the religious leaders of the day.
And so Jesus took this opportunity, not only to heal this woman this "daughter of Abraham" who had suffered under Satan's bondage long enough, but to also offer an insight into the Sabbath, a day purposed by God for man's benefit. Man had broken even that, changing God's purposed day for rest and worship to one of rules that ultimately did more harm than good.
"Healing from loss, from brokenness, can come, when we come to a place of acceptance of the things that cannot be changed," said Strecker-Baseler, coming to his conclusion, paraphrasing the "Serenity Prayer" noting that in Christ there is strength to inject renewed life into the things that can be changed.
The Rev. Dr. Mary Hendricks, pastor at St. Alban's Episcopal Church, served as worship leader. Evie Caldwell was the organist and the women from Our Savior's Lutheran Church provided a meal of sandwiches, salads, chips and desserts in the Fellowship Hall immediately following the service.
Sponsored by the Red Willow County Ministerial Association, the series, following the theme "The Healing Stories of Jesus,"continues at 12:05 p.m.. Friday, Feb. 26, at Memorial United Methodist Church with the Rev. Clark Bates, pastor at McCook Christian Church, speaking on Luke 6:6-11, "Healing the Withered Hand."
A free will offering to support the work of the ministerial association is accepted at the entrance to the sanctuary. A second free will offering, accepted in the Fellowship Hall, helps to defray the cost of the meal provided.
o listen to the community service or for more information on the Red Willow County Ministerial Association go online to www.mccookchurches.org