"Healing Love"

So…

If you could ask Jesus to heal you, what would you want Jesus to heal you from?

I know that in this particular story of Jesus’ healing the man in the synagogue, the man doesn’t ask, but in some other stories they do!

So, if you could be healed, what would the healing be about?

You have a bad back. Your feet are killing you. You’re dealing with cancer.

If Jesus approached you today in this sanctuary and asked what you wanted from him, what would you say?

You may have noticed that I started the sermon with the question, “If you could ask Jesus.”

You know why?

Well, because there are some of us who think we can’t ask, that it would be presumptuous. I mean if Jesus wanted to heal you, wouldn’t Jesus have done so?

We have heard that we are to ask, and seek, and knock…

But sometimes we don’t.

In The Chosen promo video on Facebook there is an encounter between Jesus and his disciple James the Lesser - I think - who walks with one crutch, and who asks Jesus why he hasn’t healed him.

And Jesus first response is, “you haven’t asked to be healed”.

Think about that for a second. 

Is it possible that all this time you have been struggling with a burden that is overwhelming and just dragging you down, you have never specifically asked for help. 

One might wonder why not, as Jesus does with James. 

Why haven’t you asked? 

Now, it’s possible that you are afraid to ask, or perhaps as I noted earlier you may think it is presumptuous to ask for healing when there are so many others who need Jesus’ healing so much more.

Or it’s possible that you have decided that you are unworthy.

Or maybe that if you ask and you are not healed, that will somehow damage your faith and your love for Jesus, your ability to believe, maybe even to pray at all.

In fact, those are reasonable fears, quite understandable, but perhaps not very good reasons not to ask.

I know I have shared before that many years ago I read a book called The Aladin Principle. 
While not a book about faith, it did make an interesting point, one that Jesus shares elsewhere in his teachings, that in order to receive we have to ask!

Imagine the genie in the Aladin story standing before you asking you for your three wishes and you announcing that you have decided to pass, to not take advantage of the offer.

What? Are you nuts? 

Of course, you would ask for health, or riches, or a cute boyfriend or girlfriend. Maybe a new car, a nice house, or to be able to play amazing round of championship golf!

As The Aladin Principle suggests in daily life and even in business we don’t have what we need because we assume we can’t or won’t get it.   

We don’t ask our spouses, parents, bosses, children, coworkers, friends, and other family members for what we want or need from them and so we do not have. 

We don’t ask for help. We don’t ask for understanding. We don’t ask for time off. Or new opportunities. So, we don’t have help or understanding, time off or new opportunities.

We are sometimes so head strong, so self-reliant, so jaded we don’t ask because we don’t want to be turned down again, we don’t want to be embarrassed, and we don’t want to appear weak.

That means we are left without what we need.

As Jesus says, we do not have because we do not ask.

And yet asking is one of the surest ways to be blessed. 

Asking creates a relationship with God and with others that makes clear our openness to the others desire to bless us.

Did you hear that?

Our asking creates a relationship with God and with others that makes clear our openness to the others desire to bless us.

Now the man in the synagogue I am sure had no idea what was about to happen. There is no evidence in the story that he asked Jesus for healing. 

Instead, Jesus saw him and knew he was open to being blessed. 

You know how I know he was open to being blessed? 

He stretched out his hand!

He had faith and Jesus knew it. All the man needed was the invitation to put his faith to work.

And Jesus used the moment to make a point. 

Healing on the Sabbath or anytime is always God’s doing, and so who the Pharisees were judging was not Jesus, and certainly not the man with faith, but rather the God who provided the healing.

Consider that. The Pharisees were judging God. Ow!
So, back to the beginning!

If Jesus stood before you today and asked what you wanted…

What would you say?

Maybe it’s time to start putting your faith to work and stretching out your hand to the God who loves you, designed you, and has work for you to do.

Just a thought.

Amen.