The Ministry of Healing and the Gospel of Hope - Chapter One
Chapter One: The Ministry of Healing as a Sacrament of the Gospel of Hope
How are we to proclaim the gospel of
hope, both as leaders and as people of faith? When we turn to Jesus’
proclamation of hope, it is always associated with the ministry of
healing. Jesus reaches out to those who
are broken in body, mind, and spirit and offers them hope through healing. He touches the darkness of their innermost
brokenness with the light of his love.
Whatever it is that has driven them into the darkness, he heals. If their bodies are broken, he mends them. If their spirits are cast low, he raises them
up. If they have become separated from
their family, their religion, their society, he restores relationships. Even Lazarus he raises from the dead. There is no darkness that is too dark for Christ. There is not brokenness that is not beyond his
healing touch. Thus, in Christ, there can
be no despair.
In
recent years we have only just begun to embrace this ministry again. What happened
that the church relegated the ministry of healing to the margins of its life? Why is it something that exists along the
fringes our Christian life when it should be at the heart of everything we
proclaim and do? Faith-healers and
charlatans have done much to damage the church’s reputation as a hospital for
the sick. Yet, it seems to me that the solution is not to stop caring for the sick,
but rather to be more reflective, and more intentional, about what the healing
ministry is all about and what God does through the ministry of healing. When we confine ourselves to rare miraculous
cures, we work with a very narrow vision of healing. Instead, I suggest that the anointing of the
sick is a sacramental proclamation of the gospel of hope. How is this so? Each year on Oct 18th,
we keep the Feast of St. Luke, Evangelist and Physician. It is appropriate that the writer of this most
eloquent Gospel is also the patron saint of healing. St. Luke is the evangelist who records that
into a dark, cold, night angels appeared to shepherds with the words “fear
not!” and brings to them “tidings of great joy which shall be for all
people.” These beloved words of the
Christmas narrative that we read every Christmas are the words of St. Luke, the
traditional author of the Third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. The word of hope that is announced by the
angel in the Gospel According to Luke is good news for the people of every time
and age. It is the good news about God
in Christ who comes with healing in his wings.
St. Luke is also reputed to have been a travel companion of St. Paul,
and a man of some learning, especially in the healing arts. Thus, on St. Luke’s Day, our readings reflect
Luke’s ministry both as evangelist and physician, but these ministries
converge, because the Good News of our salvation is also news of hope for
healing.
We often
narrowly construe healing as being synonymous with “cure.” Even this word “cure” has been robbed of its
meaning. We talk of a pastor having a “cure
of souls”, that is, the care of his or her flock. However, it has come to mean simply to fix
something that is broken. However, in God’s deep caring for creation, and for
his creatures, God enters into history to bring healing to a broken world and a
broken people. God’s “cure” is not simply to fix the world, but rather to
restore it, to reform it, to heal it. In the Christian tradition, healing is
deeply yoked to our concept of salvation.
In fact, in Greek, the terms to be “made well” and to be “saved” are
both derived from the same word. We shall later investigate this connection
with respect to Acts 4.
The world
is still a world in need of healing, but is there no health to be found in a
suffering world? What does it really mean to be well, indeed, to be saved, in
the midst of the suffering we experience in this life? In the introduction to a
previous book, Prayers for Healing from
the Anglican Tradition (Toronto: Anglican Book Centre, 2010), I suggested
that if we look only for cure (in its most undeveloped sense) in the healing
ministry, we shall frequently be disappointed.
Instead, we need to widen our peripheral vision for the signs of God’s
grace. Healing is not just about fixing
our bodies (although we surely hope and pray for that) but about our wholeness as
human beings, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. When one of
these aspects is not functioning properly, we are “unwell” or “ill.” However, in our prayer, we pray for wholeness
for our entire being. Even when we find
that physical “fix” or “cure”, our bodies are still prone to wearing out, our
minds still apt to fail us, circumstances may leave us emotionally broken, and we
may even experience a existential crisis or crisis of faith. However, as I have reflected on healing and
wholeness, and especially our tradition of anointing for healing and wholeness,
I have come to realize that it is not so much about keeping us from ever being
sick or even curing illness; rather, healing is about who we really are. It is
about identity. Can we be well even in the midst of illness and brokenness?
The
anointing we do for healing and wholeness seems to me to be deeply related to
the anointing, the chrism, of our baptism.
At our Baptism, water is poured on us and the priest makes the sign of
the cross with holy oil marking us as “Christ’s own forever.” Similarly, when we come for the unction of
healing, bringing our human brokenness, whether that be a broken body,
post-baptismal sin, shattered relationships, or mental duress, we are in a
profound and evangelical way, re-enacting, recapitulating, and participating once
again in our baptismal anointing. To be
anointed is to make a proclamation for the gospel of hope. In baptism we receive a new identity – we become
Christians, that is, literally, anointed ones.
We belong to Jesus Christ. Thus,
when we are anointed for healing and wholeness, even in our illness or hurt we
make a claim that we belong to Christ Jesus and to no other. Cancer is not my
identity. Mental illness is not my identity. The mistakes I have made are not
my identity. We remember, we re-enact, and we proclaim that claim the faith of
our baptism that we belong to Christ, that God in Christ has defeated the
powers of death. There is no power that
can claim us, because we belong to Jesus.
Thus, whether I am sick, or I am well, I am the Lord’s. Whether I live or whether I die, I am the
Lord’s. Even in our brokenness we make
that wonderful proclamation found the eighth chapter of St. Paul to the Romans our
own, and we are sure “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height
nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from
the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” This is the gospel of hope and it is good news,
indeed.
There are
many times when someone who has a terrible illness, or is broken in heart or
spirit, experiences a cure that is clearly miraculous. Yet, there are many more
times though when such a cure is not to be found. These miraculous moments happen, but they
tend not to be the norm. Perhaps they are offered from time-to-time as a sign,
almost a tangible sacrament of God’s hope that points to the ultimate reality
that there is healing for each of us at the consummation of history, at the
final resurrection to eternal life. I cannot let those moments in which a cure
(simply defined) is not to be had discourage me into thinking that God has not
shown favour to the one who is sick.
Healing is about more than cure; it is about knowing to whom we
belong. It is about confidence in our
identity as “Christ’s own forever,” as “anointed ones.” Thus, no matter my lot, with Jesus as my
saviour and friend, I am already healed, and I experience a wholeness that
shall never be destroyed by a failing body. There is much more to say about what
real health and wholeness look like. In subsequent chapters, I shall give
examples from both my personal experience and my experiences in ministry.
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