Healing: Much More than Physical

In looking over the scriptures from the Lectionary for next Sunday, I see several different aspects of how our lives are changed by the touch of God. We tend to struggle with many things in life, including our physical health, but also with emotional, mental and social areas, among others. God's healing, given to us through Jesus Christ, addresses all these. Let's look at an instance.

A famous story in Mark's Gospel is that of a woman who had been bleeding, perhaps because of a mishap in childbirth, for 12 years, found in Mark 525-34. Because of Mosaic cleanliness laws, she was required to live outside of town, away from her family, as an "unclean person" for all that time. No one was allowed to touch her, or they would also become unclean, so she lacked even human touch. She may have been reduced to begging for handouts, and seeing the pity and disgust on the faces of others. Can you imagine what kind of emotional and spiritual turmoil she had gone through as those days dragged on? She had spent all she had on doctors but only got worse. Despair gripped her -- until she heard about Jesus. Taking a chance one day, she thought she wouldn't be noticed in a crowd, and touched the hem of his robe, believing that perhaps this prophet's power would give her healing.

Jesus noticed even if no one else did. Then he did something strange: he called the woman forward in the midst of the crowd. Trembling in fear and her continuing shame, she admitted that she had touched his robe. Jesus said to her “Daughter, you took a risk of faith, and now you’re healed and whole. Live well, live blessed! Be healed of your plague.”

I believe Jesus called her out like that to give her those words of blessing, so she would know she had been seen and blessed. I think he also wanted to have the whole community recognize her healing, so they would accept her into fellowship again. Normally she would have to get the priests to declare her clean, but Jesus pronounced her clean and healed. So besides her body, how else did Jesus offer healing? Emotional: for her feelings of shame and unworthiness. Social: to allow her back into society. Spiritual: to know the grace and power of God. Mental: to be free of the constant torment of what she was not allowed to do in her condition.

So many times we pray for someone to be healed, but usually only about their bodily condition. We can pray about so much more, because there is so much more for us to be healed from in our lives. As we pray for one another, and for others we know around the world, let's be praying for all those ways of healing to come through the Holy Spirit's presence and power, for the good of all. And while we're at it, let's pray for the healing of society itself, not waiting for Jesus' visible return, but crying out for the wounds in our society to have a balm from the Gospel and the Spirit of our loving God.