Monday, March 19, 2007
From AscensionNYC
Monday in the Fourth Week of Lent
Psalm 30:1-6,11-13
Isaiah 65:17-25
John 4:43-54
I prayed my heart out last summer when my mom was in the ICU and I took great comfort from this and similar stories from the gospels during those weeks. Just because I couldn't see Jesus didn't mean he wasn't there, healing my mother. He was miles away from the official's son, and yet he healed him, right? In the end, however, my mother died in the hospital, just as we – and she – thought she was nearly cured. It took me more than a few months to feel myself able to pray intercessory prayers again with any conviction.
I was bothered that Jesus seemingly chose to heal that little boy, but not the many other children who die long before their time. Or that he brought Lazarus back to life, but not Marilyn Baker. Is Jesus playing favorites?
"Jesus never promised to erase all poverty, all suffering, all human need. Rather, he announced a kingdom that values the needy above the beautiful and powerful and self-sufficient," Philip Yancey writes in his excellent book Prayer.
After awhile, I remembered there's a difference between praying for a cure and praying for healing, even though I prayed for both last summer. A cure uses the body's own immune system and regenerative abilities to return to a state of acceptable functioning, whatever that might be. But a prayer for healing is a plea to God for wholeness, which may or may not involve a cure, and very likely won't come through what skeptics would consider a "miracle," at any rate.
So here's another spoiler: sometime later in life, the kid, that official's son? He dies anyway. Maybe he's an old man or maybe he's a young man; maybe he got sick, or maybe somebody killed him for some money or for doing something wrong. But however he died, he did so eventually. So did my mom last summer. So will you someday. So will I. And so, thank God, did Jesus – despite even his prayers.
Isaiah 65:17-25
John 4:43-54
I prayed my heart out last summer when my mom was in the ICU and I took great comfort from this and similar stories from the gospels during those weeks. Just because I couldn't see Jesus didn't mean he wasn't there, healing my mother. He was miles away from the official's son, and yet he healed him, right? In the end, however, my mother died in the hospital, just as we – and she – thought she was nearly cured. It took me more than a few months to feel myself able to pray intercessory prayers again with any conviction.
I was bothered that Jesus seemingly chose to heal that little boy, but not the many other children who die long before their time. Or that he brought Lazarus back to life, but not Marilyn Baker. Is Jesus playing favorites?
"Jesus never promised to erase all poverty, all suffering, all human need. Rather, he announced a kingdom that values the needy above the beautiful and powerful and self-sufficient," Philip Yancey writes in his excellent book Prayer.
After awhile, I remembered there's a difference between praying for a cure and praying for healing, even though I prayed for both last summer. A cure uses the body's own immune system and regenerative abilities to return to a state of acceptable functioning, whatever that might be. But a prayer for healing is a plea to God for wholeness, which may or may not involve a cure, and very likely won't come through what skeptics would consider a "miracle," at any rate.
So here's another spoiler: sometime later in life, the kid, that official's son? He dies anyway. Maybe he's an old man or maybe he's a young man; maybe he got sick, or maybe somebody killed him for some money or for doing something wrong. But however he died, he did so eventually. So did my mom last summer. So will you someday. So will I. And so, thank God, did Jesus – despite even his prayers.
Derek Baker
