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The Healing Power of God's Love (John 9:1-38)

When I was a high school student, I attended different churches with all of my friends. One was a member of the Assembly of God church, a Pentecostal church that emphasizes the manifestation of the gifts of the spirit including the gift of healing. They taught that healing came through faith. And that with enough faith all could be healed. Only those who lacked faith or who were not living Godly lives would not know God’s healing power. My boy friend’s family were member of this church and his younger sister lived with Cerebral Palsy, a condition from birth that confined to a wheel chair. Every Sunday evening the community would lay hands on her and pray for her healing. And each time there would be a message in tongues and an interpretation that claimed that Renee would some day stand up and walk.

Nearly forty years later, I am still in touch with that family at Christmas time and there daughter Renee does not physically stand up and walk. In their letters they talk of their other children and grandchildren, but never mention her. I can only assume that they are estranged from her as she lived with the hope in every fiber of her being that she would walk.

Was it her lack of faith? Was it her sin? Was it the sin of her parents? It was none of these. And I often wonder how this impacted her through all of her life. Is her adult life bitter over unfulfilled promises. Is it wrapped in a deep sense of failure of faith? Is she holding her parents responsible for their lack of faith, sins they may have committed or giving her false hope?

The story of Jesus and the blind man that we hear in the Gospel of John today, addresses issue I face all the time in my life and in the lives of those I minister to. Why is she so sick? Why does he have cancer? Why did this child die in that car wreck? Why are these people suffering from hunger, why did the tsunami kill so many people, why is their HIV/AIDS and the ravage of war? Why? Why? Why?

What did they do? What did their parents do? What did their people do? What did I do?

Yet in this scripture we hear loud and clear that the man’s blindness was not caused by his doings or his parents. Jesus tells his followers that this man was born blind that God’s works might be revealed. And then Jesus told his disciples that he was the light in the world and that as long as he was in the world, God’s works were to be done. He spat in the dirt and smeared the mud over the man’s eyes telling him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. When he did this he was able to see.

But in gaining his sight, his challenges have just begun. He is harassed by the Pharisees who want to know who did this. He and his family, if they claim to be followers of Jesus know that they will be cast out of the synagogue. The family will not answer the questions. But the man is bold in the face of his advisories.

They refuse to believe him, calling him a sinner from his birth and they drove him out of the synagogue.

The first is that God does not handicap us as a result of sinfulness. We are not born in a third world, born blind, or develop leukemia because of our sin or the sins of our parents.

But God does allow these things to happen in our world that God's mighty works might be revealed. But the critical word here is might… that God’s works might be revealed. While Jesus is the light in the world, God’s works are to continue through his disciples. Jesus tells his disciples that while I am still in the world, WE must do the work of God. These works are seen in several ways in the reading from John's Gosple.

First, the compassion of Jesus is seen toward this man who is outside of the temple because he is believed to be a sinner. He sits outside and begs for his life while most pass him by. Jesus does not. The love, mercy and compassion of Jesus are the first of God’s works among those who suffer. That they are noticed and attended to. That they are counted among the beloved children of God and not the forgotten or the discarded.

Secondly, what can be done to bring the man his sight is done. Jesus smears the mud on his eyes and send him to wash in the pool and his gains his sight. Sometimes, the physical and mental sickness that we suffer, that others suffer are cured. A blind person sees again, a lame person walks, a person who has had cancer is in remission or is cured. If we have the means among us to get the medical care for those around us who do not have the means for themselves, it is our work to get the help they need.

But there is metaphor here too. This man’s eyes were closed. He could not see the works of God in his life and in his world. He experienced only the indifference and coldness of heart from those around him. He did not know the light of God. But by human touch, by human love, by the compassion of our Lord in his life, his eyes were opened and his faith was made strong.

There are many people I have known in my life as a priest who have known the healing power of God’s love through the loving touch of doctors, nurses, family members, friends, parishioners and strangers. Over and over again, by the love of God, the light of Christ, I have seen people receive sight, stand up and walk, have their ears opened and come back from the dead.

I have often referred to my difficult life with my Dad as I was growing up. He was an alcoholic and rarely home. Yet, in the last years of his life, when the things he had done to his body had begun to take their toll, he came to life. He was much more a Dad to me than he had ever been. He was a wonderful grandfather to his grand daughters. Two days before he died, the whole family was together at Disney World, something my dad wanted with all of his heart. As he and I were sitting in the van waiting for the rest of our extended family, he said to me, “Gail, this thing isn’t so bad.” And I said “What thing, Dad?” “This death and dying thing… it isn’t so bad.”

Dad’s healing, his wholeness was coming in and through his physical death. The Light of Christ had begun to shine in his heart. He had come to embrace the things that were of real value in his life and he no longer had fear. God’s healing power had filled his life and ours in those difficult months.

I believe God’s answer to our prayers for healing is always yes. I believe that God wants us to be whole… but that does not always come with physical healing. God’s light is still in the world in Christ as long as human hearts reach out to touch one another as His disciples. When we see the suffering of another and do not reach out, it is we who fail, we who sin, not the one who is in need.

While working in the Mid Hudson valley with those living with HIV AIDS and again in Tulsa, where the religious community’s stronger voice, like that of the Pharisees was to blame the sick for their plight, I came to see God’s judgment in a different light.

I remember a sermon by a woman whose ministry was almost entirely among those who live with HIV AIDS, who suggested that the ones being tested in the living of their faith, where not those who suffered, but ones who stood by, walked by and looked the other way.

It is often the case, as in the story we hear today, that we fail to see God at work in the world around us. We fail to know our Lord’s presence in places of human suffering and we fail to act where there is need.

Who are we casting out of the temple as a church because we believe them to be sinners, to be less than worthy of God’s healing love? Who do we look past, walk past in our midst who can teach us in their suffering, in their struggle, in their grief about the presence of Christ’s light in our world.

Jesus tells us in John’s Gospel that as long as I am in the world, I am the Light of the World and we must continue the works of the one who sent him while it is still day. Our Lord is in our midst. He is our light. He love is a healing power in every life and his will for every one of us is wholeness.

In this very place there is quite enough love, joy and power to drive away all darkness and despair. In this room there is quiet enough power to bring healing to our lives and to all whose lives touch ours. For Jesus is here with us, in this space, in our hearts and in our world. He is our light and we, everyone of us, are as Paul tells us, 'children of the light'.

May we know and may we be the healing power of God’s Love. May Jesus love shine in and through us.